When I first came out, around age 19 in the mid-1970s, several older gay gentlemen that I knew took it upon themselves to teach me what they called “the ropes.”
“Which woman do you want to be?” they asked me.
My choices were Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Tallulah Bankhead, Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland. Looking back, all these years later, I now see that I was being taught to emulate women–great Hollywood stars to be sure–who had severe substance abuse issues. None of them had ever enjoyed a successful, lasting relationship. Two of them, Marilyn and Judy, are now known to have been mentally ill. Yet my elders insisted that, as gay men, they were what we were “supposed” to be.
If anyone ever asked me to name the most mean spirited “bitchy queen” I ever knew, it would no doubt be Jeffrey, someone I was acquainted with during those early years. Jeffrey’s “hobby,” for lack of a better term, was to break up other people’s relationships, which he did through manipulative lies and vicious gossip mongering–watch any episode of Dynasty and you’ll see Jeffrey’s techniques.
I recall one night, around 1977, when Jeffrey had literally torn a once loving gay couple apart. He sat in his easy chair, smirking joyously over what he had just done. He wasn’t smoking his cigarette, he was posing with it, while his many gay male enablers congratulated him on a job well done. (”Oh, Miss Thing. Aren’t you fabulous!! You sure know how to work it, girl.”)
For the next twenty years, I met one Jeffrey after another. For awhile, I too, was a Jeffrey. It was all I knew. It was what I had been taught.
Around 1999 I began to realize what some of us were turning into. That year I traveled to Crystal City, Virginia, to attend Fanex, an annual convention that celebrated classic horror films, my guilty pleasure. Fanex had nothing to do with gay rights or gay culture, yet many of the gay men I encountered there behaved as though they were at a circuit party. Like Jeffrey, they spread as many vicious, false rumors as they could. They made it clear that it was beneath them to speak to one another, doing everything they could to make a public performance out of their behavior. These actions were unprovoked, yet no less than two gay attendees cited “gay pride” as the reasoning behind the actions. Heterosexual attendees at Fanex, who were there to talk about their favorite horror movies and weren’t even thinking about who was gay and who wasn’t, were appalled.
For the first time in my life, I became acutely aware of how the choices of some of us were making us look to other communities.
I began conducting informal interviews with gay and straight people that I knew, to see what others had to say about this.
“As much as I enjoy the ‘entertainment value’ of bitchy queen behavior, it smacks of the Stockholm Syndrome, where victims identify with the oppressor and victimize members of the group they belong to. I think it’s unfortunate,” said Eileen Farrar, a straight woman from upstate New York.
Openly gay South Florida resident Phil La Padula wasn’t as kind. Phil expressed his disgust with the rude attitude that he says far too many LGBTs routinely inflict on each other, and with how a lot of LGBTs attack those in the community who don’t toe the “party line.”
La Padula, former editor of Fort Lauderdale’s Express Gay News, (he now teaches journalism at a community college) has strong words for celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, who recently sparred publicly with former Miss California Carrie Prejean over the Marriage Equality issue.
“By calling Ms Prejean a ‘dumb bitch’ in a public forum, Perez lit up the anti-gay blogs and undermined the cause he supposedly champions. People like him are a big part of what’s wrong with the gay community.”
Hilton did receive some criticism from LGBTs for his choice of words regarding Ms. Prejean. His response: “I don’t care if you don’t like me. I just care if you still read my website.” MSNBC reports that for all his pursuits, Hilton keeps his goal simple: media domination. “I want to be like Oprah, only bigger.”
Phil La Padula says he’s grown weary of the kind of arrogance shown by Hilton and others like him, and of the community’s incessant infighting. “I saw gay activists viciously shout down other members of the gay community at public meetings,” he reports.
San Francisco resident Alfonso Chinea has a far more disturbing story to tell. When Larry, his partner of seven years, died unexpectedly of a massive coronary, Chinea turned to New Leaf, a gay mental health clinic, looking for grief counseling. It was only a few days after Larry’s death, yet New Leaf gave the bereaved survivor a cold brush off, refusing to give him a referral. Larry’s body was barely cold, yet New Leaf didn’t even ask Chinea if he was OK.
He describes New Leaf’s attitude as “a kick in the stomach,” and points out that a person weaker than he might have committed suicide.
Says Chinea: “While I think many gay men forty and up suffer from a kind of post traumatic stress disorder due to our experiences of the 80s and 90s in dealing with the AIDS pandemic, I don’t see how that justifies the rampant bad treatment that so many of us take for granted.”
Chinea offers an explanation I’d heard before–LGBTs are “damaged.” It certainly makes sense when one considers how many of us have been treated by family, by religion, and by the world as a whole. But does that justify the behavior we all too often accord each other?
I found myself thinking back to Sol and Shirley, our neighbors from my 1960s childhood in Brooklyn, New York. Sol and Shirley met in Europe at a Nazi concentration camp–their ID numbers were still tattooed on their arms. Both were the sole surviving members of their families. The first time I ever heard of the Holocaust, it was from Shirley and Sol.
Shirley was my Mom’s best friend during those years, and I spent a lot of time with Shirley’s three children. Outside of their immediate family, they had no relatives. Everyone else had been murdered by the Nazis.
When you were in Shirley or Sol’s presence, you could see the hurt in their eyes. The horrors they endured was burned deep inside their souls. Like those of us who survived the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, they had seen people die all around them.
But unlike some of us, Shirley and Sol never took their anger out on anyone. Not on each other, not on their children, nor on the new community they had found in Brooklyn. All things considered, they had a great marriage, and a terrific little family. There was a deep sadness in them, but they chose to make the best of their new lives and treated everyone with the utmost respect, kindness and courtesy.
I last saw their family in the early 1980s, soon after Shirley had died of cancer. The connection I had with them was gone: Shirley and Sol’s children had become ultra-Orthodox Jews, while I had since come out. There was nowhere for that friendship to go. But even then, they treated me with a level of courtesy and civility that I’d rarely seen in the LGBT community.
Shirley and Sol made a choice as to how they would interact with other people. We have the power to make that same choice, but all too few of us have. Are our choices serving us well? Are they creating LGBT unity? Are we helping or hindering our cause?
Lourita Butler, a straight San Franciscan, voted No on Prop 8, and says she would do so again. “No matter what, I will always vote for equality,” she says. But she’s not happy with the “bitchy queen/angry dyke” mentality that she sees. “This kind of behavior makes me less likely to show up and actively support LGBT causes,” she says. “I think that behavior makes those who are against gay rights feel justified in their stands. A person’s sexuality never justifies rudeness.”
These are powerful words, coming from a woman who supports our cause. My brief interview with Lourita brought back memories of ACT-UP and Queer Nation, two activist groups that attracted a good deal of attention during the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s. ACT-UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, raised hell, demanding increased funding and compassion for people with AIDS. Queer Nation was going to deal with the many other discrimination and bias issues we routinely faced.
In 1988 I attended two meetings with each group. I was horrified by the screaming, cursing, and name calling that attendees were hurling at each other. At one point, I stood up at the Queer Nation meeting and stated that I was there to fight for housing and job security, not to listen to abusive tirades. I was booed for speaking up, so I left. I had nothing further to do with either group.
ACT-UP, bless them, did accomplish a number of good things, until they became so fragmented that they lost their influence before the job was done. By 1990 they were attacking each other and other members of their own community. As I recall, Queer Nation’s SF chapter barely lasted a year and didn’t get a single thing done.
We needed organizations like ACT-UP and Queer Nation. Huge numbers of us were dying of AIDS, and our government didn’t care. Rev. Jerry Falwell and Rev. Pat Robertson referred to the disease as “God’s wrath.” Robertson and Pat Buchanan both made their opposition to gay equality the primary platform of their Presidential bids.
Looking back, it’s sad to think of how much further along we might be in the struggle for acceptance and equality if those groups had found a way to work together.
In the Fall of 2008, shortly after the passage of Prop 8 in California, The Advocate ran a cover story titled: Gay is the New Black. It did not make me happy to read that thousands and thousands of LGBTs were complaining that they had tried to get involved in the No on 8 campaign. Many now say they were ignored and shut out of a campaign they had hoped to support
Then I spoke to Jayna Pavlin, a transgender college professor in the Bay Area. Pavlin reports that many trans people felt unwelcome when campaigning for marriage equality. “None of us is able to achieve our goals and rights without the support of others,” Pavlin said. “When we denigrate other identities, we hinder our own progress.”
Little has changed, from my perspective, since the ACT-UP/Queer Nation days. We’re not working together, nor are we supporting each other, as much as we can and should. And we’re not very polite about it, either.
Again I harken back to Shirley and Sol, the Holocaust survivors who had as much reason to be angry and bitter as we did. Shirley and Sol chose civility. Many of us have not, and I question whether or not we’re better off for it.
Bev Greene and Jay Miller are heterosexual San Franciscans (they’re not a couple). Both voted No on Prop 8, and both said they support full equality for LGBT people. But both have said that, at times, they found the behavior they see in the community to be off putting.
“I think that gay rights is an important issue,” says Jay. “I feel that people are using the fact that they’re gay and living in San Francisco to be rude. I understand the issue and sympathize, but I don’t want to be guilted or bullied into doing something about it.”
Bev offered this: “No matter how kind and open I try to be, I get nastiness and attitude. I don’t take it personally, and it certainly doesn’t effect my feelings toward gay and lesbian people in general. But I am certain that for those who have less experience in the gay community, this sort of behavior has a profound effect.”
These comments come from people who already support our cause. We don’t need to convince them to vote in favor of our rights, they’re already convinced. But as they point out, the bitchy queen/angry dyke mentality isn’t going to convince the fence sitters to support us. Rather, it will have the opposite effect, and without those votes, we lose.
But let’s also take a look at what this kind of behavior does to our own people. Let’s be honest about what we’re doing: hurting each other.
On a personal level, I know how badly I’ve been hurt by the treatment accorded to me from other LGBTs. There are times when I got so angry about it I ranted and raved almost incoherently. Other times I just cried.
In the recent past, I needed the community’s help after being subjected to some anti-gay bias. By a 90% margin, people who claim to be gay activists and journalists told me they didn’t care and that I should stop being “co-dependent” and “get over it.” I still hear that on a daily basis. I’m an out gay man, yet I’ve come to feel that I have no community, that the community doesn’t want me. The emptiness I feel is indescribable.
No less than TWO founder Wayne Besen addressed this on page 267 of his ground-breaking book Anything But Straight.
“We can’t completely dismiss the negative experiences of ex-gays whose ill treatment in our community helped make them vulnerable to the empty promises of ex gay groups,” Besen wrote. “There is a grain of truth to some of their stories, and we ought to listen to what they are saying.”
“In fact, many people who enter the ex-gay ministries are not getting their legitimate needs met in the GLBT community,” Besen continues. “They are treated poorly, cast aside, and by the time they cross paths with ex-gay leaders, they are truly receptive to their warm smiles and promises of unconditional love.”
And so, it may be time for us, as we look back upon Pride 2009, to do some serious soul-searching. Do we want a real community? Do we want to win our battles?
I ache and yearn for those things more than I can say. And so, if my words have moved you in any way, I would ask each of you to spend at least part of your time smiling at each other, and welcoming each other into the community, irregardless of race, gender or sexual preference. Let’s leave our attitude at the door and listen to each other’s stories. Let’s care about each other, and be there for each other.
If we’re not there for our fellow LGBTs, then who will be?
I can put it no better than this quote I got from Giuseppe Salamone, a young man who works with the Golden Gate Business Association, the Bay Area’s LGBT chamber of commerce: “After Prop 8, which tore our community apart, I really think that now is the time for the queer community to build each other up and not tear each other down.”
Amen.
Peace and love to all.
David Alex Nahmod lives in San Francisco. Visit him at DavidsOpenForum.Blogspot.com.
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Dear Alex,
Thank you for that piece. It is something that not only myself but a few other folks in Columbia have been feeling.
We notice how even at pride events, members of our community behave like they are at a club; housed in their little cliques working on leaving people out rather than inviting them in.
That’s a major reason why I intensely disliked that show “Queer As Folk” because it seemed to put such nasty behavior on a pedestal.
Really though I think it is an effect of how the oppression of society has shaped us. Lgbts are not alone in this.
Some of the problems in the African-American community (i.e. physical and mental health, dietary habits. etc.) can be traced back slavery, segregation and other forms of racism.
In that same way, this nasty behavior of some in the lgbt community is the result of how we had to deal and still have to deal with homophobia. We put so many walls up psychologically because we are afraid of the isolation and the rejection we receive by some for our sexual orientation.
It just goes to show that getting our rights will mean that only half the work will be done for our people. We have a long way to go.
Comment by a. mcewen — July 1, 2009 @ 8:10 pm
This is a good and very necessary article. I remember Wayne’s book stating that those who exited the ex-gay movement lamented that at least in the ex-gay community they could always get a hug from another Christian. He called for gays to even reach out to those who didn’t look like Brad Pitt. A novel idea.
I’m an angry person, but I’d like to think that that is a result of my being born so serious (no really just ask my mother or look at my baby pictures) and not my being gay.
Comment by Emily K — July 1, 2009 @ 9:00 pm
Alex-
Thank you for writing that. I’ve noticed the same lack of civility and have largely withdrawn from participating in many gay functions as a result.
I appreciate your call to treat each other with the love and respect we deserve as human beings even when we disagree.
God bless you!
Rick
Comment by Rick Brentlinger — July 1, 2009 @ 11:30 pm
Thanks, folks.
Besides showing more love and tolerance for each other, I hope that more people will speak up as I did.
We can turn this around by demanding a better community, and by not giving the “bitchy queens/angry dykes” a free pass to abuse/reject the rest of us.
Please feel free to link, repost, and republish this piece where ever you like.
Let’s get a new movement going!
Comment by David Alex Nahmod — July 2, 2009 @ 11:48 am
Hi,
Just writing this to commend David for this piece….the incident he cites about me is true.
As fragmented as our community seems, there is much hope…we can maintain our diversity…we just have to make manners, common sense and reason fashionable again….
Take care,
Alfonso
Comment by Alfonso — July 2, 2009 @ 1:55 pm
Wow, so you claim that the whole gay community is fragmented and abusive solely on the basis of the scant evidence you presented above.
Seriously?
Okay. While it is possible (though unlikely) that all that you recounted actually happened, with all due respect, do you think that just because some people were rude to your or not interested in you, that they weren’t actually abusive hatemongers? Perhaps they just didn’t like you or thought you were creepy for whatever reason. As an out lesbian, I can tell you clear a the night time sky that we must have been living in different gay worlds! Because the world i live all of us LGBs are opening. (i didn’t include T because I don’t see what wanting to change your gender has to do with sexual orientation.)
Honeslty, hun, it sounds like you threw a hissy fit and quit after some very limited experience in one or two gay groups. Also, with all due respect, I find some of your examples to be lacking credibility, and even if they were true, they are hardly representative of the gay community at large.
The gay community is not some organization. It’s not the mafia. it’s not the government. It really doesn’t even exist. There is no one gay community. There are people who share a sexual orientation, but that doesn’t bind them together with shared cultural experiences. There are many different types of gays and different gay groups. There are many different communities (many different ones), but there is not one single united gay community in the United States. Your desire to change something that doesn’t actually exist would be app laudable if it wasn’t so SAD.
Honestly, hun, do you think the ridiculous evidence you present actually convinces anyone that there is a widespread problem of bitchy queenism and abusiveness in the gay community? Some of your quotes even read like you wrote them yourself. poor jouranlistic skills
Sorry, but some of the gays you describe in there sound like bad caricatures. And the Holocaust survivors? Why are they even included in this piece? it doesn’t seem appropriate, and it is so out there that it further strains the little credibility you have as a author.
Comment by Lynn Hayes — July 4, 2009 @ 6:26 am
Lynn: you aren’t just invalidating my experiences.
You’re ignoring the experiences of the people I interviewed and the others who posted comments.
People like you telling us that our experiences don’t count is a big part of why there’s “no community.”
You comment “perhaps they didn’t like you or thought you were creepy” is typical of the kind of talk that so many of us take “pride” in~~it’s juvenile and it’s the primary reason there’s “no community”.
A lot of us yearn for a community and are speaking up.
Lynn: I included the “Ts” because they’re human beings. If you “didn’t include the Ts” then you’re a big part of our divisness~~read Jayna Pavlin’s comment.
I hope you will look deep in your heart
and think about the pain a lot of us are in. I hope you’ll stop adding to that pain and learn to welcome everyone.
Comment by David Alex Nahmod — July 4, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
Here’s an article from this week’s San Francico Bay Times:
http://www.sfbaytimes.com/?sec=article&article_id=10995
In his story: You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Forum’s About You, author Tom Orr addresses the same topic as I~~exclusion of each other in the LGBT community.
Orr’s piece, and Gay is the New Black from The Advocate, would seem to indicate that I’m far from the only voice on this issue.
Comment by David Alex Nahmod — July 4, 2009 @ 12:33 pm
David’s article did not smear all LGBT communities or individuals as fragmented and abusive.
But if the shoe fits, Lynn, wear it.
Many self-described “ex-gays” complain that they fled gay communities after they sought support but found cliques, castes, in-groups, and gossipers. These characteristics are NOT representative of LGBT people or communities as a whole, but they are prevalent enough to have made people like Perez Hilton both familiar and accepted when perhaps they shouldn’t be.
As David noted, the in-grouping and gratuitous incivility toward potential allies also hinders our progress toward equality. It’s one thing to emphatically oppose and actively disrupt the barbarism of far-right theocrats — but it’s quite another matter for California’s gay leaders to dismiss entire demographic groups and geographic regions during a ballot campaign because they’re not part of the “in” crowd.
How might we ensure that people with personal struggles receive the support they need — not ostracism — while recognizing that we are diverse communities with little in common? I think one answer lies in improved support for organizations that make a positive difference.
I was struck by the number of attendees at Pride events this year. It was wonderful to see thousands of diverse people gather and have a great time. But if each of these people had given $100 — the cost of a nice dinner for two, or a fraction of the cost of an iPhone — to a local LGBT organization this year, then our local community groups might not be facing staff shortages, unpaid bills, and frayed nerves. Lack of money, staff shortages and frayed nerves result in cranky or non-existent client support and unmet mental-health and spiritual needs. They also prevent advocacy groups from launching campaigns for equality and justice nearly as often as needed.
Freedom’s enemies among the religious right routinely “tithe” 5 percent or more of their income to churches that wage social and political war against liberal Christians, agnostics, and people of other faiths. LGBT communities have not been nearly as philanthropic. This is, in part, why Focus on the Family alone has a larger annual budget than all national, state, and local LGBT groups combined.
Comment by Mike Airhart — July 4, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
Dave: I honestly don’t find all your interviews that credible, and even if they were all legit and not made up, the fact remains it is a very poor sampling of gay people at large. The very few examples you cite are not nearly enough evidence.
Again, there is no united, single gay community, any more so than there is a heterosexual community! There may be different groups of gays…gay rights activist, AIDS activists, log cabin Republicans, bikers, club kids, San Francisco gay mental health advocates, hardcore gay movie fans, but they are not all united as one gay community. Your kind of thinking about the “gay community” being this grand, shared heritage is typical of most older gay men, but it just aint so. Perhaps if you believe there are certain gay communitIES that have problems, you should try to solve them on a smaller scale. To just boldly say the entire “gay community” is flawed and the way you describe it is laughable.
You also need to get with the times. The gay queens you quoted talking about joan crawford and going “fabulous” are so dated as to seem like ludacrous caricatures from a movie!
Ask yourself as a 50+ older gay man in San Francisco do you really think you have many shared cultural experiences with much younger gays living in different parts of the country that hold different beliefs and were raised differently? Do you realy think you can walk into a room and be “a community” with a stranger you have never met whose background may be entirely different? Being gay is not hte same as being black before civil rights where you were either a slave or faced great civil rights persecutions. those people had a shared cultural experience, every second of their day. even today, many blacks don’t have that, since so much of the civil rights abuses have been eliminated, but they have the legacy of their heritage. Being gay or lesbian is different. For many people it is no different than being straight except who you do it with in bed. For some there is persecution (even a lot), but i think they are definitely in the minority! and it is a choice if you are an in your face gay who declares it loudly to everyone. who you are in bed with i think is not that important in day to day exchanges. i am not so insecure in my own persoanl identity that i have to proclaim it to all and thus many think i am straight unless i have my girlfriend with me. So do people like me who are not persecuted every day or part of some larger group have a shared cultural experienced cus of our sexual orientation? Not at all.
Just because you have had some bad examples in your life, don’t believe the whole gay community is like that. i am sure you can find some specific examples where what you described has happened. Certainly it has happened many times. But those are SPECIFIC instances, happening at certain times and places. prop 8 in CA for instance. Do you think that represents gay people in North Dakota or Alabama? Do some even know what prop 8 is?
I realize that a lot of T’s are gay or bi (most in fact), but I think it is more of a mental illness in most cases, and in the cases where it is not (people are biological hermaphradites, intersex people and want to change their outward gender), I don’t think it is really the same thing at all as sexual orientation. I think including deluded men or women that want to become something they are not only HURTS gay rights and gay acceptance. i don’t have a problem with people who are mentally ill like T’s changing their identity, any more than I have a problem with an obsessive compulsive person washing their hands 100 times a day. Its their life and they can do what they want, but as a lesbian i am shamed by having to be associated with those kinds of people that have nothing to do with my life.
~Lynn
Proud to be a Lesbian but Secure in My Self
Mike ~ Perez is a millionaire gossip blogger. his business is to provoke controversy with gossip. he is hardly representative.
Comment by Lynn Hayes — July 4, 2009 @ 2:03 pm
Lynn, regarding your last paragraph –
Much of the public doesn’t know that, because too many people don’t emphatically and publicly disagree with his publicity stunts. In their minds and in the small minds of the journalists who cover him, he speaks for gay activists — and few people have set the record straight.
Comment by Michael Airhart — July 4, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
David’s ultimate point was that the various LGBT communities must try harder to bridge disagreements and to collaborate.
Not to act as a single 1970s-style gay ghetto (Lynn’s idea of a “community”), but to act maturely and communicate with civility, much as different neighborhoods in a large city must do. Neighborhoods that care for and empower their weak and disadvantaged tend to be healthy; those that don’t, become uncomfortable places to live, places that people flee if someone else offers the illusion of something better.
Comment by Michael Airhart — July 4, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
Thanks, Michael.
Considering how hard the Far Right works to take our civil liberties away, it’s sad to see Lynn, and others like her, refusing to work towards a more cohesive
community.
Whether you’re an L, G, B or T, we’re all fighting for the same rights~~we need each other.
Comment by David Alex Nahmod — July 4, 2009 @ 2:22 pm
Most likely the experiences listed are true and specific to those listed, but they are not my experiences. I think this has more to do with the large communities and cliques that happen any time you have a lot of similiar people.
Younger gay people do not see to fit into this example, and my experience is completely foreign to this. I have long been open and out (20 years), but my spouse and I do not attend pride parades anymore or do anything that is particularly part of the gay community as a whole. This has nothing to do with a problem with the gay community. In fact, if anything, most people I have met are extremely kind, thoughtful, and well-adjusted. It is just as I have gotten older, I realize I do not need the community for support. I suspect that a huge percentage of the gay community is like me (and it may be well over 50%). The younger gay people do not seem to have this “bitchy” quality that is mentioned. There are always exceptions, but the article is completely different than my exprience.
Comment by Aaron — July 4, 2009 @ 3:48 pm
I dont have a problem with deluded people like Lynn, no more than I have a problem with people who eat their own feces. Its her life and she can do what she wants but I dont wanna be associated with someone so mentally ill they think they like the same sex.
^a big heap of sarcasm. I’ll be a lesbian after the surgery and I’d like to thank her for reminding me gays can be just as bigoted and ignorant as anyone from focus on the family.
Comment by Penguinsaur — July 4, 2009 @ 5:13 pm
I believe David’s article doesn’t give due credit to community groups and individuals in the Northeast Corridor and New England (where I live) that have successfully collaborated to achieve marriage equality or partnership rights.
Nor does it give credit to communities where gay youths, young adults, and elders are adequately supported and included, so that defense mechanisms such as bitchy-queen behavior and in-groups are unnecessary.
Various people tell me that San Francisco, West Hollywood, and Miami are particularly image-conscious and unpleasant places to be gay. Why that might be, I have no clue.
Comment by Michael Airhart — July 4, 2009 @ 8:00 pm
Hun, I didn’t mean to spoil your pudding before it finished cooking. You know, maybe being a T isn’t a mental illness. i know some cultures believe there are as many as five different types of genders. I am not an expert on those matters. Like I said, I don’t have a problem with T’s having surgeries and changing their outward appearance. But I don’t believe it has anything to do with sexual orientation. Gender expression, whether you are a hermphrodite, intersex, a drag queen, or a full blown FTM or MTF in transition…those are all nice and dandy. Whether it you are biologically both male and female and want to switch, or whether it is just a “feeling” you have that you are really something else…i say, go for it, if it makes you happy! But again it has nothing to do with sexual orientation, and it does shame me to be classed with those kinds of people. i find it uncomfortable. and honestly if we are classed with those kinds of people, it will only delay acceptance of gays and slow the process of gaining more gay rights.
Sorry to be blunt, but I do believe that if there is not a biological basis for you to somehow be both male and female (there are many such people), that it is a mental illness. Be what you want to be with gender expression! be a man and wear a dress or be a girl and dress like a man, but to cut up your body so you can call yourself something you are not seems deluded and a waste of money. everything that a man and a woman is in this society is a collection of things that have accumulated over thousands of years of shared cultural experiences. in a parallel universe, with entirely different experiences, a man might act and carry himself in the same way that a woman does in today’s world, and that might be what it is to be masculine. those are things that society has told us that a man or a woman is. it is not hardwired in yoru brain to want to have those traits. it is a result of nuturing…the environment you grow up in….it is not your inborn nature. So, if you want to be like a woman, i say have the courage to wear a dress and be what you want to be. But don’t cut up and mutilate your body to pretend to be another sex. You are what you are….do what you want for gender expression.
Lynn Hayes
A Lesbian who is Not Afraid to Speak the Truth
Comment by Lynn Hayes — July 5, 2009 @ 3:45 am
Oh and Aaron, i think we are on the same playing field, hun. i think probably most gay groups are fairly well-adjusted . It may be possible David really did encounter all the negativity he did, but to be blunt, it sounds more like a persecution-complex on his part or wanting to lash out at people who didn’t accept him at a movie convention. i personaly hvae been in a number of different groups, and i have found people to be mostly accepting, and have not seen the kind of behavior he speaks about. i have had some bad experiences too, but those are isolated, and every kind of group has them.
there just isn’t this big bad gay-hate-on-other-gays epidemic that david would like us to believe. it just doesn’t exist any more than the 1970’s “gay ghetto” community (thanks for putting my idea into better words, hun) that david still seems to believe in. but even if you can accept that there are many different gay communities, i still don’t see this big epidemic. could be possible maybe in a certain subculture, San Francisco gays, for instance. That might be something to focus in on, but there are so many there, ask yourself, is it the whole san fran gay community or just certain groups of gays there?
i am sure every kind of group has some kind of gossip or cliques. hello, if you go to a group with a bunch of close friends, are you not going to sit and talk to them instead of people you don’t know? not everyone is looking for new friends, but i am sure most LGBs would treat people warmly and nicely as you would any other non-friend associate you may encounter. being gay is not a reason to befriend a stranger, after all, if you don’t have anything else in common.
Comment by Lynn Hayes — July 5, 2009 @ 4:02 am
In order for a people to thrive and achieve it’s goals, there needs to be a certain level of civility, tolerance and support for each other.
The fact that LGBTs all over the country are saying that the community isn’t filling their needs is something that needs to be looked at.
Aaron & Michael are a good example of what we need more of. They’re experiences are different than mine. When they shared, they were honest about their point of view, but they were also respectful of my experiences.
That’s how healthy, intelligent discourse is conducted.
Denigrating others, as Lynn is doing, only serves to further divide us, which is what the Religious Right wants.
Comment by David Alex Nahmod — July 5, 2009 @ 4:47 am
I think that there is a collective mental and emotional exhaustion that comes at the expense of certain kinds of civility among the LGBT.
The same can be said about blacks in America for example as mcewen pointed out.
Blacks and gays are not monolithic, but living as black or gay in America there are more persistent and pernicious traces of bigotry that isn’t overt, but is no less devastating to one’s life.
It’s like living with landmines.
One can try and be brave, quiet, whatever…but that’s not realistic. We’re all human, we can only take so much.
And gays and blacks have always been relegated to professional and social ghettos where the only people around to vent your rage or joy or sorrow on are those who share the ghetto experience.
Blacks have LONG tried to tell each other that they feed the beast with the gangsta culture, the misogyny, the lack of stable families and so many abandoned children and intraracial violence, but the fact remains is that blacks and gays have a SIMILAR history.
Even if three generations ago, one’s family had been dislocated and economically disenfranchised, that trauma can reverberate to another generation. That is why equality and eliminating bigotry is so vital. The damage can last for so long…
Blacks and gays also have the unique distinction of having their sexuality distorted to mythic proportions. Specifically as to aggression, lack of morals, lack of responsibility and predation. This creates a tension so great, casual encounters with those of the dominant culture have led to death sentences for black men and gay men in particular.
Yet, black and gay sexuality is exceptionally compelling.
Black women and lesbians are sexually exploited by the prurient interests of the socially dominant among us. Which would be white, straight men.
So the damage to the self worth of the psyches of gays and lesbians shouldn’t be unexpected.
This isn’t just about not being accepted, but THREATENED. And unlike blacks, gays and lesbians can’t even count on their families, churches or schools for protection. This trifecta of what shapes anyone’s formative years is often abusive to young gay people carrying the tension of being disclosed around with them. And not knowing the consequences or to what degree.
If it manifests or has into promiscuity, insecurity, lack of civil restraint or just plain old anger, then the consciousness that created homophobia in society can be blamed for it.
I see also a similarity in the expectations of the straight world for gay people to live like and not challenge the status quo any more than a child.
Gay people are not wanted or expected to speak out, get angry or be emotional on any level.
But at the same time not form romantic bonds, have sex, be responsible for children or challenge what is considered straight authority.
This can be said of blacks and ‘white authority’. Blacks weren’t expected to contradict or have an opinion or ideas contrary to what whites dictated.
And angering those who could so politically and socially control your life is a scary prospect, because one can’t know what will set them off.
See? Landmines.
I want more than ever for blacks and gays to form what is a bond through a shared experience with INSTITUTIONALIZED discrimination and bigotry.
But even THAT is broken down and distorted and blacks have been actively courted to be hostile to the notion, however legit it is.
And most don’t even realize how they have been manipulated through the also shared experience of being Christian.
The whole agenda of the dominant culture has ALWAYS been fragmentation of gay people who they say threaten society.
At any rate, this article was a thought provoking piece and I see a serious need for more scrutiny of the issue.
Comment by Regan DuCasse — July 5, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
The irony. Lynn is treating trans people like how straights are treating gays. Just as straights need to look out of their box to realize gays are normal, so too does anti-trans people like Lynn. She claims to be a lesbian not afraid to speak the truth, but in the end talks rubbish.
The APA already classified transgenderism as a non mental illness, which is precisely why I am still able to communicate effectively here. Deluded? Dear me, the only one deluded is one that has not seen the world enough to know gender identity is innate.
While both homosexuality and transgenderism has their strong peer-previewed research showing immutability, a gene for gender differentation has been found. And I do agree with Lynn that most cases of transgenderism has nothing to do with sexual orientation. Because LGB and T is a community of variant sexuality. T does not conform to society’s definition of gender, while LGB do not conform to society’s expectations of attraction.
So while Lynn tries to tear everything apart, trans people have more evidence for their existence than Lynn. And she will still be discriminated sexually, just like anyone else. And she totally forgot asexuals. So much for self-inflated gay pride.
Anyways, hey Regan! How are you doing dear! :- )
Comment by Yuki Choe — July 5, 2009 @ 1:13 pm
I must say, I’m enjoying this spirited discussion…it shows that people care enough to treat this issue seriously, even if you don’t agree.
David and I had very experiences coming out. I came out in Central Florida in 1973.
I was a member of the counterculture, a “hippie”, and so when older gay men tried to pigeon-hole me into a butch or femme paradigm, all I could do was laugh….I didn’t even relate to the concept….David Bowie, among others, in the music world were blowing these old ideas into the stratosphere. I wen through a period of intense sexual experimentation, which included women. Those of us in the counter-culture (straight or gay) thought that marriage is an inherently oppressive and sexist institution which we could not support (now marriage for gay people is a radical stance….things HAVE changed).
My optimism is base more on what I see in the greater culture as opposed to the gay community per se. Trannies are the new “edge”…..Gayness, in and of itself, is no longer radical. Having said that, we still have much work to do….we must have our rights guaranteed by the U S Constitution, the way people of color do…and this MUST include the right to marry, with all the attending rights an responsibilities…these are tangible I think a lot of people can support…not everyone will support us….but then, everyone’s support is not necessary…in any given election, an average of %50 of eligible voters even show up….which means, at any given time, about 1/4 of the eligible voters call the shots at the polls….in the 1770’s, about 1/3 of the colonists favored separation from England, about 1/3 wanted the colonies to remain under the King’s control, and about 1/3 didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
Full rights for gay people is not an impossible dream, but a tangible and fully attainable goal.
There is a subtext to LGBT rights….does the State own your sexuality or do you? The government should not be dictating one’s CONSENSUAL sexuality in any way….your sexuality (i.e. your body) should be the property of the individual, not the government…I think most reasonable people (regardless of their personal proclivities) can agree with that.
So let’s get together and work towards what we want…
Comment by Alfonso — July 5, 2009 @ 3:17 pm