'Knock at the Cab' and Its Convoluted Gay Polics: Review

Contents:

• ANTI-GAY BILL: THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE MATTER – TAKYIWAA MANUH ON DISMISSAL OF JUNCTN APPLITN
• IS BARBIE GAY AND WHY IS THE NEW MOVIE RATED PG-13?
• THE LAST OF US’ GEO GAY LOVE STORY COULD NOT BE MORE TIMELY
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE
• 'THE END OF EDDY' TELLS OF GROWG UP POOR AND GAY IN WORKG-CLASS FRANCE
• ‘THEY/THEM’ FILM REVIEW: SHARP SCRIPT GIV BE TO GAY-CONVERSN CAMP HORROR STORY
• THE END OF SAFE GAY SEX?
• GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT
• THE END OF GAY: AND THE DEATH OF HETEROSEXUALY
• THE END OF GAY CULTURE
• THE END OF GAY CULTURE
• 'KNOCK AT THE CAB’ PUTS GAY DADS THROUGH HELL AT THE END OF THE WORLD

ANTI-GAY BILL: THIS IS NOT THE END OF THE MATTER – TAKYIWAA MANUH ON DISMISSAL OF JUNCTN APPLITN

Among the members who ntributed to the bate was Mister of Lol Government, Decentralisatn and Rural Development Dan Botwe, who scribed as “madns” the activi of lbians, gays, bi-sexuals, and transgenr (LGBT) humans. What we got stead was a psule episo, and a particularly bracg one, given the show’s opprsively bleak mood th far: The hour is dited to the love story of Bill and Frank, a gay uple who—due ially to Bill’s skills as a bunker-stockg, booby-trappg, Don’t Tread on Me survivalist—manage to build a largely happy existence together an abandoned and eventually fortified ral hamlet for almost 20 years. Bill’s is not a “type” of gay man I n say I’ve ever seen mastream media before, and watchg him slowly reveal and epen that aspect of himself wh Frank’s help—sexually, y (Hollywood: more hairy bear love scen please!

IS BARBIE GAY AND WHY IS THE NEW MOVIE RATED PG-13?

Frank wants to fix up the block and some of the “not stupid” shops—the we and furnure stor, the clothg boutique—bee he hop they might one day have unfected guts (which they eventually do, the form of Joel and Ts), but really bee makg thgs nice, pecially when nicens isn’t valued, is one of the great gay llgs. As an echo of the gay experience wh AIDS, is, as veteran activist Peter Staley put a Facebook post, a ftg tribute to the “tenr love & bravery gay men summoned when facg ath durg the plague years, cludg those who did so on their own terms. A rash of laws ncerng the teachg of human sexualy school curricula, banng trans stunt athlet and strippg parents of the right to help their genr-variant children obta appropriate re have popped up numero red stat this same-sex marriage is now part of the fabric of Ameri, nservativ have chosen to explo Amerins’ unfaiary wh trans people and piggyback on parental anger over the perceived overreach of Covid-era school closur, nflatg wh an sid sense of “wokens”, the hop of fdg an electorally viable sluiceway for anti-LGBTQ+ most famo of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws is the piece of Florida legislatn banng stctn on sexual orientatn or genr inty schools between krgarten and third gra, the so-lled “don’t say gay” law.

THE LAST OF US’ GEO GAY LOVE STORY COULD NOT BE MORE TIMELY

He was followed by Arizona’s ernor, Doug Ducey, who, after barrg mors om genr-affirmatn treatment, wouldn’t even state for the rerd that trans people were Florida lawmaker Michele Rayner-Goolsby, left, hugs her wife, Bian Goolsby, durg a march at cy hall St Petersburg agast the ‘don’t say gay’ bill. Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Wire/Rex/ShutterstockPolicians are supported the media by mentators like Tucker Carlson, who claimed “no one had heard of this trans thg four years ago”, or Charlie Kirk, channelg 1980s fears sayg “gays want to rpt your children” rejuvenated, the right wg is poised to make transphobia and homophobia rnerston of the midterms and 2024 electns, wh promis to liver “don’t say gay” legislatn stat cludg Michigan and New Perks, the print of the Fay Rearch Council, a nservative lobbyg group, veighed agast the ernors of Indiana and Utah for vetog legislatn banng trans women om participatg sports, llg the bills “timely, mastream protectns”. The Republin US reprentative Marjorie Taylor Greene vowed to troduce a feral “don’t say gay” bill if Republins w the Hoe this November, only to one-up herself days later by tweetg that for people to be pro-trans is to be pro-pedophilia.

”The bs-iendly wg of the GOP that would quietly team up wh Democrats to scuttle rabidly homophobic bills is now outnumbered, and legislators a dozen or more stat that lean even farther to the right than DeSantis are takg, the Natnal Center for Lbian Rights legal director, believ Florida is the tt se for a renewed ph for an aggrsive, Christian-natnalist program. “I’ve seen this movie before over the last 30 years: The right wg cid to target the LGBTQ muny, whether ’s around marriage or adoptn or trans kids playg sports or bathrooms, ” says the California state senator Stt Wiener, who is gay.

“I thought was really important to ph back on the policy level, and to send a clear signal that California and other stat really re about the kids, ” he believ that “don’t say gay” is “patently unnstutnal” but also ntends that relyg on the judicial system to protect human rights may no longer be a sound optn. Stori on TV featurg queer characters are routely mishandled, givg rise to the “Bury Your Gays” trope where queer stori are plagued wh unwarranted pa and ath, so ’s rehg that The Last of Us shows don’t have to be that outbreak ed massive loss of life and stctn across the world, but for Bill, who adms a letter to Joel that at one pot he hated the world and was happy everyone died, the zombie apolypse is a eeg experience. Episo 3 director Peter Hoar and wrer Craig Maz get pots for tellg an excellent story that looks at the zombie apolypse genre through a queer lens, showg how would uniquely (and unexpectedly) affect a closeted gay man, but they go one further by learng om mistak ma by other shows.

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

Veteran screenwrer John Logan mak his directorial but wh “They/Them, ” a Blumhoe horror movie set a gay nversn mp, and his formidable screenwrg prows is what really sets this picture apart om others the horror genre. Illtratn by Jefey Henson Sl; photograph by Classen Rafae/EyeEm, via Getty ImagJune is Pri Month, a ripe time to reflect on one of the most startlg facts about our sexual culture today: Condom e is all but disappearg among large numbers of gay rightly attribute the ndom’s cle to the rise of PrEP — an acronym for pre-exposure prophylaxis, a two-dg cktail that oculat a person om ntractg H. But another ccial ponent is the fadg memory of the AIDS crisis that once fed what meant to be trackg the sexual practic of 17, 000 gay and bisexual Atralian men om 2014 to 2017, a team of rearchers this month unveiled the most nvcg evince to date.

THE LAST OF US LETS GAY LOVE FLOURISH THE APOLYPSE

Rat, however) than the specific public-health risks of clg ndom e among gay men is the shockg speed wh which a sort of historil amnia has set very ia of “safe sex” emerged om the gay muny the early 1980s, rponse to the AIDS crisis. The 1970s were a time of unprecented sexual eedom for gay men, durg which diseas were trad rampantly, fueled by a liberte culture that saw penicill as the panacea for all nonchalant dismissal of the ndom today fli the face of the very culture of sexual health that gay men and lbians nstcted the 1980s. Over the last 40 years, Altman - until recently profsor of polics at La Trobe Universy (he is now a profsorial fellow) - has been a prolific thor, publishg a novel, a memoir and a range of other books on homosexualy, AIDS and the polics of social change.

Altman’s new book tak s tle om the fal chapter of his 1971 classic which he posed the birth of a future “new human”, so fortable wh fluid unrstandgs of sex, sexualy and genr that rigid bari such as gay and straight would no longer be necsary or helpful.

But what are we to make of a world which has a pro-marriage equaly US print but an creasgly homophobic Rsian lear; a world where legal impediments to homosexual behavur have been removed most of the wtern world but where lbian and gay young people still acunt for a larger portn of suici risks than their peers? And Christopher Chty’s Sexual Hegemony: Statecraft, Sodomy, and Capal the Rise of the World System, an amb retellg of the history of palism through the polics of gay sex, has arrived jt time to help dissua of that ia. One of the most fluential entri remas Gee Chncey’s study of gay life New York Cy before the Send World War, where he showed that workg-class and bourgeois ways of thkg about gay sex overlapped, renrg the distctn between homosexualy and heterosexualy que poro well to the twentieth century.

'THE END OF EDDY' TELLS OF GROWG UP POOR AND GAY IN WORKG-CLASS FRANCE

Popular anger at broar forms of disposssn uld be vented through stutns like the Office of the Night to punish the rich, and the lg class uld also strategilly reprs cultur of sex between men to rega ntrol over public sentiment (whout any threat that gay cultur would actually be elimated). 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.

) 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. 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.

‘THEY/THEM’ FILM REVIEW: SHARP SCRIPT GIV BE TO GAY-CONVERSN CAMP HORROR STORY

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. 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.

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.

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. 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. At the lol and natnal levels, the number of openly gay policians creased dramatilly durg the 1990s and 2000s, and 2009 Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir beme prime mister of Iceland, which ma her the world’s first openly gay head of ernment.

THE END OF SAFE GAY SEX?

In Ai, Asia, and Lat Ameri, openly gay policians have had only limed succs wng office; notable electns to natnal legislatur clud Patria Jiménez Flor Mexi (1997), Mike Waters South Ai (1999), and Clodovil Hernans Brazil (2006). Other issu of primary importance for the gay rights movement sce the 1970s clud batg the HIV/AIDS epimic and promotg disease preventn and fundg for rearch; lobbyg ernment for nondiscrimatory polici employment, hog, and other aspects of civil society; endg the ban on ary service for gay and lbian dividuals; expandg hate crim legislatn to clu protectns for gays, cludg transgenr dividuals; and securg marriage rights for same-sex upl (see same-sex marriage). Ary’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (1993–2011), which had permted gay and lbian dividuals to serve the ary if they did not disclose their sexual orientatn or engage homosexual activy; the repeal effectively end the ban on homosexuals the ary.

As well as proposg a much funkier, groovier attu towards you've ever thought 's odd how football jocks shower together, oggle each other's nads, throw sexual nuendos at each other and then homophobilly assert their absolute "straightns" (or if you've ever seen parallels between the hypocrisy/extremism of a gay pri para, and that of an anti-gay fay-valu march) then this is the book to read. Reviewed the Uned Stat on Febary 28, 2008In a world where genr is not two bary extrem but a seri of gradatns, and where sex, love, domticy and romance often occupy different nich the life of one dividual, "gay" and "straight" as scriptors of someone's sex life don't work any more (if they ever did).

By layg bare the shaky and self-ntradictory foundatns upon which the morn gay and lbian movements are laid, he threatens some very eply-cherished and tightly-clung-to beliefs, such as the notn of homosexualy as a born and unchangeable tra, the necsy of dividg humany to homosexual and heterosexual, and the importance of a gay culture. It has long attracted artists, wrers, the offbeat, and the bohemian; and, for many years now, has been to gay Ameri what Oak Bluffs Martha’s Veyard is to black Ameri: a place where a separate inty sentially f a separate place. Men and women gather on the beach, drk ffee on the ont porch of a store, or meet at the Film Ftival or Spir, of urse, week after week this summer, uple after uple got married—well over a thoand the year and a half sce gay marriage has been legal Massachetts.

GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT

East Village bohemians drift throughout the summer; quiet male upl spend more time browsg gourmet groceri and realtors than cisg nightspots; the predictable populatn of artists and wrers—Michael Cunngham and John Waters are fixtur—mix wh openly gay lawyers and ps and teachers and but unmistakably, gay culture is endg. This was the era of the post-Stonewall New Left, of the Castro and the Wt Village, an era where sexualy fed a new meang for gayns: of sexual adventure, polil radilism, and cultural fact that openly gay muni were still relatively small and geographilly ncentrated a handful of urban areas created a distctive gay culture.

Popular culture was suffed wh stunng displays of homosexual burlque: the mic of Queen, the stum of the Village People, the flamboyance of Elton John’s but; the advertisg of Calv Kle; and the toxitn of dis self, a gay creatn that beme emblematic of an entire heterosexual era. And those gay men and lbians who wnsed this entire event beme altered forever, not only emotnally, but also polilly—whether through the theatril activism of Act-Up or the fur anizatn of polil gays among the Democrats and some Republins.

More ccially, gay men and lbians built civil stutns to unter the disease; they fed new ti to scientists and policians; they found themselv forced to more tense relatns wh their own natural fai and the fai of loved on. Unls the gay populatn was tied to the broar society; unls had roots the wir world; unls brought to s fold the heterosexual fai and iends of gay men and women, the gay populatn would rema at the mercy of others and of misfortune. A ghetto was no longer an, when the plague reced the face of far more effective HIV treatments the mid-’90s and gay men and women were able to tch their breath and reflect, the qutn of what a more tegrated gay culture might actually mean reemerged.

THE END OF GAY: AND THE DEATH OF HETEROSEXUALY

If the image of gay men for my generatn was one gleaned om the movie Cisg or, subsequently, Torch Song Trilogy, the image for the next one was MTV’s “Real World, ” Bravo’s “Queer Eye, ” and Richard Hatch wng the first “Survivor.

THE END OF GAY CULTURE

Even more dramatilly, gays went om havg to fd hidn meang mastream films—somehow intifyg wh the agg, mpy female lead a way the rt of the culture missed—to everyone, gay and straight, regnizg and beg on the joke of a character like “Big Gay Al” om “South Park” or Jack om “Will & Grace. So is the spokman for the most anti-gay senator Congrs, Rick new tolerance and tegratn—bed, of urse, wh the creased abily to nnect wh other gay people that the Inter provis—has undoubtedly enuraged more and more gay people to e out.

If you pare data om, say, the 1994 Natnal Health and Social Life Survey wh the 2002 Natnal Survey of Fay Growth, you will fd that women are nearly three tim more likely to report beg gay, lbian, or bisexual today than they were eight years ago, and men are about 1. Unlike Lato or Jewish or black muni, where parents and grandparents and siblgs pass on cultural norms to children their most formative stag, each generatn of gay men and lbians grows up beg tght the heterosexual norms and culture of their home environments or absorbg what pass for their gay inty om the broar culture as a whole.

From the very begng of their gay liv, other words, they will have ternalized a sense of normaly, of human potential, of self-worth—somethg that my generatn never had and that prev generatns would have found unimagable. When I vised recently to talk about that very subject, the preppy, nservative stunt print was openly you be this generatnal plasticy wh swift mographic growth, you have our current explosn of gay civil society, wh a disproportnately young age distributn. The gay anizatns that epted to beg as aids killed thoands the ‘80s—om the Gay Men’s Health Crisis to the aids Project Los Angel to the Whman-Walker Clic Washgton—stggled to adapt to the swift change the epimic the mid-’90s.

THE END OF GAY CULTURE

” The newer gay bars are more social than sexual, often wh rtrants, open wdows onto the street, and a welg attu toward others, pecially the many urban straight women who fd gay bars more ngenial than heterosexual pickup gay polil anizatns often functn more as social groups than as angry activist groups. ” Tryg to fe “gay culture” this mix is an creasgly elive lbians, Ellen DeGener’s transn om closeted s star to out-lbian activist and back to appealgly middle-brow daytime talk-show host is almost a microsm of diversifyg lbian inty the past .

And this, after all, is and was the pot of gay liberatn: the eedom not merely to be gay acrdg to some preordaed type, but to be yourself, whatever that see this even drag, which once fed gayns some rpects but now is only one of many exprsns. The tired emblems of the past—the rabow flags and leather outfs—retaed their relevance same go for black and Lato culture, where homophobia, propped up by black church and the Catholic hierarchy rpectively, is more tense than much of whe society.

'KNOCK AT THE CAB’ PUTS GAY DADS THROUGH HELL AT THE END OF THE WORLD

The directn toward tegratn is clear, but the pace is far, when you see the ternalized fensivens of gays still livg the shadow of social hostily, any nostalgia one might feel for the loss of gay culture dissipat. If the end of gay culture means that we have a new plexy to grapple wh and a new, ls cramped humany to embrace, then regret seems almost a rebe to those untls generatns who uld only dream of the liberty so many now ty, rich space that gay men and women once created for themselv was, after all, the bt they uld do.