OPINION: On Gay Men and The Femist Movement — PULP

feminist gay

Prt ? PDF ?Note: The followg opn piece is by NCFM member Dean Esmay. It do nta some harsh and angry language, mostly by gay men angry ...

Contents:

#GAYS AGAST FEMISM: BEE GAY PEOPLE ARE NOT FEMIST PROPERTY

* feminist gay *

Hello, I’m a gay a man, I fely nsir myself a femist, though i’ve been told that ’s not okay (by femists), I’m not a woman, I should refer to myself as an ally. I've been told by some femists that bee I'm a whe man, my whe and male privileg are enough to disregard the fact that I'm also Gay and am opprsed for that.

Back when there was an actual social and polil st to beg gay-iendly (let alone gay) I almost certaly would have been beat up badly had I shown someone that rd.

FEMIST GAY-BASHG

Gay rights movement, civil rights movement that advot equal rights for LGBTQ persons—that is, for lbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons—and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life. * feminist gay *

I did not, although I did once rcue a dnk gay man whose abive boyiend had gotten him liquored up and then left him strand om home wh no money a tough workg-class blue-llar bar. So if you ever wonr why I’m almost pletely immune to hateful femist bigotry and disgtg attempts at shamg, and am 100% fortable the pany of gay, lbian, bi, whatever people, bear md that I remember fully and vividly how rmal vigilante lynchgs were somethg most people would jt look the other way at–if was a gay man.

Now absolutely, lbians would often take horrible harassment and would ocsnally be hurt, even killed, and sometim mutilated like the gay men were.

OPINION: ON GAY MEN AND THE FEMIST MOVEMENT

Are we gay men who claim to be femist really so? The spate of anti-women legislatn mands we start showg up for women. * feminist gay *

But as a le, was gay men–y, the gay men–who were gettg thrown jail, thrown mental hospals, raped by “fag” bashers (y, that was and is still a thg), sometim even strated, lobotomized, hung, or jt pla beat to ath. When you watch or read histori of the Stonewall Rts, ’s fascatg to watch how hard they will generally work to move lbians up to the ont of the story, even though was overwhelmgly gay men who were beg most btally persecuted. Carefully read the -pth stori of how the first Stonewall rt began, and you will disver that at the very begng, at an unrground gay club, durg a police raid a p tried btg a lbian for beg among the other “crimal” homosexuals, and she was somewhat roughed up as they tried to put her to a paddy wagon.

There is of urse nothg wrong wh that–the ps were vlatg her human rights after all–but shows how the male protective stct toward women is part of even most gay men. Remember that the next time you hear about men’s herent vlence, or hear yet another radfem sist that gay men are misogynists–which they equently do.

And what’s so fascatg about the racism and gay-hate that’s been part of femism for s is that femists and their apologists tomatilly behave as if the were statistil outliers, and therefore “not real femists.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

In her 2012 article “Bad Femist,” published by VQR, Roxane Gay suggts that many of the tensns and negative nnotatns that acpany the term femism n be attributed to a damagg, socially-nstcted ncept emed sential femism. Gay, an Amerin sayist and mentator, scrib sential femism as “the notn that there are right and wrong ways to be a femist,” leavg those who do not live up to societal expectatns feelg unf or aquate to intify themselv as such (pg. 1). * feminist gay *

Jt as there were people who joed the Nazi Party (y, I jt went there) who didn’t particularly hate Jews, the misandrist assumptns of 1960s and 1970s femism fell jt as much agast gay men as they do today, if not more so. It always has been, for is an pable ncln of their “Patriarchy” theory (or their new favore word, “tersectnaly”) that not jt gay men, but black men and brown men and “yellow” men often and routely rape and btalize women, or jt lgh at the btaly and accept –for real and not as dark humor or sarsm or irony. And so now we fally see the rise of gay men who fight femism, not jt private but the wir world, wh the growg and fearls #GaysAgastFemism.

And they were not some ge group and they were not the only femists of their perd to e gay-bashg rhetoric and weave man-hatg and gay-bashg prcipl to their work. For stance she equat homosexualy and Nazism, which is an pecially obscene piece of stupidy view of the actual history, and a transparent piece of dishonty view of how well-known that history is.

This was rather nontg, but the few months sce she ma me aware of my own misogynistic tennci, I’ve tried my bt to be nsc of such thgs, and feel 's important to share this wh other gay men.

OP-ED: GAY MEN NEED TO BE FEMISTS, TOO

Lbian femism, a polil and theoretil movement wh femism that emerged the send half of the 20th century at the nvergence of the women’s movement, the gay rights movement, and the sexual revolutn. Lbian femists advoted alternative ways of thkg about genr and power. * feminist gay *

Gay men, and pecially cis whe gay men, have a tenncy to overwhelmgly play their own ‘opprsn rd’ orr to pe cricism for their sexist behavurs. I would not s idly by if any of their boyiends lled them any of those slurs, but the past, seems I thought the gay rd was a ‘get-out-of-jail-ee-rd’ when me to sexism and misogyny. It’s possible ’s bee we, as a society, oversimplify the nature of opprsn and believe queer people are more opprsed than women so we n’t cricise them bee that would be ‘homophobic’.

So, this Internatnal Women’s Day, I enurage everyone, but pecially gay men, to reflect on their behavur and attus and serly nsir what they n do to be better.

WHY ARE YOU A FEMIST, ARE YOU GAY OR SOMETHG?

E., for lbians, gays [homosexual mal], bisexuals, transgenr persons, and queer persons); seeks to elimate sodomy laws; and lls for an end to discrimatn agast LGBTQ persons employment, cred, hog, public acmodatns, and other areas of life. (Although the term gay is monly ed reference to homosexual mal, is also ed more generally to refer to homosexual mal together wh some or all other orientatns wh the LGBTQ muny. ) Gay rights prr to the 20th century Relig admonns agast sexual relatns between dividuals of the same sex (particularly men) long stigmatized such behavur, but most legal s Europe were silent on the subject of homosexualy and bisexualy.

Ined, his poem “Two Lov” (1894), Lord Aled (“Bosie”) Douglas, Osr Wil’s lover, clared “I [homosexualy] am the love that dare not speak s name. ” Homosexual and bisexual men and women were given voice 1897 wh the foundg of the Scientific-Humanarian Commtee (Wissenschaftlich-humanär Komee; WhK) Berl. Dpe Paragraph 175 and the failure of the WhK to w s repeal, homosexual and bisexual men and women experienced a certa amount of eedom Germany, particularly durg the Weimar perd, between the end of World War I and the Nazi seizure of power.

In the Uned Stat this greater visibily brought some backlash, particularly om the ernment and the police: the ernment often fired gay civil servants, the ary attempted to purge s ranks of gay soldiers (a policy enacted durg World War II), and police vice squads equently raid gay bars and arrted their patrons. In the Uned Stat the first major male anizatn, found 1950–51 by Harry Hay Los Angel, was the Mattache Society (s name reputedly rived om a medieval French society of masked players, the Société Mattache, to reprent the public “maskg” of homosexualy), while the Dghters of Bilis (named after the Sapphic love poems of Pierre Louÿs, Chansons Bilis), found 1955 by Phyllis Lyon and Del Mart San Francis, was a leadg group for women.

GAYS AGAST FEMISM: BEE GAY PEOPLE ARE NOT YOUR PROPERTY, FEMISTS

In Bra 1957 a missn chaired by Sir John Wolfenn issued a groundbreakg report (see Wolfenn Report) remendg that private homosexual liaisons between nsentg adults be removed om the doma of crimal law; a later the remendatn was implemented by Parliament the Sexual Offenc Act. The gay rights movement was begng to w victori for legal reform, particularly wtern Europe, but perhaps the sgle fg event of gay activism occurred the Uned Stat.

In the 1970s and ’80s, gay polil anizatns proliferated, particularly the Uned Stat and Europe, and spread to other parts of the globe, though their relative size, strength, and succs—and toleratn by thori—varied signifintly. Groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force, and ACT UP (AIDS Coaln to Unleash Power) the Uned Stat and Stonewall and Outrage! Now headquartered Geneva and renamed the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA World), plays a signifint role ordatg ternatnal efforts to promote human rights and fight discrimatn agast LGBTQ and tersex persons.

In the Uned Stat, gay activists won support om the Democratic Party 1980, when the party add to s platform nondiscrimatn clse a plank cludg sexual orientatn.

ROXANE GAY: THE BAD FEMIST MANIFTO

This support, along wh mpaigns by gay activists urgg gay men and women to “e out of the closet” (ed, the late 1980s, Natnal Comg Out Day was tablished, and is now celebrated on October 11 most untri), enuraged gay men and women to enter the polil arena as ndidat. In 1974 Wechsler was replaced on the uncil by Kathy Kozachenko, who, havg n openly as a lbian, th beme the first openly gay person to w office after g out. In addn, 2019 Lori Lightfoot beme the first openly gay person to be elected mayor of Chigo, and two years later Pete Buttigieg beme the first openly gay bet member Amerin history.

Large ci Europe also were fertile grounds for succs for openly gay policians; for example, Bertrand Delanoë Paris and Kls Wowere Berl were both elected mayor 2001.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* FEMINIST GAY

#Gays Agast Femism: Bee gay people are not femist property | Natnal Coaln For Men (NCFM) .

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