An open letter to my fellow whe gay cis men: there should be no "returng to normal" after this.
Contents:
- BEYONCé’S RENAISSANCE IS A BIG, GAY MS
- GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET
- AMERI MOVED ON FROM ITS GAY-RIGHTS MOMENT—AND LEFT A LEGAL MS BEHD
- MARC BACHMANN'S BIG GAY MS
- GAY MS MEANG, GAY MS FN | ENGLISH COBUILD DICTNARY
BEYONCé’S RENAISSANCE IS A BIG, GAY MS
* gay mess *
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.
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.
GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET
Homosexual inti n be scribed as closeted, homosexually self aware, gay/ lbian and non-gay intified. This classifitn privileg the role of self-fn. In g out, gay people tegrate, as bt as they n, dissociated aspects of the self. As gay people mt ci on a daily basis whether to reveal and to whom they will reveal, g out is a procs that never ends. * gay mess *
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.
AMERI MOVED ON FROM ITS GAY-RIGHTS MOMENT—AND LEFT A LEGAL MS BEHD
As his ngrswoman wife Michele ntu to make progrs her terrifyg ath march toward Washgton, Marc Bachmann has bee a foc of the ever-cur media, and the thgs we've found out about him have been a b unsettlg, like the fact that he ns one of those pray-the-gay-away facili. * gay mess *
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.
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. Ameri Moved On From Its Gay-Rights Moment—And Left a Legal Ms BehdHalf a after the Supreme Court’s same-sex-marriage cisn, the jtic and Congrs are still tryg to figure out what feral law should say about LGBTQ JonRoughly half of Amerins thk feral law bans discrimatn on the basis of sexual orientatn.
MARC BACHMANN'S BIG GAY MS
But they’ve faced ristance om their right, wh proment pastors and nservative legal groups opposed to any kd of bill that would mark sexual orientatn and genr inty as special legal Ameri has largely moved on om s gay-rights moment, wh many Amerins believg everythg got taken re of wh same-sex marriage, legal advot on both sis have been left wh bter disagreements about where the untry should go next—and the possibily that the stat quo will perpetually rema place. Ask LGBTQ people themselv, however, and they nsistently see discrimatn their daily liv: A recent study om the Williams Instute at UCLA found that lbian, gay, and bisexual people reported much higher rat of beg bullied, fired, or nied a job, promotn, or lease pared wh heterosexual people. ”Early legislatn proposg civil-rights protectns for gays and lbians was often hedged: Advot foced on issu such as workplace discrimatn, where they thought they had a greater chance of victory.
In the past 30 years, the Supreme Court has led sex stereotypg illegal; clared sodomy bans unnstutnal; stck down state measur blockg civil-rights protectns for gays, lbians, and bisexuals; and, of urse, legalized same-sex marriage all 50 stat. But even as the evabily of legalized gay marriage was beg clear the early 2010s, “the narrative really began to take hold that you uld be married on Sunday and fired on Monday and lose your hog on Tuday, ” Sarah McBri, the natnal prs secretary at the Human Rights Campaign, a proment LGBTQ-rights advocy group, told me.
GAY MS MEANG, GAY MS FN | ENGLISH COBUILD DICTNARY
”Read: How gay marriage beme a nstutnal rightThis qutn has been particularly ght for transgenr people, such as the platiff who will go before the Supreme Court this fall.