When Good Gays Use Gender Expression as an Insult...

Format for printing
Submitted by parkerb on Sat, 08/12/2006 - 2:05am.

To insult someone by comparing them to Liberace(a known gay man) seems deeply homophobic. Rep. Burton doesn't seem to have the sense of some of the most senseless gay men in our community. Why would we give him the kudos to even insinuate that he may be gay?

Any time I hear the statement "real men" it inevitably reminds me of when I was younger and I was constantly told that "real men sleep with women" or that "real men play sports." How many people in Indiana would consider me, Gary or any other gay man "a real man"?

The issue does however go beyond homophobia when in reality we are faced with a comment not on Rep. Burton's sexuality, but instead based upon his gender expression. A gender expression that Advance Indiana seems to find unacceptable and worth poking fun at to the same degree as his religious zealotry.

I found this petty insult demeaning and demonstrative of the majority of gay men's lack of awareness around gender expression. Are we as gay men so scared to look at our own gender expressions and the ways that those expressions are related to discrimination we face, that we continue to feel it necessary to insult others based on gender inappropriateness?

However, one positive thing that can be drawn from the the excerpted statement above is the way that gender expression clearly relates to sexual orientation. We are asked (with the intention of getting a laugh, I am sure) to think of Rep. Burton's jewelry as comparable to Liberace(a noted feminine gay man). Liberace is a figure that is often used to poke fun at and demean gay men.

FEMININE GENDER EXPRESSION=GAY MAN

This is a harmful assumption. Some gay men are feminine. Some straight men are feminine. Regardless, people shouldn't be judged based on their sexualities or gender expressions. Lets find some more mature and less offensive insults.

As the INTRAA representative to Indiana Equality and often the INTRAA liason with the larger gay community, I am often shocked when good gay leaders resort to gender stereotypes or show genderphobia. I wonder if AI is acting out repressed from being made fun of for not being a "real man" when he was younger?

Trackback URL for this post:

http://intraa.org/trackback/134

Posted in Activism | parkerb's blog · login or register to post comments · email this page · 931 reads »

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

insult

#43 On Thu, 08/17/2006 4:34pm pennyjane said,

and so it goes. it's a big boat and we're all in it together. it's just that those up front think they're in first class. gays are in the far rear and t's are in the baggage compartment. put together a number ten chart of social organization gays are in at number nine and t's are ten. does it come as much of a shock that number nine feels licensed to pick on number ten? mumber one has the luxury of being benevolent with number 10. he's no threat from any direction to the leader of the pack. but number nine, now, he looking over his shoulder and wondering, keeping his eyes and his options open. what i really like about some gay guys is when they still have a good enough handle on their own past to recognize what's happening and struggle against it. after all we all are gay, or straight...or something, not even a t-girl can give a complete and honest answer to that question. but what do i know? i'm just a girl!

login or register to post comments · email this page

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.