How gay men jtify their racism on Grdr

Contents:

• VERY FEW PEOPLE SAY “NO WH”: GAY MEN OF COLOR AND THE RACIAL POLICS OF DIRE
• US WHE SUPREMACISTS FOUND GUILTY OF GAY PRI RT PLOT
• THUNR WAIV RUDY GAY, PER REPORT, CLEARG WAY FOR JACK WHE
• WHE GAY PRIVILEGE EXISTS ALL YEAR, BUT IS PARTICULARLY HURTFUL DURG PRI
• DEAR WHE GAY MEN: LABELG PEOPLE OF COLOR "DIVISIVE" ISN'T A CRIQUE — IT'S RACISM

VERY FEW PEOPLE SAY “NO WH”: GAY MEN OF COLOR AND THE RACIAL POLICS OF DIRE

And the other one we need to put on that list is seemgly dividual acts of vlence that rult mass sualti agast targeted populatns, like the one we jt saw Buffalo, but that we've also seen El Paso and Charlton and groups see gay rights, immigratn, terracial ntact, and pecially the birth of terracial children, femism as all beg a problem bee they believe that those thgs will unrme the whe birthrate. But if you say, I don't want my kids - I'm worried about my kids beg around gay people or around drag performers, there's this whole kd of movement that allows that type of nversatn to happen or feels like this kd of nversatn is OK to happen. And this kd of opportunistic mobilizatn is very well-practiced and is somethg that they have been workg wh for a very long So seems like there's a reason that they are choosg to foc on, say, drag queens or trans people over, say, you know, jt a proment gay person like Neil Patrick Harris - or they are choosg to kd of foc on this very margalized Y.

While the rolutn of the problem of gay and lbian equaly will ultimately turn on a host of social, legal, polil, and iologil variabl, this Article argu that the succs or failure of efforts to achieve legal equaly for gays, lbians, bisexuals, and transgenred dividuals will pend large part on how scholars and activists this field addrs qutns of racial inty and racial subjugatn. Part II expounds my claim that the parative and sentialist treatment of race and sexualy wh pro-gay and lbian theory and polics margaliz gay, lbian, bisexual, and transgenred persons of lor and nstcts and rerc the notn that the gay and lbian muny is uniformly whe and privileged. Part II then exam how anti-gay theorists and activists ploy the “gay as whe and privileged” stereotype their arguments that gays and lbians, as a privileged class, do not mer the protectn of existg equaly ameworks.

Part II nclus by discsg how antiracist disurse ntribut to the harmful whe-normative nstctn of gays and lbians through s heteronormative assumptns about both racial subordatn and people of lor.

US WHE SUPREMACISTS FOUND GUILTY OF GAY PRI RT PLOT

Part IV propos a multidimensnal amework for analyzg race wh gay and lbian equaly disurse that more accurately picts the juri of anti-gay and lbian discrimatn and that refut the “gay as whe and privileged” stereotype.

It is my hope that a multidimensnal approach to the qutn of gay and lbian equaly--one that treats race, class, and genr as tegral ponents of gay, lbian, bisexual, and transgenred inti and experienc--will lead to stronger legal protectn of gays and lbians om discrimatn and subordatn. Specifilly for gay men, a slim hairls body may provi men who posss those tras wh sexual currency at a “Twk bar, ” but those same tras would have ls currency at a “Leather bar, ” where burlier bodi are nsired more sirable. While a number of different typ of sexual fields that n be found the gay muny have been discsed the amic lerature as well as the popular prs, there has been ls attentn paid to the ways that erotic words are socially anized (Mart and Gee 2006).

To do so, we brgg together the sexual fields perspective wh the growg lerature on sexual racism, an act of eher sexually excludg non-wh as potential partners or cludg racial mori as sexual partners based only on racial several scholars have noted, ntemporary gay life is marked by high levels of racism directed towards gay men of lor by gay whe men, wh much of the racism maniftg self as negative sexual attus towards, and sexual excln or fetishizatn of, non-whe men (Armstrong 2002; Bébé 2001; Epste 1996; McBri 2005; Tenunis, 2007). After examg onle personal ads and terviewg gay men, Robson (2015) found that gay whe men often exclu gay men of lor as potential sexual partners while nyg that their racial preferenc are racist nature.

THUNR WAIV RUDY GAY, PER REPORT, CLEARG WAY FOR JACK WHE

In fact, several studi have shown that gay whe men were much more likely to prefer their own race and actively exclu non-wh as potential sexual than gay men of lor (Lundquist and L 2015; Ph and Kfman 2003; Rafalow, Feliciano, and Robt 2017; Smh 2014). Dpe gay whe men’s sistence that sexual excln was not racism but rather personal preference, and that the personal preferenc have nothg to do wh racism, Collanr and his lleagu (2015) found that attus toward sexual excln were related to almost every intified factor associated wh racist attus general.

Th, sexual racism should be unrstood not as personal preference, but as “problematic ndns that stcture the very formatn of romantic relatnships” that is neher benign nor trivial (Bedi 2015: 998) the ia of sexual racism has been wily discsed the popular prs, and amic studi have also documented the racial hierarchy of sire the gay muny, there have been fewer attempts to systematilly exame how such racialized hierarchi of sire are unrstood by gay men of lor and, more importantly, the impact the racial hierarchi have on them. Wh any sexual field, some dividual e to be seen as more sirable than other dividuals pendg on the tras that they posss that are valued by the specific sexual field which they discsg gay sexual fields, Green (2008; 2011) intifi a number of potential tras that fluence the level of sirabily that any given dividual might posss.

WHE GAY PRIVILEGE EXISTS ALL YEAR, BUT IS PARTICULARLY HURTFUL DURG PRI

As evinced by Green’s own acunts of his field work, and the statements ma by participants his study, race plays a pivotal role fg attractivens and sirabily across var sexual fields wh the gay muny. Whether the specific field qutn is a gay leather bar or a gay sports bar where different typ of drs, different amounts of body hair, etc., may be emed more sirable, race remas a nsistent, and nstant, marker of sirabily.

In fact, sire for whens has been noted by a number of scholars examg race and racism the gay muny (Callanr, Holt and Newman 2016; Han 2007; Robson 2015; McBri 2005; Tnis 2007) other characteristics intified by Green, such as clothg or mculary, whens is a central anizg prciple the gay muny (Bébé 2001; Han 2007). In promotg equaly through the normalizatn of (homo)sexualy at the expense of “non-gay” issu, gay anizatns such as The Human Rights Campaign promote a monolhic image of the “gay muny, ” as beg rich, nservative, and whe (Bébé 2001; Phelan 2001; Seidman 2002; Walters 2014).

We would argue that the value of whens transcends diverse sexual fields wh the gay muny that acts as a universal currency that superses all other characteristics emed worthy wh any given sexual field.

DEAR WHE GAY MEN: LABELG PEOPLE OF COLOR "DIVISIVE" ISN'T A CRIQUE — IT'S RACISM

As Peter Jackson (2000: 184) not:When sirabily is lked wh race, and when certa rac are ascribed greater erotic tert than others, then to be a member of an “unsexy” ethnic group is to be equated wh an ferr form of importantly, unlike other markers of sirabily among gay men that Green discs, such as amount of body hair, mculary, cloth, etc., race is an entirely ascribed stat, not an achieved one. For example, Han (2015: 141) quot one gay Asian man, who attempted to make himself more sirable the gay muny by changg his body through exercise, as statg:I had mcl where I didn’t thk you had mcl.

I ed to have a 10-foot area around me and people would avoid me, I uldn’t believe while mculary may be the sired tra a “mcle bar, ” the lived realy for gay men of lor is that their attempts to velop or acquire the currency of sire wh those specific gay spac, or sexual fields, is negated by their race.