For decades, the goal of any sensible civil rights movement was simple: integration. People wanted the right to live their lives, build their businesses, and be judged on the quality of their character and the sweat of their brow, not who they happened to be attracted to. We wanted a seat at the table, not to flip the table over. But lately, common sense has been tossed out the window in favour of “Queer Theory,” a radical academic rebranding that’s more about political conformity than actual identity.
Let’s be clear: “Gay” is a description of who someone is. “Queer,” in its modern activist sense, is a political manifesto. As Jamie Kirchick recently pointed out in the Wall Street Journal, we’ve moved away from wanting to be treated as “normal” neighbours and colleagues toward a mandatory membership in a radical subculture that many of us never signed up for. It’s a shift from personal freedom to collective labelling, and frankly, it’s a massive step backward.
The problem with this “alphabet soup” approach to identity is that it demands absolute ideological purity. If you’re a gay man or a lesbian who happens to believe in free markets, meritocracy, or the value of traditional institutions, the activists tell you that you’re doing it wrong. They’ve turned a personal trait into a prerequisite for far-left politics. If you don’t subscribe to the latest radical grievance, you’re cast out. It’s the same “no-fail” mentality we see creeping into our public education system, a refusal to deal with reality and excellence because it doesn’t fit a specific social experiment.
When everything becomes “queer,” the individual disappears. The unique experiences and hard-won progress of individuals are erased in favour of a political monolith. We see this same pattern across the board today, whether it’s in housing policy, energy, or education. Activists and bureaucrats want to put everyone in a neat little box so they can manage the narrative and push a specific agenda. They use these labels to divide us into “us vs. them” instead of letting us just be Canadians who contribute to our communities and grow the economy.
I’ve always advocated for a “return to basics.” In the classroom, that means focusing on excellence, merit, and the skills needed to succeed in the real world. In the economy, it means cutting the red tape and removing the “hope gap” so people can actually build a life and a home. And in our personal lives, it means the freedom to be who we are without an activist handbook telling us how to vote or what to think.
It is time to stop the social engineering. We don’t need more labels, and we certainly don’t need more “theory” from academics who have never had to meet a payroll or build a community. The best way to respect people is to treat them as individuals, not as political pawns in a game of identity overreach. I’m not a project to be managed or a demographic to be mobilized. I’m an individual. Just let people live.
Opinion by Shane Wenzel | www.ShaneWenzel.com
