Sure, it is conformity on an equal basis rather than an unequal one. That's one step better than inequality. But it is conformity none the less. We comply with their system.
The end result is equality on heterosexual terms; equal rights within a framework dominated and determined by straights. Assimilation is just a new and more subtle method whereby heterosexuals continue to call the shots. It obliterates any distinctive queer identity and culture; creating homosexual versions of heterosexual lifestyle and morality.
Integration means us giving up the unique and enriching aspects of our own lesbian and gay community. It requires our surrender to heterosexual norms. We have to become hetero homos and uncritically adopt the dominant straight values. Absorbed and invisibilised, we become mere heterosexual facsimiles.
What assimilationism ultimately implies is that the lesbian and gay experience embodies nothing worthwhile, innovative or liberating. It suggests that queers have nothing positive to contribute to society; nothing that straights can learn or benefit from. Bullshit!
Queer politics asserts that our emancipation is not contingent on us adapting to the heterosexual status quo, but on us radically changing it. Social homophobia is the problem, not queer dissent from it.
This radical vision also sees lesbian and gay people as being valuable in their own right. Our worth should be measured on our own terms, as opposed to the criterion laid down by straights. We have lots of insights that can contribute to the enrichment of heterosexuals and the betterment of society.
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