PERJUANGAN KAUM QUEER DI AMERIKA SERIKAT PADA TAHUN 1960-an DAN 1970-an : KAJIAN SOSIAL POLITIK EKSISTENSI ORGANISASI KAUM QUEER DAN PEMIMPIN MEREKA

DAHNIAR TH. MUSA, DRA.,M.HUM., Prof. Djuhertati Imam Muhni, M.A., Ph.D. ;Prof. Dr. R. M. Soedarsono

2015 | Disertasi | S3 Pengkajian Amerika

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk memahami dinamika perjuangan kaum queer di Amerika Serikat pada tahun 1960-an dan 1970-an. Keberadaan kaum queer, baik gay maupun lesbian sebagai bagian daripada kelompok minoritas tertindas, muncul ke ranah publik untuk memperjuangkan hak-hak sosial mereka. Sub-kultur kaum gay dan lesbian pun berkembang dengan pesatnya dan bahkan semakin hari semakin memperkokoh keberadaan komunitas mereka. Fenomena kehidupan sosial budaya kaum gay dan lesbian seperti ini menunjukan bahwa keberadaan mereka benar-benar ada ditengah-tengah arus budaya mayoritas yang menentang mereka. Selain itu mereka mendirikan organisasi-organisasi, yang antara lain yaitu : Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis, Gay Liberation Front, dan Gay Activists Alliance. Organisasi-organisasi ini menjadi media atau sarana untuk menyatukan mereka dalam melakukan berbagai aktivitas sosial budaya. Termasuk memikirkan rencana-rencana strategis organisasi untuk melakukan berbagai aksi protes secara kolektif. Keberanian mereka mendirikan organisasi sosial inilah yang kemudian menimbulkan pertanyaan utama, yaitu bagaimana dinamika pergerakan organisasi kaum queer di Amerika. Selanjutnya secara lebih spesifik pertanyaan dalam kajian ini dirumuskan sebagai berikut, yaitu : pertama, mengapa kaum queer dalam perjuangan mereka tertarik untuk mendirikan organisasi yang berorientasi pada sosial politik; kedua, bagaimana strategi pergerakan organisasi-organisasi kaum queer dalam perjuangannya; dan ketiga, bagaimana keberhasilan yang dicapai oleh organisasi-organisasi kaum queer dalam perjuangannya. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan fenomenologi sebagaimana yang dikemukakan oleh Creswell. Data penelitian berupa teks dan gambar diperoleh melalui studi kepustakaan. Sementara observasi dilakukan dibeberapa lokasi yang menjadi pusat berkembangnya sub-kultur kaum queer, antara lain yaitu di Ann Arbor Michigan. Selain itu observasi dilakukan ditempat terjadinya kerusuhan yaitu bar gay Stonewall Inn, Greenwhich Village New York, Amerika Serikat. Data yang diperoleh dianalisis berdasarkan prinsip interdisipliner sebagaimana yang diterapkan dalam Pengkajian Amerika. Sebab itu teori rekonsiliasi disiplin ilmu yang dikemukakan oleh McDowell, Robert Meredith, dan Gene Wise di-gunakan sebagai dasar pemikiran dalam penelitian ini. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukan adanya variasi keberhasilan perjuangan masing-masing organisasi, yaitu : Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis, Gay Liberation Front, dan Gay Activists Alliance. Variasi keberhasilan tersebut terjadi karena adanya perbedaan strategi internal masing-masing organisasi dalam memanfaatkan dan menciptakan ruang sosial, jaringan sosial, nilai-nilai, serta relasi sosial. Sehingga rencana strategis internal organisasi berpengaruh terhadap keberhasilan dan kelangsungan organisasi, khususnya organisasi kaum queer, yaitu gay dan lesbian di Amerika Serikat.

This study aims at understanding the dynamics of queer people struggle in the US in 1960s and 1970s. The presence of queer people, both lesbians and gay, as an oppressed minority emerged into the public domain to advocate their social rights. Gay and lesbian subcultures developed in rapid way, and even day by day they enhanced their community. Such a gay and lesbian socio-cultural life phenomenon indicates that their existence was really there amidst the current of majority culture that went against them. Besides, they established their organizations such as Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis, Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance. Those organizations were means for uniting themselves in doing socio-cultural activities, including their efforts in forging their strategic planning for their organizations to launch collective protests. It is their courage in establishing such social organizations that raises the main question, how is the dynamics of the queer organizational movements in America. But in a more specific way this question is formulated into three derivate questions: first, why queer people in their struggle were interested in establishing organizations oriented to social political fields; second, how were the strategies mobilized within their endeavor; third, what were achievements those organizations gained in their struggle. This study makes use of a phenomenological approach such as elaborated by Creswell. The data are constituted by texts and pictures collected through literature study. Meanwhile, field observations were conducted in locations where queer subculture develops, for example in Ann Harbor, Michigan. We had another observation over the place where the historical riots happened i.e. the gay bar Stonewall Inn, in Greenwhich Village, New York. Those data were then analysed with an interdisciplinary perspective commonly used in American Studies. In consequence, reconciliation of the academic disciplines theory elaborated by McDowell, Robert Meredith, and Gene Wise is used as well for the fundamental guiding line for this study. This study indicates variance among the gains of each organizations struggle: Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis, Gay Liberation Front and Gay Activists Alliance. Those different achievements were due to the difference of their internal strategies in mobilizing and creating social space, networks, values and relations. That is why internal organizational strategies had their impacts on the gains and maintenance of the organizations, especially those of queer people.

Kata Kunci : kaum queer, subkultur, organisasi, strategi perjuangan, queer, sub-culture, organization, struggle strategy