Gay, Inc.: The Nonprofitization of Queer Politics

by Myrl Beam

A bold and provocative look at how the nonprofit sphere’s expansion has helped—and hindered—the LGBT cause
What if the very structure on which social movements rely, the nonprofit system, is reinforcing the inequalities activists seek to eliminate? That is the question at the heart of this bold reassessment of the system’s massive expansion since the mid-1960s. Focusing on the LGBT movement, Myrl Beam argues that the conservative turn in queer movement politics, as exemplified by the shift toward marriage and legal equality, is due mostly to the movement’s embrace of the nonprofit structure.  Based on oral histories as well as archival research, and drawing on the author’s own extensive activist work, Gay, Inc. presents four compelling case studies. Beam looks at how people at LGBT nonprofits in Minneapolis and Chicago grapple with the contradictions between radical queer social movements and their institutionalized iterations. Through interview subjects’ incisive, funny, and heartbreaking commentaries, Beam exposes a complex world of committed people doing the best they can to effect change, and the flawed structures in which they participate, rail against, ignore, and make do.  Providing a critical look at a social formation whose sanctified place in the national imagination has for too long gone unquestioned, Gay, Inc. marks a significant contribution to scholarship on sexuality, neoliberalism, and social movements.

Genres: Queer, Nonfiction, Politics, LGBT, Social Justice, Activism, History

256 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2018

Reviews

[Spooky Socialist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Myrl Beam's Gay, Inc. traces the derailing and deradicalizing effect the nonprofit structure has had on the LGBTQ+ movement in the United States. Examining the origins of nonprofits in charity/missionary work during the era of slavery and Native American genocide and robber-baron philanthropy in the Gilded Age, he argues that the logic of the nonprofit structure is deeply embedded in neoliberalism. With the destruction of the welfare state, nonprofits act as individualized, precarious, and non-democratic replacements for welfare programs beholden to the whims of wealthy foundations and donors. Rather than pushing for liberation, nonprofits instead act as a stopgap measure for the worst excesses of capitalism, occupying activists with a constant cycle of securing funding and pleasing donors for survival rather than organizing to overthrow the system that created widespread immiseration.

The book's main contents examine four case studies of queer nonprofits. The first case study looks at the Howard Brown Health Center, and its tenuous relationship to its queer youth homelessness program, Broadway Youth Center. The nonprofit structure led HBHC to seek funding exploiting the stories of queer youth in BYC, yet failing to adequately fund their programs after receiving the money. The second case study looks at the Center on Halsted, and its formulation of "community" as centering on suburban, white queer youth while policing marginalized, urban queer of color youth as "outside the community." The third case study examines the District 202 and how its mission "for an by youth" eventually became perverted by the nonprofit structure, continually dismissing its political principles in favor of donor priorities until its dissolution. The final case study on the Trans Youth Support Network, one in which Beam has a long personal history with, demonstrates that even with individuals with the best intentions, the structural forces of the nonprofit make organizations that seek to center young trans women of color still, nevertheless, fail.

The book itself is very insightful into the structural limitations of nonprofit organizing, something that communists need to be aware of when organizing. The author's personal anecdotes also flesh out his arguments, making the book compelling from a social activist perspective. Its conclusion, however, leaves me wanting more. The author discusses alternatives to the nonprofit structure: autonomous grassroots movements, rebuilding a welfare state, or looking at global south revolutionary movements for inspiration. Beam also emphasizes the "stance of undefeated despair" for organizing, which I personally think comes too close to the neoliberal discourse of "perseverance." Maybe it's my adherence as a communist, but the author overlooks the structure that has been most successful, historically, in overthrowing the capitalist system: the Communist Party.

[Laura Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ll be teaching this in Collective Action!

[Sarah Beam · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was very difficult to read at points - not just because of its dense, essay-style language but because the subject matter expanded on issues i’ve been grappling with in my work for years now (more prominently in the last 6 months). amongst my own existing dissonance around the world of non-profits, now there is beam. myrl beam’s case studies and tenure in the very complex being critiqued both validates my own feelings and works to more deeply trouble me. it’s easy to think that the work being done now is causing more harm than good and that we can’t fix the systems we are forced to operate within, but beam offers concluding remarks highlighting possibility. the need to continue finding ways to make unequal life worth living and to foster community under the constraints of capitalism and racial chokeholds remains. these thoughts aren’t complete but lmk if you want to borrow my copy or talk about this work in general :)
also everyone in human services non-profit field should read this

[Susan Raffo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is that good - through storytelling, it gets at the complexity of how queer liberation lost ground and of how the choices we made, right-seeming choices in the moment, provided some gains but also contributed to great loss. For many of us who lived and organized through this time, Gay Inc. feels like a moment of being seen. Reading this, I feel both vindicated and also accountable for what Myrl sits with. If you are interested in the history of LGBT/queer liberation, read this book. If you are interested in reflecting on the nonprofit system and its impact, read this book. And if you just want good storytelling and history reflection, read this book.

[Bex · Rating 4 out of 5]

dense but well-written/researched and at times very compelling. A necessary read for anyone who has worked in a nonprofit— basically this deep dives into three LGBTQ nonprofits in the Midwest and how they contend with the nonprofit industrial complex ™️ aka how nonprofits aid and abet the systems they seek to challenge. The author was affiliated or worked for each of the nonprofits, so the level of depth here is really unparalleled. I learned a lot! It was a good reminder that movements are people, not institutions. Woo!

[jac · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important entry into a somewhat shocking void in books on the non-profit industrial complex. Beam begins by providing a sufficient history of the npic and its role in quashing revolutionary social movements, as well as a fascinating rhetorical study of the narratives and relationships that it has produced in contemporary contexts. I found their writing on the mobilization of compassion and imagined community particularly illuminating.

They then perform a case study of three gay non-profits. They show how each is tied to the will of donors and any visions of a radical politic and practice are bulldozed by the will of capital. The choice of three different kinds of non-profits is well done, and the author's personal ties to each provide more context and opportunities for analysis.

I would have wished this book spent at least some time on alternative formations to a non-profit, as I can imagine it might leave a reader imagining there's nothing else. I also found the conclusion to this book confusing, as it appears the author allows their own feelings about the non-profit form to eclipse the practical conclusions that can be drawn from the books. It seems difficult to advocate for a middle-ground approach to non-profits in social movements when the alternatives are not even considered, and the entire book provides evidence for their incredibly damaging effects on radical people and movements.

Overall well-done analysis and case-study, but could have been done without half-baked conclusions.

[Audri Gonzales · Rating 5 out of 5]

A strong contender for the best book I've read this year, at least the most important. Gay Inc examines the role of nonprofits in/as the community, the ideas of worthiness tied into the nonprofit system, and the complex effects. I enjoyed the inclusion of several philosophies, and I consider this book a testament to the idea that combining disciplines is vital to furthering our fields. Fascinating subject matter, but it was a bit dense at times.

[Katrinka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yup: anyone who's ever worked at a (social service) nonprofit will nod in sad recognition.

[Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book that should really get a lot more attention and acclaim