"I’m sad to report that three or four decades ago, many gay-assertive people (myself included) looked at some of those who identified as bisexual with suspicion..."

"... if not scorn. It wasn’t because we didn’t believe that many were telling the truth about their experience. It was because so many people that I, for one, knew actually identified as gay had been exploiting the 'bi' term as a sexual caveat to avoid the risks of coming out completely. Or, at the very least, they were taking the term on loan as a baby step in that direction.... When celebrities whom everyone knew to be gay—but who hadn’t affirmed it in the media—were asked about such things, they tended to deliver exactly the kinds of statements we hear from some LGBTQ people today. They’d say, 'I don’t want to be labeled,' or 'I’m just sexual,' or 'I’m open.' Today, those descriptions signal broad-mindedness. Back then, they felt like a betrayal, a hedging that pushed the movement back a step, making those of us who had come out feel more isolated and vulnerable at a time when being out had far greater consequence.... If nearly any progressively minded person can find some way to identify as queer, what, exactly, does the term even mean? When I hear about fluidity in that context, it sounds like something made to wash away gay history—my history—drowning it in inclusiveness to broaden its clout."

From "Categorically Gay/For queer people who grew up in an era when rigid identities were essential, today’s fluidity can feel like their history is washing out with the tide" by Jim Farber (in Slate).

Drowning it in inclusiveness to broaden its clout — an interesting phrase. The metaphor is a little overambitious. You've got the water of "fluidity" and it's "washing away" and "drowning," but it's also designed to have "clout." A "clout" is something done with a fist or a hard object. "Fluidity" doesn't deliver "clout."

I'm just talking about whether the metaphor is good, not saying I can't puzzle out the meaning. Bear with me a little longer.

In the phrase, what's getting washed away and drowned is gay history, but the clout has a different target. The clout is to — what? — all the forces of heteronormativity (or something like that). There's too much going on there.

But I can see what he means. Broadening is weakening. Inclusiveness is diluting.