I Am Not Under Attack

Americans are nothing, if not alarmists.  Somebody, somewhere, is current being targeted by another group, and believe their plight to be some kind of grand conspiracy.

There are, of course, cases where systematic prejudice and targeting on the part of elected officials and people who have the money - women's reproductive rights, for example, have been increasingly been limited in areas of the country where high concentrations of stupid people tend to live; similarly, those areas consistently see a higher incidence of hate crimes based on actual or perceived minority status.

West Hollywood, however, is not one of those places.  Nor are San Francisco or New York, for that matter.  The first two, in particular, are bastions for the weird, the unusual, the unaccepted, and the minority - they are cities in which gay men have made for themselves a safe space where they can go largely unmolested by those aforementioned stupid people.  What is trouble, for me, is the growing movement among a certain demographic of gay men (the 40-60 crowd who will soon assume the role of "Gay Elders) to participate in a "take back the streets" movement of their own.

Straight people, women, and lesbians are, according to these tinfoil Muir cap wearers, encroaching upon their lifestyle, and they are being persecuted just for being gay men!  No place is safe, anymore?  They've taken over the parks, the restaurants, the bars, and even the parking spaces!  Why, those mouthy lesbians have the sheer audacity to suggest there needs to be a safe space for them!  How DARE they, in our city?

"Why is it," posited one very visible activist in the WeHo community, "That a city that is 44% gay men, and only 3% lesbian, has a dedicated space for lesbians and not ONE dedicated space for gay men?"

When I attempted to counter this by saying, "What the hell are you talking about?  You have an entire fucking city dedicated to being a gay man!" I was promptly blocked from his Facebook profile.  Apparently, pointing out the fact that, of the 31 bars in West Hollywood, the vast majority of them cater to an almost entirely male clientele, that it has a store dedicated not only to leather, but exclusively to men's leatherwear, and that there's not a bar or restaurant that doesn't openly accept gay men and their groups (for fear of being drummed out of town), is heresy to these men.

It goes without saying that this burgeoning pro-male-only movement is bought into mainly by men over the age of 40, and almost exclusively by people who identify primarily as "Caucasian" - they are, after all, the only people who have experienced only one type of discrimination in their lives, rather than being a target for several reasons.  People who share other minority characteristics (such as race or perceived disability) tend to find people who ascribe to this conspiracy theory as being, and I quote, "ridiculous," "unfounded," and "preposterous."

But, there's a part of me that gets it, I'm afraid to say.  These men who have been persecuted by stupid people for most of their lives, few of whom grew up with the levels of support and generally omnipresent acceptance that today's LGBT youth tend to enjoy, feel that the lifestyle that they so valiantly set out to carve for themselves is at risk of being taken away from them; that who they are, what they stand for, and the contributions they've made to the LGBT movement no longer matter.

They are, unbeknownst to them, experiencing the horrible feeling of what it's like to be in the majority. They are afraid of losing all the ground they've managed to gain in the name of acceptance and homogenization, and that fear inevitably leads to irrational behavior.  This must be, I imagine, what white, male Southerners felt like the first time they lost a job opportunity to a "darky," or the first time a black person refused to give up their seat for them.  It is a fear based in self-preservation, and those fears often lead to conspiracy theorist tendencies.

What offends me more, however, is the rhetoric used by these men that so closely resembles the arguments and accusations put forth by those who are so frequently the ACTUAL oppressors of their lifestyle - the Christofascists and Republicans who see fit to treat us as if we are diseased parasites, encroaching upon their ways of life to corrupt their kids and infect them all with AIDS.

When I see statements like, "Why can't the lesbians just stay on THEIR side of town," I want to curb check them.  If you will kindly remember your gay history, the reason we have been fighting for recognition and equality is because, not that long ago and even still is most of this nation, gay men are expected to stay in "their" bars, and keep their behavior either behind closed doors or out of town, entirely.

When someone says to me, "Why do women always have to INVADE our safe spaces?  This is a place just for us," I want to punch them in the face.  This is exactly what we, as gay men, have had to overcome just to achieve the level of safety we enjoy in only a handful of largely major cities in this nation.  To deny them access on the basis of their gender is the act of a stupid person - it's like segregating water fountains and building entrances.

When a gay man complains to me about how, "There aren't even that many straight people, here!  Why do THEY have a park for their kids, and funding for THEIR events," I want to beat them to a pulp.  You have an entire goddamned city dedicated to your existence, and the fact that those "breeders" aren't avoiding that public park for fear that you're having sex in the bushes is something of a major advancement.  What do you want, a fucking pissoir on every sidewalk and a gloryhole in every toilet stall?  We've been fighting to have access to these parks for both our children (either natural or adopted) and ourselves (without being accused of being sex offenders) for nearly fifty years!

While I openly sigh and argue with these men, I take comfort in the fact that, like the anti-gay peers in their own age group, they will eventually die.  I love many men who fall into this age demographic, and to be fair, most of the ones I keep around in my life do not ascribe to this kind of asshattery, but while the tiniest part of me shares their fears of being homogenized, I can recognize that this, luckily, is the stupid part of my brain that can be trumped by both reason and logic, so long as I let my better sense prevail.

And to all you 40 to 60-year-old men who do not don the tinfoil Muir cap, I salute you - you're doin' it right.