A rather extensive analysis over at Slate by J. Bryan Lowder, What Was Gay? provides an update on the long-running debate between unique gay identity versus gay assimilation into the mainstream. That cultural conflict has been heightened by marriage equality (we tend to forget how opposed gay liberationists were, and some “queer theorists” remain, to the idea of same-sex marriage).
Lowder looks back at the rise of “gayness” as a “quasi-ethnic group.” He argues “the price of equality shouldn’t be conformity, ” and it’s hard to argue in favor of “conformity,” although subcultures can also fall prey to their own suffocating orthodoxies.
Lowder concludes:
I still think gay is good, though making that argument in a world in which identity is becoming both more complex and more contested will be difficult. But gay is also resilient, and it has a way of thriving best when welcomed least. Future gayness will undoubtedly be different from what it was—but then, isn’t reinvention the essence of good style? I, for one, can’t wait to see what gayness will become.
Post-marriage, that will be interesting to see.
15 Comments for “‘ Gay Identity’ Post-Marriage”
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The “sparkle dust” doesn’t disappear when you put on a wedding ring. Trust me.
The argument about whether “gayness” will disappear as marriage becomes an available option for gays and lesbians is overblown, and is structured on the foundation of false opposites.
Gay marriages are not “hetero-normative” (consider the silliness of the question “Which one of you is the woman?”), nor does marriage put the gays and lesbians who elect to marry into a 1950’s cultural “Leave it to Beaver” straightjacket.
I grew up in the 1950’s and came of age before Stonewall. I’ve lived through the entirety of the post-Stonewall gay rights movement as an adult, both participating and observing. A great deal has changed over the years as gays and lesbians have been increasingly absorbed into and accepted by our culture, and almost all of the changes have been for the good.
We are no longer hounded into the closet. We no longer need “gay ghettos” in order to find space to live free. We aren’t confined to “gay jobs” any longer. We are under less pressure to conform to gay stereotypes. As the cultural/legal special discrimination against gays and lesbians have slowly fallen, we are able to live in much greater freedom now than we were able to live before.
The freedom to marry, when it comes nationally, removes another form of special discrimination. Marriage opens the door to more options for gays and lesbians, more freedom, more choices.
When I was a young man, the idea that I might someday be able to marry and raise children with another man was inconceivable to me and to most other gays and lesbians. Today, if the polls of gay/lesbian college students are accurate, young gays and lesbians not only believe that marriage and family is possible, but likely.
I personally don’t think that there was anything particularly wonderful about the old days of special discrimination. The constant discrimination, cultural and legal, did reinforce gay/lesbian self-understanding as “outsiders”, and that had positive benefits. But as anyone with minimal self-reflective power will understand if they think about it, the struggle for self-understanding and self-acceptance will continue to shape the lives of gay and lesbians teens, albeit not, perhaps, so negatively, and I doubt that gays and lesbians will ever stop self-understanding as “outsiders”.
Marriage will become an option for gays and lesbians, and “gay culture”, whatever that means, will change as a result. But it will change because freedom for gays and lesbians has increased, not because freedom for gays and lesbians has been curtailed. “Gayness” will not only survive, but flourish as marriage becomes an option/norm, just as it has as the other barriers to living life according to one’s own lights have been removed.
I look forward to the day — and it will be the reality in my youngest (just about a year now) grandchildren’s lives, I suspect — when a gay high school student can be just another high school student, as goofy an unguided missile as any other high school student, groping in the dark to understand themselves and their future.
posted by Jorge on
We are no longer hounded into the closet. We no longer need “gay ghettos” in order to find space to live free. We aren’t confined to “gay jobs” any longer. We are under less pressure to conform to gay stereotypes. As the cultural/legal special discrimination against gays and lesbians have slowly fallen, we are able to live in much greater freedom now than we were able to live before.
Hmm. I don’t like the idea of “gayness” as the author argues, but I do think things have gotten better in this area for straight people. Where you have laws barring discrimination based on gender identity, or against perceived homosexuality, straight people benefit from less coercion to fill stereotyped gendered images.
The word Bill O’Reilly once used to describe this was foppish. This was in a story over a controversial, allegedly anti-gay Snickers commercial. (“Now, are you sure the guy in the yellow shorts is a gay guy? Can’t he — look, I know a lot of guys — maybe not a lot. I know *some* guys who are straight but they’re — I don’t know how to — I’m straining for the adjective. They’re… FOPPISH!”) It was one of his funnier moments.
posted by Houndentenor on
Agreed. While sexism and homophbia have been and continue to be damaging to women and homosexuals, they are also harmful to straight men who don’t fit the “traditional” role for men in our society. Eliminating that nonsense is freedom for everyone, including heterosexual men to live their lives as they see fit rather than conforming to some ridiculous roles set for them. I think most straight men, at least the younger ones, understand that.
posted by Jorge on
Yes, well, I was also speaking from observation.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“Foppish”? LOL. Reminds me of that wonderful French Mistakesketch from “Blazing Saddles”.
Your point on things getting better for straight people as the stereotypes fall is a good one, Jorge. I hadn’t thought about that, but it is right. Not every straight boy has to be John Wayne.
posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on
I think we get some “queer liberationists” and gay conservatives who live in a comfortable economic and cultural bubble.
The lack of civil rights protections will still be a HUGE issue. In terms of couples and single gay people.
posted by Houndentenor on
LOL No one has ever paid attention to “queer theorists”, not even when it was “en vogue” except right wingers looking for nutty quotes to use to back up some ridiculous claim. There was also never a single gay community any more than there was a single African American or Latino/Hispanic community. Those have all always been a variety of intersecting subcultures. Yes, gay is going mainstream and you only have to look at how 20somethings socialize to see that. It’s where Europeans were some time ago. There will always be some need for uniquely (or at least predominantly) gay spaces, although increasingly those are in cyberspace and not real estate. Everyone knows this I think and in fact always did. Didn’t they?
posted by Jorge on
LOL No one has ever paid attention to “queer theorists”, not even when it was “en vogue” except right wingers looking for nutty quotes to use to back up some ridiculous claim.
It was hard for me to escape the word (as self-affirmation) when I was in college, and I didn’t even see myself as gay then.
It is my pleasure to defend just about anything that’s hetero-normative. Placing the needs of the many above the needs of the few often results in labeling the few as pathological. There is no need to do that, there is no need to obey such a label. So the concept of “queer” being outside and undefinable by social standards is important, especially for the young.
What most people understand is that there is even less need to turn social order on its head and falsely pathologize the many. We want to fight for the individual to attain a rightful place in society.
posted by Lori Heine on
Amen!
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
College kids may identify themselves in many different ways.
Also, from my own experience, the number of LGBT/queer students within a campus community is bigger then the number of folks that get too involved in the gay rights club or campus gay center.
The folks that end up running the LGBT student club or community center are not always a fair an balance representative of the LGBT student body.
Sometimes its because they simply are willing to show up and do the work, sometimes because they become part of some ‘in’ crowd. etc
posted by Lori Heine on
I don’t pay as much attention to “gay culture” as I do to simple, overall quality of life. Mine has gone up so dramatically, since coming out, that I would never want to go back.
I have more friends–and by that, I mean really good and reliable friends–than ever before. It is easier to make friends (at least for me). We have actual fun, because we still go to interesting places and aren’t afraid to laugh or relax. Those were pretty much lost arts in the straight world, after college.
I have no idea what homophobes imagine that we do. Probably stuff it would never occur to all but those of us with the most lurid imaginations–and of which we would never admit we were capable of imagining. When I read excerpts from WingNut Daily and such sites, I can only shudder. Those people must be demented, because as far as I know, they’re the only ones who think up stuff like that.
I do have a job, now, for a “gay” business, but they are very wisely breaking out of that box and serving everybody. The goal, today, is to partake of life as fully as possible, and I embrace it.
I certainly believe in religious freedom, in the genuine sense. But the “religious freedom” crowd has some very odd notions about–well, almost everything.
posted by tom Jefferson 3rd on
marriage equality aint quite here yet, and who knows what the political fall out will entail.
again, working class and more modest middle class gays are going to have the toughest time – especially where civil rights protections are absent or ignored.
If a wedding can cost your job, home or health plan, well, marriage equality is going to be seen in a different light.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Married at 10 — Fired at 2 — Evicted at 4… not exactly the Dr. Pepper folks had in mind.
Interesting read at the Atlantic… http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/03/the-myth-of-gay-affluence/284570/
And we haven’t really started to address the issue of LGBT youth homelessness — marriage equality is all well and good, but these kids are struggling for Maslow’s basics. (Although I am proud that Houston is one of the pilot cities for Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors homelessness initiative.)
posted by Houndentenor on
You can look to the Texas legislature for the first wave of fallout and the SCOTUS decision isn’t even announced yet. If Republicans who aren’t in the religious right want to speak up, now would be a good time.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
–Married at 10 — Fired at 2 — Evicted at 4… not exactly the Dr. Pepper folks had in mind.
North Dakota legislature defeated a bill this session that would have added LGBT to three parts of the human rights act; employment, housing and public accommodations. The bill was broken up into three chunks (so lawmakers could pick and choose which parts to vote for).
Opponents said that it would violate religious freedom, was not needed because everyone likes the gays up North Dakota and the ever popular bathroom arguments were added in for good measure.