A soclogist spent two years terviewg gay gang members. While some were the closet and others were openly gay, all were forced to reckon wh an environment of hypermasculy.
Contents:
- INSI A PRISON CELL FOR GAY FORMER GANG MEMBERS EL SALVADOR
- EVIL TWKS AND GAY GANGSTERS: WHY WE NEED TO REMEMBER HISTORY’S HORRID HOMOSEXUALS
- 'CHECK IT' IS A NEW DOCUMENTARY ABOUT AMERI'S ONLY ALL-GAY GANG
- MY GAY PRISON GANG FIGHTS NEO-NAZIS
- MAD TV GAY GANGSTER FIGHT
- “I WILL FIGHT YOU LIKE I’M STRAIGHT”: GAY GANG- AND CRIME-INVOLVED MEN’S PARTICIPATN VLENCE
- GAYNGSTER
INSI A PRISON CELL FOR GAY FORMER GANG MEMBERS EL SALVADOR
A new documentary, 'Unfivable,' follows Geovany, a gay former gang hman, who grappl wh both his sexualy and his vlent past. * gay gangsters fighting *
The prison director showed him an isolatn cell, where ne former gang members—om each of the untry’s three ma anized crime groups, MS-13, and two factns of Barr 18—had been moved after g out as gay. “But the tth is that they are already nmned: they’ve left the gang; they’ve lived wh former members of other gangs; and they’ve lived openly as gay people, ” she says. Bee even the ia of a gay man beg a gang fli the face of nventnal thought, the gang members I spoke wh had to nstantly rist or subvert a range of stereotyp and expectatns.
I was openly gay – part of the “fay, ” as some of them put – and bee I was a stunt nductg rearch for a book, they were nfint that I stood a better chance of accurately reprentg them than any “straight novelist” or journalist. The gay men straight gangs I spoke wh knew precisely what was expected of them: be willg to fight wh rival gangs, monstrate toughns, date or have sex wh women and be fancially pennt.
In “hybrid” gangs (those wh a sizable mory of gay, lbian or bisexual people) or all-gay gangs, the men I terviewed were held to many of the same standards. Cght between not wantg themselv or others to be prsured to act mascule all the time, but also not wantg to be read as visibly gay or weak (which uld ve challeng), ristance to beg seen as a “punk” or a phover was cril.
EVIL TWKS AND GAY GANGSTERS: WHY WE NEED TO REMEMBER HISTORY’S HORRID HOMOSEXUALS
From Alexanr the Great to Ronnie Kray, the hosts of the Bad Gays podst reveal the most villao LGBTQ+ figur ever – and expla why ’s important to discs the problematic alongsi the good * gay gangsters fighting *
It all seemed to e om a sire to upend damagg cultural stereotyp of gay men as weak, of black men as “adbeats” and offenrs, and of gang members as vlent thugs. One of the most pellg fdgs of my study was what happened when the gay gang members were risively lled “fag” or “faggot” by straight men bars, on b, schools or on the streets.
But that meant that a number of gay men and transgenr women sudnly wanted to be my boyiend (or girliend), not bee they liked me that way, but bee they figured I’d protect them. When one person is persecuted or abed, and there is somethg I n do about , pecially if that person is my gay or trans brother or sister, is my problem.
Meet gay gang members - sometim referred to popular culture as "homo thugs" - whose gay inty plit crimology's portrayal and reprentatn of gangs, gang members, and gang life. In vivid tail, Panfil provis an -pth unrstandg of how gay gang members nstct and negotiate both mascule and gay inti through crime and gang membership. The Gang's All Queer draws om terviews wh over 50 gay gang- and crime-volved young men Columb, Oh, the majory of whom are men of lor their late teens and early twenti, as well as on-the-ground ethnographic fieldwork wh men who are gay, hybrid, and straight gangs.
'CHECK IT' IS A NEW DOCUMENTARY ABOUT AMERI'S ONLY ALL-GAY GANG
The film tells the story of how bullied DC teens band together to provi safety numbers and let people know that if you jumped a gay kid DC, you'd likely get jumped back retaliatn. * gay gangsters fighting *
Most e om impoverished, 'rough' neighborhoods, and seek to fy negative stereotyp of gay and Black men as adbeats, though sometim through illegal activy.
Some are still closeted to their fellow gang members and fai, yet others fight to fend members of the gay muny, even those who they em to be "fags, " spe distaste for the flamboyant members of the muny.
MY GAY PRISON GANG FIGHTS NEO-NAZIS
* gay gangsters fighting *
Jeremy, Imani, and Johnny are gay men who are willg to e vlence to addrs disrpect, to “fight back” agast anti-gay harassment, and to retaliate agast rival gangs, among other reasons.
MAD TV GAY GANGSTER FIGHT
A gangster picks a fight wh a gay gangster. See what happens. *****ALL CREDIT GOES TO MAD TV***** * gay gangsters fighting *
However, the studi assume a heterosexual man (Collier 1998), and therefore nnot exame the ways vlence is utilized and jtified by men who intify as gay.
The -pth, semistctured terviews I analyze this chapter are data llected as part of a study on the tersectn of masculy and sexualy the liv of gay gang- and crime-volved men. It is the first study that explicly seeks to explore the ways gay men who are also members of gangs or volved crimal activy (or both) e and jtify vlence. By sheddg light on gay men’s of vlence, this chapter challeng existg crimologil and popular assumptns about who engag terpersonal (and often public) vlence and why.
“I WILL FIGHT YOU LIKE I’M STRAIGHT”: GAY GANG- AND CRIME-INVOLVED MEN’S PARTICIPATN VLENCE
Dpe extensive crimologil lerature on vlence and victimizatn, the portra of gay men’s volvement is unclear. Lerature exists on gay men as victims of timate partner vlence and anti-gay bias crim, but there is very ltle on gay... * gay gangsters fighting *
The crimologil lerature on vlence says very ltle about gay-intified men who perpetrate vlent crim, except for those who batter their partners (Craft and Serovich 2005; McKenry et al. While is important to ga knowledge about gay men’s victimizatn experienc, men who intify as batterers are rarely terviewed unls they are also victims of IPV.
Studi have avoid gatherg narrative data on gay men who intify as perpetrators of timate partner vlence, or on any sort of vlence, for that a manner siar to the timate partner vlence lerature, much rearch exists on gay men’s victimizatn by perpetrators of anti-gay bias crim and has likewise foced on patterns of reportg to the police, the characteristics of the crim, and the damagg psychologil symptoms experienced after the attacks (Herek et al.
The sourc would suggt that at least some men who are unr attack bee of their sexualy are willg to fight back, but rearch has not explored male victims’ physil ristance strategi or rpons to the attacker durg anti-gay bias issue of whether or not LGBT people actively rist their victimizatn also plagu the large lerature on LGBT youths’ experienc wh homophobic bullyg, by focg on nsequenc such as negative school out and creased prsn, suicidaly, and substance e (e.
GAYNGSTER
Gay men sometim jo or form gangs, which may be surprisg. Vansa Panfil unvers the liv of men gay, straight, and hybrid gangs. * gay gangsters fighting *
For example, we know very ltle about the lks (if any) between homophobic bullyg victimizatn and lquent out, spe evince the crimologil lerature that school bullyg victimizatn is associated wh lquent behavr, gang membership, and vlence (Carbone-Lopez et al. Furthermore, and perhaps related to homophobic bullyg victimizatn, rearch suggts sexual mory youth are more likely to engage fightg and weapons rryg than their peers (Button et al.
However, spe what seems like a logil nnectn between homophobic bullyg and gang membership, there is virtually no scholarly rearch on gay gang-volved men; the only source that n shed any light on gay-intified gang members suggts they participate gay-bashg cints to nstct mascule personas and nceal their sexual orientatns om their gangs (Totten 2000). As I discs elsewhere (Panfil 2014a), pictns of gay men are absent om our disciple’s enormo body of rearch on vlence perpetratn (spe beg such an obv home for this sort of work) for several terrelated reasons.
The clu: prevailg popular cultural stereotyp that reprent gay men as effemate, nonthreateng pacifists; socpolil ncerns regardg progrs towards LGBT equaly; and assumptns of active offenrs’ heterosexualy by crimologists.