FAQs

Who is behind all this crap?  I bet you’re all from just a bunch of white guys from San Francisco and that you all have trust funds!
We don’t laundry list our core collective members because we want our work to speak for itself. We want the work we do to be the focal point of further critique, not our various identities.  We could blab on about our POC credibility, our small town beginnings, our varied class backgrounds, and even our ethnic and religious differences, but we’re not really interested in this kind of liberal, “one-big-tent,” Reagan-style multiculturalism, as it is not the backbone of our project. We’re not in it for the pats on the back. Although helpful for informing our critique from different perspectives and experiences, we would prefer you take your reductive identity politics somewhere else, like back to the ’90s.  Unless that is, you have a fancy San Francisco condo and bloated trust fund you would like to share with us…

Why would you ever call yourselves Against Equality?  It’s juvenile and stupid and you’re setting back the gay rights movement.
Equality, as defined by contemporary mainstream LGBT political organizations, is a meaningless term.  If further entrenching special rights for certain couples when those rights should be extended to everyone, bolstering the U.S. war machine by providing more bodies for cannon fodder, and advocating for never-ending prison expansion as a legitimate way to address anti-queer/trans violence are part of your vision of an equitable future: we say “hell no!”  By calling ourselves Against Equality, as out and loud queers, we hope to create a bit of productive confusion where one might ask, “Against Equality–but I thought they were homos…” which then begs the question: “well, what is equality?”

Go back to Russia/the Middle East/Third World.
Oh shoot girl, you gonna send us on holiday!?  Holler!

I want to write something for your website, will you please publish it?
We are excited you are interested enough in our project to want to contribute something to us; however, we are not a publisher of original works.  We are an online archive. Our publishing projects are typically re-prints of previously published work that exists primarily as online content only.  We encourage you to write and create visual work about the politics of inclusion and publish it with a primary publisher.  Once published elsewhere on the net, send us a link and we will place your work in our online archive.

Why do you charge for your books / postcards / stickers?
Because things cost money, honey!  Against Equality is an anti-capitalist project. We keep costs as low as possible and price our wares on a “break even” scale.  All core collective members work on a volunteer basis and none of us has ever been paid for our labor.  The day we actually make money, we’ll let you know…

Will someone from Against Equality please come speak at my college/community group/church/etc?
We’d love to, and we’re flexible about traveling and the format you’d like us to work in (workshops, panel discussions, lectures, etc.)  We’re also able and willing to do video skype for presentations.  Send us an email detailing what you would like us to do, duration of time you would like us there, and what kind of audiences you might be expecting.  Please keep in mind that we are an entirely volunteer-run collective, and barely break even on our publishing efforts.  For that reason, we do charge fees and traveling expenses for events, and we are willing to negotiate based on the size and capacity of your organization/institution.

Why isn’t Against Equality at the Occupy Wall Street /[insert name of any other protest here] protest?
We’d love to show up in our invisible plane and lasso all the baddies like Wonder Woman every time there’s a mass protest, but we’re a tiny, volunteer-run collective spread across the continent and we really don’t have the resources to show up with large banners and posters.  We do, however, encourage everyone who’s interested to show up with agendas and action plans for protests that reflect the politics of Against Equality.  Our Facebook page is also an excellent discussion forum, with dynamic contributions and conversations between people from all over the world and we encourage you to join us there. Although we strongly believe that street action and grassroots activism are vital and necessary, intellectual conversations are just as essential.

I’m working on this paper for my women and gender studies class and I was wondering…
While we relish the chance to engage with and mentor/nurture new or ongoing projects, especially by those beginning to grapple with the issues we work on, we cannot and will not substitute for your instructors/professors.  We’re very particular about being paid for our labor – that’s not a hint that we’re willing to write your papers for pay, but simply reflects our firm belief that intellectual work needs to be compensated as such.  If you would really like us to come and engage with you and your classmates, see the above for details on how to get us to your campus.

Y’all are just a bunch of academics with no grasp on reality!
Okay, sure, if you say so.  We’re not going to go on and on about the realities of our lives.  While it’s certainly true that many of us have been part of or continue in academia, we’re all also simultaneously activists, artists, writers, and thinkers on the ground, working on issues as varied as public school education, HIV prevention, and queer/trans rural youth empowerment.  That being said, we have to ask: What’s up with all the academic-bashing?  Academics are people too, darling.  And no one ever died from a few extra degrees.

What was that about Lady Gaga?
We don’t care if you like her music or find her inspiring because she actually writes her own music.  But let’s be real, her politics suck.