Nicholas F. Havey, “I Can’t Be Racist, I’m Gay”, Journal Commted to Social Change onRace and Ethnicy (JCSCORE), Vol. 7, No. 2 (2021), pp. 137-172
Contents:
- WHAT IS ‘WHE GAY PRIVILEGE’?
- THE WHE LOT KNOWS HOW TO SKEWER WHE GAY PRIVILEGE
- GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET
WHAT IS ‘WHE GAY PRIVILEGE’?
At the tersectn of race, genr and sexualy - is important to acknowledge the existence of 'whe gay privilege' LGBTQ+ spac. * gay white men priveldge *
Whe men who have experienced disadvantag the workplace – particularly when associated wh a social inty, such as beg gay or havg a disabily – are more likely to regnize disadvantag faced by others and to unrstand the privilege they enjoy as whe, acrdg to new Cornell rearch. And unfortunately, that's the same attu a lot of whe cisgenr gay men have. " Whe cis gay men have always been elevated to a higher stat than other members of their muny bee they're the most accepted and privileged society.
THE WHE LOT KNOWS HOW TO SKEWER WHE GAY PRIVILEGE
Whe men who have experienced disadvantag the workplace – particularly when associated wh a social inty, such as beg gay or havg a disabily – are more likely to regnize disadvantag faced by others and to unrstand the privilege they enjoy as whe. * gay white men priveldge *
)Mike Whe isn't aaid to hold back his skewerg of whe cis gay men or the other privileged characters.
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.
GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET
The jt-nclud HBO show tak aim at whe privilege and entlement general but don't spare whe cisgenr gay men. * gay white men priveldge *
What even do mean to say "gay culture"? 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.
An open letter to my fellow whe gay cis men: there should be no "returng to normal" after this. * gay white men priveldge *
(Prophetilly enough, Fire Island is where the climax of Faggots — Kramer's exriatn of "gay culture" — tak place. The panmic sentially shut down all of social gay culture, relievg me of prsur to participate .
Gay bars were shuttered and, unls you were beg a horribly irrponsible person, Grdr was no more. 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.
* gay white men priveldge *
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. "Gay culture" should learn the same lson: "back to normal" is not enough. 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).
Whe cis gay men like Pete Buttigieg have no shortage of privilege, but that don't make them Tucker Carlson. * gay white men priveldge *
Which of the gays do you want to be?
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. Larry Kramer didn't give a sh what people thought of him, particularly other gay men. 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.
So let's thk long and hard about how we've been choosg to live the fuckg bolt cutters, gays. “I Can’t Be Racist, I’m Gay” Explorg Queer Whe Men’s Views on Race and Racism on JSTOR.