Gay culture: I look forward to s extctn. (Dialogue.)

Contents:

• GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET
• WHAT’S WRONG WH BEG “GAY”? HERE’S WHAT THEY DON’T TELL YOU -- AND ’S REALLY DISTURBG.
• GAY CULTURE IS DYG. GOOD RIDDANCE!

GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET

But even though the nversatns that muted this lumn for six weeks are nowhere close to beg over, I do feel like some thgs that me up durg that time of ntemplatn are worth sayg now — particularly to my fellow whe gay cis out more stori on LGBTQ+ ins and activistsHowever, the ghost of Larry Kramer very much remaed my own head as I ma my way through a Pri month unlike any other.

I spent a few quiet afternoons readg his 1978 but novel Faggots, a satiril (yet clearly tobgraphil) look at the liv of gay men 1970s New York Cy that he wrote jt before AIDS ma him a figurehead of Amerin activism. Followg a man his late 30s (based on Kramer himself) who is seekg out a lovg, long-term relatnship a sea of hedonism, the novel has a clear msage: gay men need to start lovg each other stead of beg so obssed wh gettg fucked up and (lerally and figuratively) fuckg each other. - Larry Kramer his but novelUpon publitn, Faggots was dismissed by many as puranil and self-loathg for s cricism of gay men's obssn wh vany, promiscuy and recreatnal dg e.

And while, on one level, the book is a wild (if at tim problematic) wdow to an era of gay culture 40 years the past, also felt like had a lot to say about gay culture today.

WHAT’S WRONG WH BEG “GAY”? HERE’S WHAT THEY DON’T TELL YOU -- AND ’S REALLY DISTURBG.

In mastream gay media, the phrase almost always refers to a fairly specific subset of the LGBTQ "muny" largely ma up of whe gay cis men — even though many of the battl won around queer rights were fought by people of lour, trans and genr-nonnformg folks, and queer women, and fact the morn Pri movement self was large part iated by Black trans women. If an imprsn of a monolhic "gay culture" fed by such a homogeneo mographic exists, is bee whe gay cis men have until very recently domated mastream reprentatn unr the LGBTQ umbrella and have, general, been hand a level of privilege the last that is wildly disproportnate to any other mographic unr said umbrella.

When was the last time I actually had a good time at gay bar full of people I have fely spoken to on social media or apps but who act like I'm pletely sane when I se or say hello person? In analyzg the show's pictn of young gay men livg San Francis, wrer Daniel Wenger diagnos what he terms the "new gay sadns": an entire generatn of urban, privileged gay men who seem to have no clue what they're lookg for or who they are. Largely born the 1980s, they are the earlit wave of a "post-Stonewall, post-plague, post-activist" generatn of gays — "too old to have brought a boy to the prom and too young to have nursed a fantasy of nng away to an urban gay utopia, " Wenger explas.

Queeri5 pneerg LGBTQ Canadian films you n watch for ee right nowI've seen many of my fellow whe gay cis men seemgly rise to the ocsn by retweetg Black and Indigeno voic, gog to ralli and vowg to te themselv on how to tly be anti-racist (though how performative that is some s is unclear). Rettg "gay culture" will require fightg back agast entrenched social prsur and expectatns of gay cis men — and llg them out when they perpetuate, even passively, any form of discrimatory dialogue.

GAY CULTURE IS DYG. GOOD RIDDANCE!

And was large part bee of that attu that he uld lead AIDS activists through a rpt and homophobic system to ga accs to the dgs that ma possible for our generatn to have the liv that we do. Dpe the disagreements, Amerins are relatively liberal pared to untri across the world, where the nsequenc for gay or transgenr cizens are far more dire.

My book, “Cross-Natnal Public Opn about Homosexualy, ” shows that a key part of the answer unrstandg how natnal characteristics shape dividuals’ attus. However, there has also been an crease the number of natns that have a nstutn or legal ban on homosexualy, ditg that there seems to have been a small backlash.

Bee they were the lears, they were not subject to the prsure that currently up-and-g untri now face om more powerful untri that led the way for gay rights. While we’ve seen a general trend toward more liberal views regardg homosexualy, there are likely to be hiccups along the way that affect how the different socenomic and cultural fluenc take shape natnally and across the world. It has bee accepted wisdom most pole circl – as well as schools, ernment, rporate Ameri, and certaly the popular culture – that homosexual behavr is a normal and natural variatn of life.