Posts Tagged: stigma

Queer Visions — 1 Comment
16
Aug 09

Let’s Make Out for Equality

Great Nationwide Kiss In - Chicago Edition

More than 50 people gathered in front of Cloud Gate at Millennium Park to stage a good old fashioned Kiss-In!

Queer Visions — No Comments
22
Jul 09

LGBT Elders Face Isolation and Homophobia in Long-Term Care

“Gen Silent” Documentary Trailer – LGBT elders who fought the earliest battles for equality now face so much fear about discrimination in health care and long-term care that they hide their sexuality, are afraid to ask for help, and die earlier. But, a small group of professionals is trying to change that.

Queer Visions — No Comments
18
Jul 09

Tom Duane’s Powerful Speech for the Poor Living with HIV and AIDS

New York State Senator Tom Duane, spoke in support of a measure that would cap “shelter costs” (rent and utilities) for people living with HIV and AIDS and already receiving public assistance. Openly gay and HIV-positive, Sen. Duane is the prime backer of the gay marriage legislation that has been one of many issues sidelined in the wake of the Senate coup — and you can hear some of the pent-up frustration about that issue in the Manhattan Democrat’s coruscating, stem-winding oratory.

Commentary — 2 Comments
16
Oct 05

Gay People Are Not From Mars

Act UpHardwired.

We are not fundamentally gays who happen to be human. We are fundamentally humans who happen to be gay. Therefore, all impulses that predominantly manifest in humans no matter of what ancestry, ethnicity, dialect, race, nationality, religion or politics will also manifest in humans no matter of what sexuality.

The more freedoms we are given to participate in mainstream activities, institutions, rituals, etc. the more gay people will do so. The drive to participate and assimilate will in the long-run win out once we achieve equality and protection under the law for we are not fundamentally driven by an ideology, we are fundamentally driven by our humanity.

The Gay Lesbian Civil Rights Movement’s most important success will be that of creating an environment in which gay people feel free and welcome to express their basic core humanity without regard to their sexuality. The energy that out gay people now must expend in order to make their place openly and honestly is unfair and distracting.

TormentedMost gay people, no matter what their outward face, desire a life of community in which their sexuality is irrelevant but acknowledged. The ways in which our humanity expresses itself are indistinguishable from the ways in which all other peoples have expressed their humanity throughout all of time: creativity and relationship. Ultimately gay people are only as queer as our environment makes us. The current gay subculture is mostly a temporary reactionary formation that will subside once the mainstream more fully welcomes us as the full human beings we already know ourselves to be.

Some gay activists go too far in rejecting all things that were previously denied to us. That, I think, is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Wanting a family, children, a monogamous committed relationship, acceptance, respect, belonging, normalcy, etc. isn’t a sign that some sort of fascist heterosexism is at play but a sign that standard human impulses are at play and that they are inescapable and undeniable. Any attempts to paint them as artificial notions brainwashed into us is rather silly and confused.

Gay people are not from Mars.

(“I wonder if the monogamistic, parenting impulse is hard wired to our brain or something we learn from culture?” Justin R. asked in comment #99 to the article Gay America: The Next Generation on BlogCritics.org. The above article was my response.)