I need a critique of the Gentrified ''Gay Scene''

[neosyndic]

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[Robespierre Richard]

Sorry bro but you're coming off pretty homophobic in that description, especially with the "gender-blind" stuff which is kinda like conservatives here in the US saying they're "color-blind" and therefore don't think state/societal oppression of colored people doesn't exist.

[ZeroNowhere]

especially with the "gender-blind" stuff which is kinda like conservatives here in the US saying they're "color-blind" and therefore don't think state/societal oppression of colored people doesn't exist.
I'm not sure how this is the case. I can't see any real similarity between 'colour-blindedness' in the US and 'gender blind' as a sexual orientation.

[Robespierre Richard]

Well that along with other stuff. "Lesbian trapped in a man's body" is what reactionaries here in the US call themselves "ironically" to mean that they only like women and are impartial to watching lesbian porn, but hate the idea of LGBTQ rights.

[gorillafuck]

you mean you are pansexual?

I am confused, what do you want a critique of? Because if you want a critique of homosexuality as not being pansexual enough or something, then that's ridiculous.

If you're looking for more of a class analysis, then yeah it's true that a lot of the commercialized gay scene is centered around richer LGBT people who live in wealthy areas with large gay scenes. I don't know enough about that to offer a detailed criticism though.

[Queercommie Girl]

I am looking for a critique of the commercial/gentrified ''gay scene''. hopefully one that touches upon the following issues: branding of essentialist narratives of ''identity''; the emergence of branded pseudo-communities dominated exclusively by homosexual ''gay men''; marginalisation of Lesbian voices and Lesbian imputs into the construction of the ''gay scene'' narrative, disdain for bisexual and gender blind people, invisibility of transgender imputs. Endemic Ethno-Racism and So-called ''Classism'': lower class elements are not wanted and their perspectives are ignored - the Gay Working Class and the Gay Underclass simply do not exist in the universe of the Branded Gay pseudo-community.


Mainstream bourgeois gay politics can indeed be quite reactionary, like the LGBTory group linked to the Conservative Party in the UK.

[Queercommie Girl]

Because if you want a critique of homosexuality as not being pansexual enough or something, then that's ridiculous.


That's not what he meant, rather what he is trying to say is that mainstream bourgeois gay scenes can be transphobic, shuns genderqueer people (i.e. people who don't limit themselves to any "gender"), and generally tends to be male-dominated, so lesbians are somewhat marginalised.

That is to say, there are people who are more radical when it comes to "gender" and "sexuality" than what the "standard norms" of mainstream bourgeois gay scenes would usually allow.

Many radical LGBT people in the UK for instance, are very critical of mainstream LGBT organisations in the country, like Stonewall.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Sorry bro but you're coming off pretty homophobic in that description, especially with the "gender-blind" stuff which is kinda like conservatives here in the US saying they're "color-blind" and therefore don't think state/societal oppression of colored people doesn't exist.


you mean you are pansexual?

I am confused, what do you want a critique of? Because if you want a critique of homosexuality as not being pansexual enough or something, then that's ridiculous.


To both Zeek and Kiroff-I think it means he doesn't like to reduce his sexuality to one of the presupposed sexual categories, but that when he does that he feels oppressed by the gay community.

I suppose it is like how Bisexuals and Transexuals were treated by the "Gay community" for some time as if they were traitors or something like that. A trans didn't fit in his neat little prejudiced world, and so some homosexuals supposed that the trans must be some kind of "gender traitor" or something like that.

[neosyndic]

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[Summerspeaker]

There's hardly anything good to say about the mainstream gay movement. It successfully pursues the assimilationist agenda. That's better than alternative but far from revolutionary. I want to smash gender and achieve sexual liberation, not become tolerated as part of a permanent biological minority. (Gay genes? I don't even wear jeans!)

[TheGodlessUtopian]

men have the right to be exclusive homosexuals if they want to, just like they have the right to choose to be exclusive heterosexuals.



Clarify please.

You either are full of shit or just wrote a poorly constructed sentence.

[Queercommie Girl]

yes ! TRANSPHOBIC. i learned a new term, it sounds rather esoteric though.

There is nothing "esoteric" about the term "transphobic". It's just a neutral objective term referring to people who discriminate against transgendered people due to their trans status.

[Tim Finnegan]

There's hardly anything good to say about the mainstream gay movement.
Now you're just being cynical. The mainstream gay movement may be far from perfect, but it's made nothing but progress.


i have trouble with the term ''pansexual'' because it sounds like another compartment; so i prefer gender blind.
To be quite honest, "gender blind" seems like a potentially disrespectful way of describing yourself, as it suggests a disregard for the gender identity of potential partners. You can find yourself attracted to a range of gender identities and presentations without having to ignore the fact of that range. Perhaps I'm missing something?

[Ele'ill]

but it's made nothing but progress.

Elaborate.

[Summerspeaker]

Now you're just being cynical. The mainstream gay movement may be far from perfect, but it's made nothing but progress.

Progress toward assimilation and reified identities, sure. As noted, accepting queer folks - well, those who conform - into respectable society beats the alternative.

[Tim Finnegan]

Elaborate.
I'm honestly not sure what you're asking for here. Surely you're aware exactly how far society has come in the last fifty years in regards to queer rights? :confused:

[neosyndic]

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[Tim Finnegan]

i am not sure that ''equal marriage rights'' equals ''progress''. not to impune those who fall in love and decide to live as a couple (or triple); but the marriage movement looks to me like the spearhead for classist and racist gentrification, an attempt to impose ''middle class values" on the GLBT community. imposition of the need to obtain capitalist state recognition for relationships in the form of a marriage certificate only works to legitimate the capitalist state. it is a form of colonialism. in fact; from a socialist perspective, ''marriage'' would be abolished in context of a getting rid of what in ''Marxist'' lexicon is called the Bourgeois Family. As i understand it the abolition of the family is premised upon the achievement of full equality and liberation for women; which implies the end of reproductive fascism and compulsory heterosexuality for everyone in context of replacing the capitalist mode of production with a socialist mode of production.
So you're not aware how far society has come? :confused:


i do not subscribe to the theory that ''gender identity'' is essential (biologically programmed). i rather view ''gender identity'' as socially constructed. i am attracted to human beings who happen to be either male or female. in the past two years; i have dated both kinds of human, have experienced ''falling in love'' with both kinds of human, have "slept with" both kinds of human, have also conducted casual sexual engagement with both heterosexual and homosexual human couples. in this context i see ''potential partners'' primarily as persons - not as representatives of this or that ''gender identity''. But isn't that what "pansexual" means? You can identify in just this manner without implicitly erasing the gender identity of your partners.

Also, I would observe that nowhere does it say that gender only comes in two monolithic flavours. It is possible for gender identity to exist within an analogue scale, and one which is fluid within that scale, rather than simply being one-or-the-other.

[Queercommie Girl]

it was my first exposure to this term. transphobia in the commercial ''gay scene'' is not publicly evident - because the branded narrative of ''gay'' utilises the trans aesthetic for marketing purposes (''the cool factor''); but de facto; the branded narrative of ''the gay lifestyle'' is manufactured with homosexual men as archetypes. in the end; trans implies a subtextual rejection of homosexuality: the ''man trapped in the body of a woman'' seeks to surgically conform his biological body to his true self. the premise of the homosexual male elite behind the ''gay'' branding operation is that ''branding defines culture'', not that homosexuality is ''biologically determined'' (sic.)


That's not true. LGB transphobia is quite evident in the West in many contexts.

There is a fundamental difference between "dressing up feminine" and "being transgendered", especially if one is referring to trans-sexual people. Because for one thing, many male-to-female trans people aren't stereotypically feminine. I've known "tomboyish" male-to-female trans-sexuals, even MtFs who have joined the armed forces, which is a stereotypically "masculine" profession.

Trans people aren't just "drag queens".

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Now you're just being cynical. The mainstream gay movement may be far from perfect, but it's made nothing but progress.

Precisely the problem.

[Queercommie Girl]

Now you're just being cynical. The mainstream gay movement may be far from perfect, but it's made nothing but progress.


It depends on what exactly you mean by "mainstream".

I'm not an ultra-leftist, but I'd say the "mainstream gay movement" would need to be at least centre-left for it to have any partially progressive elements.

I don't think "LGBTory", linked to the Tory/Conservative Party in the UK, for instance, is progressive in any form. Centre-right and right-wing gay organisations aren't just transphobic and sexist, but also racist, classist and elitist. LGBTory is fine if you are a gay millionnaire or an upper-middle class white gay male, but not if you are trans, genderqueer, female, Muslim (God forbid!), or indeed a working class queer person of any race.

[Tim Finnegan]

It depends on what exactly you mean by "mainstream".

I'm not an ultra-leftist, but I'd say the "mainstream gay movement" would need to be at least centre-left for it to have any partially progressive elements.

I don't think "LGBTory", linked to the Tory/Conservative Party in the UK, for instance, is progressive in any form. Centre-right and right-wing gay organisations aren't just transphobic and sexist, but also racist, classist and elitist. LGBTory is fine if you are a gay millionnaire or an upper-middle class white gay male, but not if you are trans, genderqueer, female, Muslim (God forbid!), or indeed a working class queer person of any race.
Groups like LGBTory are tokenistic cheering squads for right-wing parties rather than meaningfully autonomous groups. Do they really reflect the movement itself?


Precisely the problem.
Whit?

[Queercommie Girl]

Groups like LGBTory are tokenistic cheering squads for right-wing parties rather than meaningfully autonomous groups. Do they really reflect the movement itself?


You are mistaken if you think only left-wingers can be genuinely pro-LGBT, while right-wingers are always "tokenistic" at best.

Not all LGBT organisations are left-wing. I'm not saying they have to be radical leftist or revolutionary leftist, I can certainly work with reformists and even liberal leftists. But they have to be genuinely left-wing in my opinion. I won't co-operate in any way with a right-wing LGBT organisation, no matter how "autonomous" it may be.

[Tim Finnegan]

You are mistaken if you think only left-wingers can be genuinely pro-LGBT, while right-wingers are always "tokenistic" at best.
My point was that explicitly right-wing LGBT organisations are generally, perhaps inevitably, a propagandistic instrument which serves to offer reactionaries a quasi-progressive mask as and when they require it, rather than active participants in the struggle for LGBT rights. They are only capable of covering ground that others have tread before them, and often with limited enthusiasm at that. I would even suggest that the very fact that they feel the need to organise on such an explicit basis, when centre-left LGBT groups are generally only implicitly left-liberal, suggests that LGBT rights really aren't their prime concern. (Noting that queer anarchist and queer Marxism hold LGBT rights to be an integral part of their politics, which is hardly true of a group like LGBTory.)

[neosyndic]

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[Queercommie Girl]

my point is precisely that transphobia is ''quite evident'' in the gentrified and branded ''gay scene'' (a product of the west).

i have not denied this. :confused: i am aware of the difference between a transexual and a transvestite.

i have at no point argued that ''transexuals are just transvestites''. (?) i am arguing that the focus on homosexual men in the branded and gentrified ''gay scene'' tends to obscure the issues, struggles, sexuality, and aesthetic viewpoints of Lesbians, Gender Benders, Transexuals and the Gender Blind. this is one reason why the Far Left in so-called ''sweden'' has organised alternative pride events.


I see your point. But you were saying that the "feminine appearance" of trans people (MtF) are utilised by the mainstream gay media in a consumerist sense.

While this is true to some extent, I think there is more of a fetishisation for the ultra-masculine image (e.g. the gay military man) in the mainstream gay media than there has ever being for the more feminine gay man.

Also, while I strongly oppose cultural discrimination, this is not even my primary concern when it comes to trans rights. I'm more concerned with the basic human rights of trans people, because trans people often get murdered simply because they are trans. Cultural discrimination looks quite trivial in comparison to murder.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/transgender-woman-found-t150544/index.html

[Tim Finnegan]

@ Neosyndic: I actually think we're on the same page about most of this, we're just experiencing miscommunication. Certainly, I agree that gender is a social construct- I'm not sure where I implied it was biologically determined? :confused:- and that it's dissolution is a goal to strive for.

[neosyndic]

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