ANTIVIOLENCE ACTIVISM AND THE (IN)VISIBILITY OF GENDER IN THE GAY LESBIAN AND WOMENS MOVEMENTS

Gay and lesbian-sponsored antiviolence projects have used activist str ategies and ''collective action frames'' similar to the contemporary w omen's movement's antiviolence against women campaigns and have define d violence against gays and lesbians as a social problem resulting fro m criminal sexual assault that stems from institutionalized sexual ter rorism. Unlike the contemporary feminist movement, which has been anch ored in an all-encompassing critique of patriarchy, activism around an tigay and lesbian violence has ignored patriarchy and the gender relat ions that sustain and reflect it; instead, gay and lesbian activism ha s been preoccupied with homophobia and only implicitly concerned with institutionalized heterosexism. As a result, the fact that gays and le sbians embody gender and are firmly situated in gender relations is re ndered invisible. This analysis examines how the collective action fra me(s) of one social movement can be appropriated, employed, and transf ormed by a subsequent movement.