Tag Archives: Queer

It's Okay To Be "LGBT" and Not "Queer"

It’s Okay To Be “Gay” and Not “Queer”

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There has been much bashing in our community from “Queer activist” on social media have gone into hyperdrive shaming people and labeling them transphobes and racist for not embracing the identity of “queer” and instead identifying as LGBT. “Queer” is a personal choice, and different individuals may have different reasons for using one term over the other. However, there are some potential problems with identifying as queer instead of LGBT, which include:

  1. Lack of clarity: While LGBT is an acronym that describes a specific group of people, the term “queer” can be ambiguous and mean different things to different people. This can lead to confusion and miscommunication when discussing issues related to sexuality and gender identity.
  2. Exclusion: Some people within the LGBT community may feel excluded or offended by the use of the term “queer,” which has historically been used as a slur against many older LGBT individuals who were severely scarred by it. While a very small minority (less than 1%) have reclaimed Queer, the term as a way of expressing their non-conformity to traditional gender and sexual norms, many others may feel uncomfortable with it.
  3. Generational divide: There is a generational divide in the LGBTQ+ community regarding the use of the term “queer.” Older generations may associate it with negative experiences of discrimination and violence, while younger generations may see it as a more inclusive and empowering term. This can create tension and division within the community.
  4. Lack of specificity: While the term “queer” can be a useful umbrella term to describe a wide range of non-heterosexual and non-cisgender identities, it may not provide enough specificity for individuals who want to express a more specific aspect of their identity.
  5. NO ONE HAS THE RIGHT TO TELL YOU WHAT TO IDENTIFY AS AND WHO TO BE.

Ultimately, in the end the choice of whether to identify as queer or LGBT is a personal one, and individuals should use the term that feels most comfortable and authentic to them. However, it is important to be aware of the potential issues and limitations of both terms when discussing issues related to sexuality and gender identity and that not everyone identifies as |queer” and it should not be used as a general labeled. Something which the LGBT/Queer media has been pushing upon us.

Gay is Good.

So it’s okay to be Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, or Transgender without being “queer”. In the end its all about you.

NEW Gallop Poll Shows LGBT American's American's Hold at 7.5%. Very Few Self Identify as "Queer"

NEW Gallup Poll Shows LGBT American’s American’s Hold at 7.5%. Very Few Self Identify as “Queer”

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Oh dear. Turns out the majority of people really don’t like “Queer”

After showing perceptible increases in 2020 and 2021, U.S. adults’ identification as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual held steady in 2022, at 7.2% in the latest Gallop Poll.

The data are based on aggregated polling data from 2022 Gallup telephone surveys, encompassing interviews with over 10,000 U.S. adults. In each survey, Gallup asks respondents if they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something else, allowing them to choose multiple identities.

As is typically the case, the greatest share of LGBT adults — more than half, or 4.2% of all U.S. adults — identify as bisexual. Some reasoning behind this has to do with women being more open sexually to same sex partners than men. About one in five LGBT adults identify as gay, about one in seven say they are lesbian, and slightly fewer than one in 10 identify as transgender. Queer hardly even made the chart coming in at a whopping 0.01% self identifying as it.

This finding proves that “Queer” while it been over-hyped and over-used by the media, LGBT orgs, and smaller self interest groups has not taken off and embraced by the community as a whole.

Gay History - April 29, 1955: Rod McKuen  Born Singer-Songwriter, Actor, and Gay Rights Activist

PRIDE MONTH: The Hidden Gay Activism and Sexuality of Singer-Songwriter Rod McKuen

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The Erased Gay Activism and Past of Singer Rod McKuen

“Rod” McKuen (April 29, 1933 – January 29, 2015) was an American singer-songwriter, musician and poet. He was one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s. Throughout his career, McKuen produced a wide range of recordings, which included popular music, spoken word poetry, film soundtracks and classical music. He earned two Academy Award nominations and one Pulitzer nomination for his music compositions. McKuen’s translations and adaptations of the songs of Jacques Brel were instrumental in bringing the Belgian songwriter to prominence in the English-speaking world. McKuen’s songs sold over 100 million recordings worldwide, and 60 million books of his poetry were sold as well, according to the Associated Press.  This is known to many.  But what’s not widely known about is McKuen’s queer past and his gay activism work.

Rod McKuenMcKuen was a longtime supporter of gay rights. not many know that in the 1950s, he held a leadership role in the San Francisco chapter of the Mattachine Society.  McKuen also publicly opposed Anita Bryant and dubbed her:  ‘Ginny Orangeseed’—and gave benefit performances gay discos in Miami, New York, and LA to raise money for gay rights groups to fight her. He also engaged in AIDS activism for well over a decade, participating in numerous fundraisers in support of AIDS related charities.

The cover for his 1977 album  Slide… Easy In album, (pictured left), depicts the arm of 1970’s gay porn star Bruno, his fist filled with Crisco, hovering above a can with the label “disco” on it. The so-called “Crisco/Disco” album featured the song “Don’t Drink the Orange Juice,” released during the national “gaycot” of Florida orange juice in response to the Anita Bryant campaign.

Later that same year the Associated Press asked McKuen if he was gay. He responded: “I’ve been attracted to men and I’ve been attracted to women. I have a 16-year-old son. You put a label on.” By the end of the year, the Baltimore Sun casually described McKuen as a homosexual. While the gay newspaper, The Advocate, in 1976, it had gave McKuen the dubious “Something You do in the Dark” closet case award for refusing to identify as gay.

In 2004, a reporter asked  McKuen once again if he was gay. As with his AP interview two decades earlier, McKuen refused to label his sexual activities:

Am I gay? Let me put it this way, Collectively I spend more hours brushing my teeth than having sex so I refuse to define my life in sexual terms. I’ve been to bed with women and men and in most cases enjoyed the experience with either sex immensely. Does that make me bi-sexual? Nope. Heterosexual? Not exclusively. Homosexual? Certainly not by my definition.

I am sexual by nature and I continue to fall in love with people and with any luck human beings of both sexes will now and again be drawn to me. I can’t imagine choosing one sex over the other, that’s just too limiting. I can’t even honestly say I have a preference. I’m attracted to different people for different reasons.

I do identify with the Gay Rights struggle, to me that battle is about nothing more or less than human rights. I marched in the 50’s and 60’s to protest the treatment of Blacks in this country and I’m proud of the fact that I broke the color barrier in South Africa by being the first artist to successfully demand integrated seating at my concerts. I am a die-hard feminist and will continue to speak out for women’s rights as long as they are threatened. These, of course, are all social issues and have nothing to do with my sex life (although admittedly I’ve met some pretty hot people of both sexes on the picket line.)

Singer Rod McKuen died on January 29, 2015 with many new outlets erasing the fact that for over half a century McKuen selflessly and  proudly advocated for gay rights while refusing to put a sexual label on himself.

And now you know.

"The Good Place" Actress Jameela Jamil Comes Out As Queer

“The Good Place” Actress Jameela Jamil Comes Out As Queer

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“The Good Place” actress Jameela Jamil came out as “queer” yesterday on Twitter after addressing a backlash started by tran-actress Trace Lysette over Jamil’s involvement in “Legendary,” an upcoming HBO Max ballroom competition show.

“I kept it low because I was scared of the pain of being accused of performative bandwagon jumping, over something that caused me a lot of confusion, fear and turmoil when I was a kid.” Jamil said.

It is not clear what part of the community she identifies with as of this posting,

The drama started when “Transparent” trans-actress Trace Lysette criticized the decision to hire someone who was not part of the culture. (As she often does with every role she loses a roll she wants or feels slighted by casting “I interviewed for this gig. As the mother of a house for nearly a decade it’s kind of kind blowing when ppl with no connection to our culture gets the gig. This is not shade towards Jameela, I love all that she stands for. If anything I question the decision makers,” Lysette said on her Twitter.

“I know that my being queer doesn’t qualify me as ballroom,” Jamil has said. “But I have privilege and power and a large following to bring to this show, (as does the absolutely iconic Megan Thee Stallion,) and its beautiful contestants and ballroom hosts.

Jamil posted the following on Twitter:

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NEW Gallop Poll Shows LGBT American's American's Hold at 7.5%. Very Few Self Identify as "Queer"

Study Shows Only 6% of the LGBT Community Identifies as “Queer”

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A new report from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law has put scientific data behind the number of the population of “queer” self-identified people in the United States. According to its findings, only 6 percent of the LGBT community identify as queer, while 47 percent identify as lesbian or gay, just over 40 percent identify as bisexual (Eighty-five percent of the women who were polled reported being attracted to both men and women.) and about 7 percent identify as “other.”

The data’s age demographic characteristic shows that od the 6% of the LGBT community that identify as “queer” Ninety-eight percent of queer people are ages 18 to 44, with the vast majority (76 percent) ages 18 to 25, or Generation Z. The study found that just 2 percent of queer-identified people are ages 52 to 59, the oldest age cohort in the study.

Despite the push by the younger generation of the LGBT community to “reclaim” the word “queer” many older members of the community resist doing so because the pain and harm both physical and emotional that the it caused many over the past 100 years and believe it is incredibly insensitive and selfish to reclaim the word.

An unofficial poll ran by the Gay UK website in 2018 found that 60% of those polled said that using the term “Queer” to describe members of the LGBT community is deeply offensive”, particularly to men who identified as gay.

Only seven percent of gay men surveyed thought that the term “queer” was acceptable

White Queer Black Lives Matter Protester Disrupts Black Leaders Endorsement of Pete Buttigieg - VIDEO

White Queer Black Lives Matter Protester Disrupts Black Leaders Endorsement of Pete Buttigieg – VIDEO

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A meeting of Black Leaders in Indiana to showcase black support and endorsements for Pete Buttigieg took a trip on the crazy-train Wednesday night when a white, queer, Black Lives Matter protester rushed the stage to hi-jack the event and was nearly clobbered by a cane-wielding elderly lady.

Caught on camera by local network WSBT 22, the protester charging toward the front of the room where South Bend Councilwoman Sharon McBride was speaking.

“Who chose these people as black leaders?” the man yelled out — as a person in the audience stood up, positioned a cane over their head and took aim at the belligerent event crasher.

McBride and others managed to thwart the cane attack.

The protester then wrestled the microphone away from McBride, shouting into it, “Who organized this? We have a police crisis in this town. Why are we talking about Pete Buttigieg? What kind of nonsense is this?”

Less than a dozen other Black Lives Matter protesters stood silently with signs in the back of the room and did not get involved.

Buttigieg who himself wasn’t present at the event, but his campaign did help organize it.

Oh Thursday the 2020 Presidential nominee contender said of the ruckus.

“It shows kind of where politics has come to, especially for somebody to interrupt an African American woman who was speaking about her truth and in her experience,” the 2020 hopeful told NBC.

“But this is the climate that we’re in and we need to continue making sure that everyone is empowered to speak their truth, their experience, and in particular, when it comes to South Bend’s story,” he added.

Too bad the elderly black lady with the cane missed.

DC Dyke March Bans Jewish and Israeli Symbols on Pride Flags

DC Dyke March Bans Jewish and Israeli Symbols on Pride Flags

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Israeli symbols and Pride flags with the Star of David, will be banned at the Washington, D.C. Dyke March which is set to take place on Friday

DC Dyke March organizers say that while Jewish symbols would be allowed in general, rainbow flags with a Star of David appearing in the center are banned because they are “almost entirely reminiscent” of the Israeli flag.

“We are asking people to not bring nationalist symbols because violent nationalism does not fit with our vision of queer liberation,” they wrote. “And because we need the march to be a space that is as welcoming to Palestinian Dykes as it is to Jewish Dykes. The ‘Jewish Pride Flag’ seemed to only rise in popularity after the Chicago Dyke March — it was never a flag that we felt directly connected to, and it does not represent all Jewish Dykes,” they continued, referencing controversy that erupted in 2017 when the Chicago Dyke March ejected participants who carried such flags.

The event, which will take place in the capital after a 12-year hiatus, is not affiliated with the annual Pride Parade, as it rejects “the corporate sponsorship of Pride.”

In an interview with the Washington Post, one of the march’s organizers Laila Makled said the ban is intended to help create a welcoming space.

“All people should have a space to celebrate themselves, but I feel like at this moment in D.C. there is definitely a demand for a more inclusive way to display pride and protest,” she said.

The Anti-Defamation League criticized the ban, calling it “outrageous” and saying: “Banning the Star of David in their parade is anti-Semitic, plain and simple.

If this is what “QUEER”really is. Perhaps those out there that call themselves and identify as “queer” might want to think twice about that.

NEW Gallop Poll Shows LGBT American's American's Hold at 7.5%. Very Few Self Identify as "Queer"

LGBT Website Survey Finds That 93% Of Gay Men Polled Don’t Want To Be Labeled “QUEER”

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A recent survey done by the website The Gay UK has found that 60% of those polled find using the term “Queer” to describe members of the LGBT community is offensive and inappropriate.

The poll which was done in July 2017 asked over 200 people whether they thought queer as an umbrella term for the LGBT+ community was acceptable and sixty percent did not. Some commented that the word was “deeply offensive”, particularly to men who identified as gay.

The word queer is still used as a slur against many people in the community, particularly gay and bisexual men, and although some may refer to themselves in this way, the website says it’s probably best not to use language that causes offence to others.

Only seven percent of the gay men surveyed thought that the term “queer” was acceptable

Case in point: John Kichi, a 66-year-old writer and marketing expert in Sewickley, Pa., recalled how decades ago he was thrown out of an apartment and later lost a prestigious job because he was gay.

So when he began an online application for a job at Colorado College recently, he was shocked by a question that asked applicants to check one of five genders: “not disclosed,” “male,” “female,” “transgender” — or “queer.”

 “It would be like if they put down for race: ‘white,’ ‘Latino,’ ‘black’ and then the ‘N’ word,'” Kichi told ABCNews.com. “Every one of my gay friends is appalled by this.

 “I think queer harkens back to a time when being gay was a documented medical abnormality,” he said. “Queer is also not a gender, and if you want to list sexual orientation, that’s even more egregious.

While certain direct action groups began in the late 1980’s like Queer Nation used the word in the militant vernacular. Lately many QPOC (LGBT people of color), and millennial have begun to reclaim queer in response the ever widening LGBTQ!A+ umbrella without any thoughts or concern to those in the LGBT community that were harassed and harmed in the past and many  who still are in the present by the word “queer”.

 With PRIDE month coming fast everyone should be proud of who they are. Gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender.

I am a proud gay man. 

Proud of the word “queer”? 

 Not so much.

 How do you feel about the queer?  Sound off in the comments below.

 

 

Stonewall Veterans Association Accuse Cynthia Nixon for 'Ripping off gay history' For Campaign Purposes

Stonewall Veterans Association Accuse Cynthia Nixon of ‘Ripping off gay history’ For Campaign Purposes

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The Stonewall Veterans Association, which was formed in the aftermath of the Stonewall riots in 1969 by those who fought and were involved in the 4 nights of rioting are insulted that Cynthia Nixon launched her gubernatorial campaign with a fund-raiser at the Stonewall Inn on Wednesday without any recognition of the history or the group that many say started the fight for our civil rights.

Williamson L. Henderson, the Stonewall Veterans Association director has said that Nixon “Is ripping off gay history to promote herself.”

The group which boasts roughly about 40 surviving members of that historic night has been subbed by Nixon before.  At a  2013 campaign event at the Stonewall she stumped for Mayor de Blasio with a dozen Stonewall vets in the front row.

“It’ll be five years in June, they (Nixon and her companions) were on a little stage that was about 2-feet high for show … they never even acknowledged us,” he said. “She was talking about gay rights, gay pride, and there were a dozen of us there. Fast forward to the other night — she doesn’t invite the Stonewall Veterans?”

Nixon, who was 3 years old at the time, also prides herself as an advocate for LGBT rights and spoke about the challenges LGBT people face under the Trump administration at the fundraiser. “Being queer and being visible has been one of the unexpected joys of my life. And I must say, as a community, we’re at a thorny moment in our LGBTQ journey,” she said. We may have repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and passed marriage equality, but, the sun is not shining equally on all of us. Queer people who are also African-American or Muslim or Latino or working class are being targeted brutally on a daily basis.”

Williamson and the SV’s were further enraged after watching the coverage of Nixon’s event where it was reported supporters who contributed as little as $1 could attend.

Ironically $1 was the same cost of admission to the Stonewall inn in 1969. 

Oh, Miranda.

TRIGGERED: Madison, WI Police Banned From Marching in PRIDE Parade

Professor Declares Millennial Snowflakes and Their Victim-hood Is Destroying Gay Culture

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Cynthia Belmont, a professor at Northland College, in a new op-ed published by Salon, states that in the last few years, she’s seen an uptick in students who seem to take offense at things that have defined LGBTQ culture for decades.

We deserve all the rights, obviously. We deserve to be who we are and who we want to be and not to be harassed or killed for it, and we deserve to have and keep our children and set up shop in the suburbs if we want. We deserve to pee in peace in the bathroom that suits our identity and serve in the military. Obviously. I myself have lived in fear as a parent with no legal rights. But. Apparently, in the pursuit of rights and respectability, we have somehow shifted as a culture from the celebration of eros to the celebration of victimhood — to comfortably inhabiting a state of being prickly and appalled — and apparently we now have to be and feel like victims in order even to deserve rights. This worries me.

Are we going to become so focused on our legal standing and our feelings, so invested in queer culture as a culture of rights, respectability and sensitivity, that we lose our playfulness and the toughness that used to define survival? Do we just not want to be tough anymore? Are we too emotionally exhausted, or just too bourgeois, to appreciate a classic bitchy drag emcee? Her sensibility was always at the cultural fringe — is there no room for it now? Or are we the truly bitchy ones, ever ready with the political upper hand raised to slap down those among us who still want to play around the edges, where things are a little less comfortable and correct?

Who cares? I do. Because my queer students are so fragile, so easily hurt, and I am worried about them — and not in the way that they want me to be. Because when I say to one of them, “Being a victim is not hot, and in my day a political platform based on being a victim would never have gained traction,” she seems startled but retorts that on the contrary, victimhood is hot, adding, “What about BDSM?” And so I explain that BDSM is not about being a victim, it’s about moving beyond and transforming  victimization — for those who come to it that way — and it’s about destabilizing the grounds of victimization, through playing with power. Which is also what drag is about in its way. And I am shocked to find myself in the position of defending, to a queer, the value of hotness — as shocked as she seems to be at the idea that hotness could be the point of queer culture.

I don’t believe her. I don’t believe that she really finds victimhood hot, unless . . . is this a new fetish that is hopelessly lost on me since I’m almost 50? I won’t — I can’t — believe in the victim as the new face of queer culture. What were all those drag queens at Stonewall fighting for, anyway? If victimhood is hot, then we have lost.

 So in a nutshell.  We fought for our rights so millennials can be offended.

So are millennial snowflakes are ruining LGBT culture? Share your thoughts in the comments…