we're here, we're queer vs the professional glbts

[msongs]

Here is what I have learned working with gay youth and young adults who are politically oriented.
the stonewall riots were a bunch of self identified queers fighting against oppression by the mafia, the cops, and the professional homosexuals hiding under their beds and in their closets. And don't kid yourself - the the deeply closeted crowd wished the queers would shut up and quit rocking the boat, for their own selfish security reasons.
Many people, especially young people, now choose to identify as queer or other similar phrases, which is their right. Still the professional homosexuals (now called gay, a term in little use in the Stonewall era) don't like it - it makes them mad because some people are not submitting to the only way and the true path. Well democracy can be messy sometimes. The oppressors don't care what the oppressed call themselves so long as the oppressed slug it out for which group is the least oppressed and what kind of language the subgroups can use to self identify.
and btw, Self identifying as queer is not equivalent to shacking up with the log cabin crowd, because log cabinuts are identifying with and advocating for their oppressors, while self identified queer youth seek to claim the name as a step on their path out of suppression.
There is more to gay liberation than posting pinups of half-nude pretty boys in your favorite internet gay group or forum and voting which one is world's most perfect hunk.
Indeed.

[Permanut]

1. Straight here..

but the buzz from the LBGT community that I heard after Stonewall also had an undercurrent of fear, for some anyway. Not sure it's fair to call that "selfish security reasons".

Log cabinuts = great description.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

4. Militant HOMOsexuals who AFFIRMED Queerdom SHOCKED the Straight World

...with our defiance and by so doing created the safe space for 'gays' to negotiate the terms of surrender.

There is a place for both but make no mistake who made it happen!

[fightthegoodfightnow]

7. Fearless is More Like It

self described militant homosexual, gay, queers stood up and said enough is enough.

Some have forgotten our roots. The new closet is 'gay' (blending in with all that 'equality' affirms) rather than celebrating being queer, fabulous and different on its own terms.

[Permanut]

9. Stonewall truly was a turning point..

and should be included in every history class, every history book. Some have forgotten, but in what, forty-some years, we have moved a couple inches forward, anyway. We as a society, I mean; I'm speaking as a straight with very close ties to the LGBT community.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

10. Agree

If you are a straight ally, you are me. Sure we are different, but without our straight friends we will never change the world. Being and celebrating differences IS the point.

[Permanut]

11. ..

[Victor_c3]

16. The number of straight friends is growing

I've noticed a huge change in the mindset of my peers and the people I grew up with. I'm 32 years old and, just a decade ago, the last thing you wanted to let anyone know was that you supported gay equality. Now, among guys my age, if you mention that you are opposed to gay equality you are the freak. (well, at least that is the case in the north east, I can't speak for the conservative south). For proof, look at the number of states that have legalized gay marriage in the last couple of years and look at the repeal of DADT. Those changes would have never occurred if there wasn't a majority support for it.

[libodem]

12. What is this Stonewall of which you speak

I don't understand the reference. Should I google?

[libodem]

13. I did

I see they were riots in the village in the late 60's.
Very brave folks.

[xfundy]

14. You really didn't know?

Wow. History really is written by the victors, but there's a ton of info about the first national gay groups, Mattachine Society, Daughters of Bilitis, etc., available online. Google it, and visit the several museums of gay history if you're near one. It is a celebration of creativity and personal freedom.

[libodem]

17. I didn't

I was always down with the gay pride parades but I was clueless on those riots in NY, and that being the beginning of pulling down the walls in that crappy dark, little, closest you guys were shuffled into.

I'm a hetro old lady. But I have an affinity for civil rights for everyone and want to hang out for the enlightenment and learning. I've had some gay friends here and there. I've taken lots of psych and sociology. I read. I dragged out my copy of the "Boys of Boise", so I could tell fightingthegoodfight, I had one.

So glad it is cool to be out and proud these days.

I have some memory of the bad old days cuz I've been around a while to live through the history.

[Scruffy Rumbler]

25. Hey libodem!

Want to learn about an awesome activist? Check out Harry Hay,founder of the Mattachine Society that xfundy mentioned. He is also one of the men who called forth the Radical Faeries. Having never met him, I still consider him an Elder for myself. There is a great film about him, "Hope Along the Wind".

One of his early proteges was Will Geer (Grandpa Walton)!

Thanks for your honesty about you lack of knowledge regarding Queer Liberation and the movement. The battle for equal rights by one people, is the battle for equal rights for all people.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

2. Thank YOU So Much For Saying It Far Better Than Me

Well Said. Thank you.

[msongs]

3. diversity is suppposed to be a GOOD thing right? nt

[fightthegoodfightnow]

5. Agree

...completely.

[loli phabay]

6. good post,

[fightthegoodfightnow]

8. Great Post

Agree

[libodem]

15. The 70's were all about the pride

Black pride, was a really big example. Before we said black, Negro or Colored was proper. Bad people used the n-word. Which I wanted to just write out right there because it would be in context. But I have very negative associations with hearing it or seeing it. I've never used it. I read an epic Mitchener book about Africa, and he used colored throughout the book to describe people of mixed black and white heritage. What I've heard used in the past is malato. It was illegal to marry one another if you were not the same race. Some of the stuff we take for granted was illegal 30, 40, 50, years ago.

Same deal with gay pride. Being homosexual was hidden. It was illegal. Everyone hid it. Everyone was in the closet in the 50's. People were made to feel shame and worse yet fear. Real fear of being killed. Gay wasn't a word yet. All we heard were those bad words. Homosexual is clinical and formal and long to type. But that was the only nice one, we could use. There was no gay. There was shame.
That's part of why I love the 70's. Drag Queens came out and marched down the streets in flaming drag, in the first gay parades. That Stonewall story brought back my youth. I loved remembering that era. We paved the way back then on a lot of movements. Be glad you can feel that beautiful pride in who you are and well...I don't know what to say about the whole "slur" culture out there. It must be the young ones demanding respect in their own way.
Pride is a good thing.

[libodem]

18. Gosh, libodem

That was a nice essay. Too bad it is in the bottom of the laundry basket, where no one will ever know you have pure intent to be a staunch supporter of equal opportunity regardless of orientation.


Oh, well.. you still have yourself to talk to, Trollie Girl.

[libodem]

19. Yes, you sure do

Did you ever stop to think you might have made your own DU experience suck by having like 10 people on ignore?
Well gosh self, that still doesn't explain why the people I can see still won't comment.

You wrecked your own experience here. If by chance some one you are ignoring gets between you and who you want to visit. But that is not always the reason.

You are a bit of a freak. And have the troll breath of speaking the unforgivable: that f-word in the other group.

Nobody wants to be tainted with your questionable reputation in a public area.

Back to the secret talks in the stairwells. You old fool.

[Scruffy Rumbler]

26. A little anecdote about 'gay'...

It was the late 60's, early 70's, my older brother (also queer) and I were laying on the floor looking through my mother and father's high school yearbook. Their senior dance photo had the caption"... and they all were gay!". Well my brother giggled and I along with him, even though I didn't know what the word referred to then. Of course my father walked by at that moment and heard us. He kicked my brother (not hard, just enough to get his attention) and grumbled "It meant something different back then." He passed in '75 and now I get a chuckle that his wife and 3 of his kids have come out of the closet since then! lol

[libodem]

27. That is sweet

One of my friends is 60. Both her older brothers were gay. Both have passed and I never met them. One had complications from diabeties and the other passed from Aides. She speaks about both of them with loving compassion.
The kids all lost their mom from a brain tumor and the dad was a mean drunk. The kids raised each other in a motherless home. She loved her family.
The straight bro is an attorney and a mean jerk. She has nothing to do with him.

[Vanje]

28. AIDS

Spell it AIDS.
It is an acronym .Do you know what it stands for?

acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Yep.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

30. Wow!

Seriously? Too funny.

Amazing how those we've lost still live with us.

Who says it's not in the genes!

[It-Gets-Better]

20. It Gets Better

One thing is certain, thanks to the homophile movement, the Mattachine Society, the Committee for Homosexual Freedom, the Gay Liberation Front, the Gay Activist Alliance, NGLTF, HRC, Queer Nation, Act Up, Dykes on Bikes, and a host of other groups:

It Gets Better

http://www.itgetsbetter.org/

[libodem]

22. I clicked the link

And signed the page. I'm official.

[It-Gets-Better]

21. Too Bad He Didn't Hear Message

The suicide note translates: “Dear Mum and Dad, All my life I have been ridiculed, abused, bullied and excluded. You guys are fantastic. I hope you’re not angry. Until we meet again.”

http://www.gayrva.com/news-views/dutch-bullying-victims-published-suicide-note-shocks-community/

Wish he knew it gets better!

[libodem]

23. oh god

That was painful. The mom and dad, the hopeless he must have experienced, all so sad. Suicide is such a temptation when a person gets down that far. Please seek help, call a hotline, wait 6 months on your plan, it is almost always better by then, it does get better.

[Scruffy Rumbler]

24. Great post, msongs!

[fightthegoodfightnow]

29. Agree

.