Marriage Equality & White Gay Hegemony

It may come as a surprise to many of you, but I do not support marriage equality. I do not believe that entering into a heteronormative economic institution should afford some people more benefits and rights that others. I should not have to be married to receive cheaper healthcare, to get tax breaks or to adopt children.

I also have a HUGE problem with the Human Rights Campaign. They have an incredibly shitty track record. The HRC has a long history of ignoring trans* issues, outlined in Monica Robert's article "Why The Transgender Community Hates HRC".

On top of this the HRC began to compare marriage equality to that of civil rights, which became very popular during the 2008 presidential election, even garnering this cover article in the Advocate. Not only is this highly problematic, it denigrates the experience of Black Americans & other communities of color. LAGAI writes in their article "Marriage and Racism and Queers", They equated the history of slavery and the fight for civil rights for African Americans, the internment of Japanese residents and citizens, and the struggle for justice for Latino workers with the struggle for legal recognition of gay marriage. White Europeans exterminated millions of Native Americans, and killed at least two million Africans who were abducted and thrown in the holds of ships to be sold as slaves. Slavery was legally maintained for over 200 years. White supremacy was maintained through terrorism (including lynching), as well as law. Legally enforced segregation persisted until the 1960's. Although nominally able to vote after the Civil War, African Americans were effectively disenfranchised everywhere in the u.s., and legally disenfrancised in much of the south. The Civil Rights movement was about overturning this systematic legal oppression of African Americans, and thousands of people were injured and hundreds of people lost their lives in that struggle. It is absurd to casually equate this experience with the experience of not getting state recognition for a marriage. (2008, LAGAI.)

To this end, the HRC really sticks their fist in their mouth by ignoring the plight of queer people of color, trans* folk, poor & rural queer folk and homeless queer youth. Despite the beginnings of the gay rights movement steeped in justice for the homeless, the transgender community and spearheaded by queer people of color, the new gay rights movement is upwardly middle class, heteronormative & White. This needs to change. We cannot truly liberate ourselves this way.

The HRC is also responsible for many campaigns that try to paint marriage as being about love (NOH8 etc), when really what we need to realize is that marriage has existed for thousands of years as an economic institution that reduces women's value basically to chattel. Marriage was economic before it was ever religious or about love. Marriage is about money. Activist Neila McLeod sums the institution of marriage up best: The institution of marriage represents a legacy of brutal sexism, based on control of women's bodies and lives by men. For most of the history of the concept, wives were essentially (if not literally) slaves to their husbands. Marriage is an agent of the dominant cultural narrative that says women are social extensions of men whose sole purpose in life is to serve men and produce (male) children. This is slowly changing but this change necessarily represents movement away from the narrative created and propagated by marriage. Marriage is necessarily anti-woman. I believe the cause of liberation for all people (not just "equality" for some) depends on dismantling all systems of institutional power that serve to divide and oppress us. Queerness is (or should be) a direct challenge to these systems. I refuse to be for the privileges afforded the ruling class. A movement for inclusion in a definitionally oppressive system is not a movement for justice, it is a movement for assimilation. (McLeod, 2013).

The HRC does not have my support. Nor do I support marriage equality. I support equality for all human beings, and that is how we will truly be liberated.

"Bear" Culture & White Gay Hegemony

As I have grow older, I developed more of a body type that is a defining factor for the 'bear' subculture of mainstream Western (American) gay society. I have some issues with this label, especially because I do not identify as a 'bear' nor do I identify with many of the aspects & interests within this gay subculture.

Bear culture may have originally formed as an answer to the vibrant femme presence that most people thought of as "gay". Bears tend to perfer to present as hypermasculine by growing beards, cultivating more muscular or fat heavy bodies, not shaving their body hair (popular in mainstream gay culture), & dressing more "straight" among other things.

The irony of the bear image is that it is very specific, which seems contrary to it's first incarnation as a down-to-earth answer to starving twink bodies and gilded drag queen fabulous. Men are judged as non-bear based on body weight (even too much fat can be non-bear), their facial hair and body hair, among other identifiers.

Another issue with the image of what is "bear" is that generally bears are seen almost exclusively as White men. There have been many incidents of people of color who find bear body types attractive or who identify as bears who were unable to gain access to a certain online community. There is also a large reflection of the "no Blacks, no Asians" trend on profile sites. This echoes the implicit racism in mainstream gay culture as well.

While bears may have originally presented as your average man who happens to desire other men, who is "working class" and "just another one of the guys", this has shifted greatly. Bear culture tends to side with mainstream gay culture which has a backbone in upper middle class capitalism (classism), racism, economic marriage equality (heteronormativity) and body image issues (who gets to define a bear?)

I take issue with this, especially the issues in presenting another White face of the gay community. I also take issue because I do not identify as gay, whereas bear culture is disproportionally full of gay men. Bisexuals, transpeople and people who idenitfy as queer or otherwise may not be as accepted in bear communities.

Even though now I reflect more of a bear-type body, I remember when I tried gaining access to bear culture and community as a thinner man and was denied many times by men I found desirable.

This is why I do not identify as a bear.

Sharon Needles and (Racist) White Gay Hegemony

So, it came to my attention in this week's Willamette Weekly that Sharon Needles (a.k.a. Aaron Coady) of RuPaul's Drag Race is going to be in Portland.

Fun Facts About Sharon Needles:  

Sharon Needles has worn a swastika t-shirt.


Sharon Needles has worn a Confederate flag one-piece swimsuit.


Sharon Needles has used the N-WORD onstage. (Courtesy of Queerty)

Oh and did I mention the bitch be Aryan as hell?

Not only that but WW's interview spot called the Hotseat in the "Culture" section interviewed Sharon. What I found rather hilarious is that despite this column's name, Aaron Spencer (the interviewer) did not ask any difficult questions of Sharon. In fact he didn't touch any of the controversy surrounding Needles, who has been accused of being not only racist but also transphobic and classist. I noticed also during RuPaul's Drag Race (shut up!) that Needles wore many controversial tee-shirts, two supporting Republican politicians and one even being a confederate flag, which the producers apparently made her cover up later in the episode. In a video after the series finished, Needles is quoted as saying: 

The other night me and a couple of my friends went out to have a good time, and there's this young thing. I call her a "thing" because, you know, I don't know how to tip-toe around gender rules or queer politics. I'm 30 years old, rich, and famous; I don't have to deal with that shit anymore, you know what I mean? So we'll just call them "him"/"her"/"thing," whatever. And you know she really finds my shows offensive. ... So anyway she got upset that I paint myself brown, that I would use language that she found offensive. ... She made me an unnecessary poster child for post-racial change."

SIDE EYE FOREVER! As if we're post-racial...ha!

Also Needles posted this on her Facebook:

“i fucked a black last week…call me a cheater, not a racists..i don’t say n-word..i say n****r..thats the word..i’m not afraid of language..and i’m not afraid to say red lipstick is not your color..and i’m not afraid to say that i hate when people post pictures of them self eating..beans for that matter!! but the baby picture is super cute!!" (Full story here)

Yeah, so there was that.

To me, Sharon Needles reflects a huge disconnect of the gay White (male) mainstream and queer people of color, poor queer people, lesbians, disabled queers, fat people and transfolk. We are constantly barraged with images of skinny White "twink" men and Needles does a huge disservice to the community as a whole when she uses her privilege for evil. Sorry guys, racism and transphobia is evil. No other word for it. I don't want this bitch coming to my city, but I gotta remember she's playing to the White Gay Hegemony and that's just the way it is. Then again, I also remember reading somewhere that Lady Gaga is a fan. So fuck you, Sharon Needles.

No love.