This was your subject line in a previous thread, but you identified that culture as the USA. What about the gay culture, where your alliance appears strongest? (Yes, maybe a subculture...or on the other hand, a transnational culture.) Does that have cultural shortcomings or room for improvement within itself?

If someone brought up any such shortcomings, faults, needs for improvement on a Prop. 8 thread here, would that be acceptable as an objective observation? Wouldn't it be deemed homophobic? I have never been mormon, either, but it seems wise to accept that "some truths are not helpful," given the time and place they are interjected.

I am more critical of the gay culture than I am critical of the straight culture (baring the homophobic straights). It thankful has been changing, but for a long time I was constantly accused of not truly being gay because I never went in drag or that I was not all about flamboyant over the top behavior. It is improving but for a very long time the gay community was totally intolerant of members that celebrated masculinity (without it being the "hyper-masculinity" of the leather queens). I was also accused of having internal homophobia because I was masculine and not Nelly. Fortunately this has changed a lot, but it is still prevalent in many places. It is a place where I feel the gay community can still be criticized on and could still improve, but I don't think for much longer.

Despite claims that the the gay community is diverse, there are places where it is not so diverse. Conservative gays are often ostracized. It seems that many gays can't disagree with their Conservative views without trying to eject them from the community. I think the gay culture could do a much better job at disagreeing with the idea without rejecting the person.

For much of gay culture gay men and lesbians don't get along. In San Francisco it is rare to find a bar where both gay men and lesbians hang out together. At times there seems to be open hostility between the two groups. This clearly is an area where the gay culture could be criticized on.

It think the gay community also segregates itself more than it needs to. There are the bears, the drag queens, the leather queens, the gym bunnies.... Again it is an area where the gay community could do better.

The gay community can also be way to sexually based. So much is based on just sex that true intimacy is often forgotten. In San Francisco I found it almost impossible to make friends with someone unless I had sex with them first.

Segregation from the mainstream culture is another criticism I have. I find that there are way too many gays that think we need a totally separate gay culture that does not integrate with mainstream culture.

People have brought up things the gay community could improve on here that I have agreed with.

You seem to be under the impression that I am not open to criticism of the gay community, which is a false impression.

Of course that does not mean I will agree with every criticism offered. Many here have been critical of how gays use very in your face protest tactics, claiming they do more harm than good. I do not accept this criticism because I have been around long enough to see that those protests are fundamental to the success of the gay movement.

I do not bring up my issues with gay culture here because this is not the forum for such discussions. And I should also point out that it is rare that someone comes here with a legitimate complaint about the gay community, mostly it is the same homophobic lies to try to justify denying marriage to gays.

Oh, yeah, how gays treat Bi's could use a LOT of work.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2011 10:39PM by MJ.

I think it has a lot to do with the conditions we came out in and the much less accepting culture that existed at the time.

The generation that is coming out now is doing it in high school, forming gay/straight alliances, they are more integrated with their straight friends, etc. I am highly gratified in seeing this and also very jealous.

But I do think one issue the younger generation could work on is being less critical of us old farts for having ideas that were formed at a different time under different conditions. I wish they could understand why we think certain things are important that they take for granted.

I am really glad to see that dimension of your awareness. As you said, this is not the place to bring up those cultural issues...and in fact they don't usually relate to or detract from the overall gay rights movement.

I can't tell you how much time I've seen waisted over power squabbles between lesbians and gay men. It is so maddening and wasteful that we can't just fight our common enemy we also have to fight each other.

I think the way the Bi community has been treated by gays has made it difficult to motivate Bisexuals to work with us toward common goals. But hopefully that is improving:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/50808681/2011-SF-HRC-Bi-Iinvisibility-Report

I felt ostracized by the gay community much of the time I have been out. I think lots of masculine gay men stayed away from the gay rights movement because they felt unwelcome, as I did. Few stayed around to fight for their place at the table.

In my opinion, the issues I have raised have almost all had a negative impact on the gay rights movement. To me it is a amazing that we have gotten where we are with all the petty crap that goes on between us.

But the gay rights idea is still very new. The whole movement really only got started in 1969. We have had a lot of growing pains and we have had lots of family squabbles, but we are growing into a community and culture that has a lot of positive attributes.

I just wish Harry Hay hadn't done so much to make the gay community all about flamboyance at the very start. It would have been easier for me if he hadn't



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2011 11:12PM by MJ.

Few gays are actually raised in the gay culture. We do not have our own country that has its own culture. Looking at this from the perspective of the USA gay community, I was not raised in a gay culture, I was raised in the traditional USofA white suburban culture. Others may have come from an African American culture, or any of the other multiple subcultures within the USA. Almost none of us were raised in a gay culture. Even in San Francisco with its huge gay community, few kids are raised IN that culture, aware of it, yes, in it no.

To have a gay culture would imply that people need to abandon their previous culture and assimilate into a different gay culture when they figure out they are gay. I felt a lot of pressure to assimilate, hated it, did not assimilate and have fought against the idea that there should be a gay culture.

I have fought for the concept of a community that was a community of many different cultures, everyone was welcome to bring their culture into the community and have their culture add to the community expecting the community to accept their culture and not force the communities culture on them.

This was not a well received idea when I first started promoting it, bit it does seem to be catching on.

I wasn't a part of the discussion that led to this, but I had to throw in my two cents about this.

First, my spouse and I both identify as bi. While this may continue to change and evolve as we figure out who we are without the church telling us, but we know that we don't fit traditional expectations.

I agree with so much of what you're saying. There is so much that both sides need to improve, and it becomes very exhausting to try to express any opinion and be treated at best as a fence-sitter, and worst, as "the enemy". It's hard to have the assumption made that I should be extremely promiscuous, or I'm not "really" bi, too.

I also know more then one person who decided that in order to be accepted in the gay community, they had to have unprotected sex and use drugs. Not only are these damaging assumptions for the culture to perpetuate, they are part of why it seems so impossible to have middle ground...why anyone who isn't at an extreme is so often silent in the discussion.

Thank you for being vocal about this.