From: tom@flood.com (Tom Chatt)
Subject: Redefining masculinity (Was: Gay Homophobia) (Was: UNGAY GAY)
Keywords: homophobia, ungay gay
Organization: The Flood Group, Inc.  Torrance, Ca.
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 07:00:14 GMT

bobsarv@microsoft.com (Bob Sarver) writes:
| Simple test (even for you).
| 
| 1.  T/F  Members of an oppressed minority group who willingly act 
|          out negative stereotypes advance the cause of their group's 
|          acceptance in society.

TRUE. Too many filthy-rich Jews just reinforce the money-grubbing
stereotype. Jews should limit themselves to modest incomes for the
advancement of their acceptance. Similarly, blacks who choose stereo-
typical careers in athletics or entertainment reinforce racial
prejudice. Magic Johnson and Eddie Murphy should quit, go to law
school or medical school, and get a real job.

| 2.  T/F  Bizarre behavior is a effective recruiting tactic to get
|          invisible members of a oppressed minority group to become 
|          more visible.

FALSE. Bizarre behavior serves as identifying behavior and makes it
easy for members of the invisible group to find each other, and to
establish and maintain "group places" (e.g., gay bars) and group
ghettos.

| 3.  T/F  Sometimes members of a minority group will act in personally
|          selfish ways which hurt the overall group goals.

TRUE. See Magic, Eddie, and rich Jews from question #1 above.

| 4.  T/F  When a group shows a chronic unwillingness to submit its beliefs
|          to examination, testing, or debate, said group is most likely
|          a religion and not a political movement.

TRUE. A political party can be distinguished from a religion by its
willingness to examine, test, and debate each plank in their platform,
especially the controversial ones such as abortion.

[end irony]

| (dyer)
| /What the _fuck_ do you mean "people like you"?   And what "precedents"
| /are you referring to?
| 
| Precedents?
| What positive gay role models (or public figures) do we know about?
| There are a lot more now (due to AIDS, mostly), but really, considering
| how large a community we are, we have a blight of positive models.
| How many bad models / public figures do we have?  A hell of a lot more.

Your language ("people like you", "precedents") implies that you do
not believe that Arne or Steve, for instance, are positive gay role models.
Why not?  Arne has the perception to know himself and the courage to be
himself. He is quite out, not from rebelliousness, but from a core of
integrity. Steve has a strong sense of moral values, and will doggedly
defend them even when unpopular for it. I find these qualities to be
admirable ones. Yet you seem to think that Arne or Steve are *bad* models.
Why?

| (sarver)
|     >If all the prominent left-handed people I knew dyed their hair green and 
|     >set their clothes on fire, I would probably stay a closet left-hander, too.
| 
| (dyer)
| /Talk about stating the obvious.
| 
| If you understand the concept, what malfunction prevents you from extending
| the principle to gays?  How come it works with one, and not with the
| other?  For something so "obvious", you are having a hell of a time
| seeing how it might apply to *you* or Arne.  Is there a little hypocrisy
| here?

Steve's hair is not green. Arne's clothes are not on fire. What is obvious
to them, but not to you, is that your analogy doesn't work. How is having
the courage to be oneself analogous to hair-dying or clothes-burning?

Moreover, even within the context of your unapt analogy, I don't buy into
your conclusion. If all the prominent left-handed people I knew dyed
their hair green and set their clothes on fire, *I* would still be openly
and unabashedly left-handed. Again, it's a matter of integrity. People
who knew me at all would see that I don't dye my hair or set my clothes
on fire, and they would have to re-evaluate their "left-handed" stereotypes.
It would seem foolish for me to be worried about being mistaken for a
hair-dyer or clothes-burner if that is not who I am.

Your choice of analogy is also rather telling. In your vision of
"social progress", it seems that hair-dying and clothes-burning are
extreme transgressions. Pedophilia and promiscuity are so far
beyond the pale that they are not even conceivable topics of
discussion. Earrings are probably right at the radical fringe of
conceivably debatable issues for you, if not downright over the edge.

Since you like analogies, let me try to restate your premise, and then to
extend the principle by analogy to other groups. Please correct me if I
get it wrong:

  Gays should act as straight as possible to best promote mainstream
  acceptance.

  Women should act as unstrident and unmilitant as possible to best
  secure their equal rights, especially in the workplace.

  Jews should act as unconcerned about money as possible to best
  promote mainstream acceptance.

  Asians should act as unconcerned as possible about success in
  school and in business to best promote mainstream acceptance.

| (dyer)
| /And I am sure that the last thing on a drag queen's mind is
| /furthering the cause of "gay acceptance."
| 
| Perhaps it should be on their mind.  I thought it was an important
| cause; obviously you think otherwise.
| ... 
|
| (dyer, on thorne and kammermeyer)
| /Frankly, I'll take both of those two over the likes of you.
| 
| I doubt that either one would find much in common with *you*.
| ... 
| 
| Hardly.  If the goal is gay acceptance and political rights, then 
| what the fringe is doing is sabotaging that.

Two points worth repeating here.

One is the matter of tactics, as you have said, of getting from point
A to point B. There are assimilationist tactics and there are
confrontational tactics. You seem to eschew the latter and advocate
the former. Arne has discoursed briefly on gay rights history;
there are other comparable histories to learn from. Time for a pop
quiz for you, Bob: Is the cause of "gay acceptance" better or
worse off today than in 1962? If you answered "better", please give
a brief essay on the comparative roles of confrontational versus
assimilationist tactics in achieving this progress. Account for the
particular role of "bizarre-acting" drag queens. Draw comparisons
to the civil rights and women's rights movements. (On the other hand,
if you answered "worse", please step into this time machine here,
and pray that Mr. Wizard can hear you screaming when you're ready
to come back to 1992...)

The other point, which Steve and others have repeatedly suggested
to you, but which has yet to sink in: *gay acceptance begins at home*.
You claim to accept yourself, but your self-acceptance seems rather
conditional. You accept yourself and others only insofar as they fit
your rather rigid mold of normalcy. This is *not* to say that one
must adopt so-called "bizarre behavior" (whatever unspeakable things
you may have in mind---a taste for clothes? cooking? opera?) as a
badge of gay pride. Rather, it is to say that rabid distaste for
"bizarre behavior" is a badge of gay shame, of self-loathing, or at
best, very conditional self-acceptance. It is not to say that there
are not unabashed lesbians and gay men who might fit your definition
of "normal" and "straight-acting". But it is to say that such people
would not describe themselves in those terms, certainly not with
pride, and would not castigate others who are different.

Do you hear your heroes Kammermeyer and Thorne saying the ugly
words you would put in their mouths? ("Accept us. We're normal.
We're not like those other bizarre weirdos.") No, you don't.
Perhaps they have more in common with Steve and Arne than you
think: integrity, self-awareness, the courage to be oneself.

-- 
Tom Chatt                        \   Don't take offense, take action.
Internet: tom@flood.com           \    Speak up. When we remain silent,
UUCP: ...!uunet!flood!tom        / \     we oppress ourselves.