Whether or not one agrees with the author's conclusion that the mechitza should be abolished, the most interesting part of the article is the theoretical challenge that queer people make towards Judaism's very gendered order. On the one hand, queer people's identities challenge the mechitza's role of lessening sexual attraction during prayer. But at the same time, a mechitza also reminds a gay man that in Judaism he still has the privileges and responsibilities of being a Jewish man. In the book Queer Jews, two transgender authors write about the mechitza at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. For one of them, an F-to-M transgender person, the mechitza was liberating, because it confirmed his new gender identity as a Jewish man. For the other, who was genderqueer and therefore more complicated in terms of gender identity, the mechitza was oppressive in that it forced this person to choose sides. One would not want the mechitza abolished; the other would, and both are queer.
Thanks to the author for forcing us to question Judaism's gendered order.
David Shneer