ABSTRACT
This chapter examines George Segal’s Gay Liberation monument in Christopher Park, New York City, in the context of portraying a ‘non-threatening’ queer sexuality to a hostile, homophobic public. Examining the history of the monument’s commission to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots, and its negative reception from West Village residents and the queer community alike, the chapter shows how, in its desire to minimise conflict and appease all constituents, the monument served to mis-represent and ‘whitewash’ its core queer community whilst still failing to please or appease the homophobic majority. Using Marion Milner’s paper ‘The Toleration of Conflict’ (1942), the chapter questions whether the adoption of a ‘homosentimental’ position by the monument, in order to guarantee an emotional and political need for certainty, meant that no real compromise was achieved with the homophobic majority. Rather than both sides exploring the ‘negative capability’ of uncertainty, as laid out by John Keats, the LGBTQIA+ monument is instead put in a position where it must do all the work of appeasement in order to achieve political visibility at the expense of what Judith Butler terms the ‘vexation of desire’.
