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By Brody Levesque (Washington DC) Sept 3 | Recently the LGBT community lost an advocate with the death of Massachusetts senior senator, Ted Kennedy. He spoke out eloquently and frequently in support of issues such as Gay marriage, HIV-aids research and funding, and enactment of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes bill. It is important to note that the Senator was not a “Johnny-come-lately” to the cause of LGBT rights either. In a career spanning four plus decades, he often spoke out or stood by LGBT folk when others in his party or the opposition remained silent on or opposed to LGBT civil rights.
( See the related article here.)
The one quality though of the Senator's character that stood out above the rest was his belief in the young people of America, all of them, including the LGBT youth. The Senator also made it his practice to remain constantly abreast of social changes, new technologies, and other advances that changed the perspectives by which the people lived their daily lives. He recognized that the youth and trends embraced by them would more often than not lead the way in changing society and culture.
Which brings me to my headline for this article. I learned of this diverse, young, and outspoken group of persons about two months ago as I was assembling sources for my blog and adding to my resources pool as a journalist. (Credit for pointing me to theNEWgay.net goes to Lindsey at Lambda Rising Bookstore.) As I began to follow TNG's website daily, I rapidly discovered that I found myself nodding my head in agreement or murmuring, “yup, true!,” out-loud as I read.
Perspective, okay, let me define this:
per·spec·tive p
r-sp
k
t
v)
n.
1.
a. A view or vista.
b. A mental view or outlook: "It is useful occasionally to look at the past to gain a perspective on the present" (Fabian Linden).
2. The appearance of objects in depth as perceived by normal binocular vision.
3.
a. The relationship of aspects of a subject to each other and to a whole: a perspective of history; a need to view the problem in the proper perspective.
b. Subjective evaluation of relative significance; a point of view: the perspective of the displaced homemaker.
c. The ability to perceive things in their actual interrelations or comparative importance: tried to keep my perspective throughout the crisis.
4. The technique of representing three-dimensional objects and depth relationships on a two-dimensional surface.
(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.)
I think that the third definition and (a.) best fits my point here. I see a huge problem in the LGBT community that has developed into a metaphorical fault line if you will in the crust of the relationships between the generations within the community. There has been an increase of seismic activity in the past three years, that activity being the voices of discontent and dismay raised at the older LGBT community by the youth. This is not the same old cliché of youth versus age... yada yada yada. No, in fact, these are the type of protests that can lead to major changes and cultural upheavals which historically are inevitable as time passes.
What is happening is that the older generations are missing the very definition of perspective. They, (inclusive) are NOT paying attention to what youth are telling them. The irony to this reporter is that these are the same folks who fought the NYPD at Stonewall, marched with Harvey Milk, demonstrated and mourned during the Aids Pandemic with Cleave Jones, and now hold fund raisers for the HRC and other established LGBT lobby and advocacy groups. Senator Kennedy would very much have appreciated this clamor for new perspectives. I applaud these young men and women as they hammer home the most important point of all; “It's not about the sex!”
An example that graphically illustrated this point was a flyer for a social event at a local themed amusement park here in the metropolitan Washington D. C. area, the annual 'Gay Day.' The flyer featured a Lesbian couple in the background and in the foreground, two bare-chested men, one in typical 'Leatherman' apparel, engaged in a lip-lock. The young man who showed me the flyer took exception to this depiction of LGBT people as his complaint was that it seemed that every advert he'd ever seen was similarly themed. To further make his point, he pulled out the local LGBT newspaper and flipped through it pointing out the adverts that were similar. “ Not everybody is a sex crazed queer!” He said. Fair enough, I agree with that as for myself, I too get tired of the seemingly endless barrage of sexually themed adverts marketing everything from real estate sales to night club venues and films.
Are the older LGBT generations entrenched in an outdated mode of thinking about themselves? I think that to be honest, the answer is yes. Here's an excerpt from a recent column in theNEWgay.net by co-founder and editor, Michael Eichler:
“We gay men and women and trans-folk aren’t born into our community. We have to go seek it out. We don’t have GLBTQ parents teaching us the history of our people. We don’t hear about Stonewall at sermons during Sunday mass. We don’t discuss the ongoing oppression of our people at neighborhood rallies or block-parties attended by our extended families. In order to learn about our people and our history, we have to go out and seek this knowledge. But first we need to realize that we are different ourselves from the community we are born into, which can take years if it even happens at all.
One commenter on a recent post lamented that the majority of queer gatherings happen in bars. And the fact that the majority of queer spaces are bars doesn’t bode well for finding other venues in which community can be built. But sometimes I wonder, is there really even such thing as a gay/queer community? Most events, venues and websites that claim to be “for the GLBT community” are often dominated by one facet of the community. Queerty claims to have a “sharp eye for news, entertainment, shopping, fashion, and travel for the GLBT community” yet its homepage is rife with photos of shirtless men. Local pride celebrations are too often segmented into separate celebrations targeted towards different groups (black pride, trans pride, etc.). New York City is sprouting with new and different events geared towards specific niches.
Queer people come in all colors, genders and gender identities. When it comes down to it, the only thing queer people have in common is an attraction to people of the same sex (or gender, if you will). And even that is untrue, since Queer also embraces transgendered individuals who may or may not identify same-sex attracted. The only real uniting factor is that we a “sexual minority” which, on its face, isn’t much to cling to.
What I mean by that is that is that community based on same-sex attraction or transitioning gender identity ends up being a bunch of people who have little else in common.
Despite all these differences, the one thing we do have in common is a lack of acceptance from society at large, and a continued denial of equal treatment under the law. Now, that’s something worth bonding and uniting over.”
Eichler also expounded upon this topic last April in this brilliant column entitled “Why I reject Gay culture.” (Here)
We, the so-called elders, (this correspondent himself being over the age of 50) need to pay greater attention. More-so, we really need to listen hard and carefully to what young people are telling us and realize the underlying concerns and issues that have given them reason to be so vocal. Times and events have changed and thus dictate that efforts must be to affect practical and realistic ways to unify and be an inclusive community such as suggested by Eichler and others on TNG and elsewhere. LESS emphasis on the physical and MORE on the reality/spiritual aspects of being LGBT.
Senator Kennedy, speaking at the 2008 HRC Equality Convention, warned that the “march of progress” was being impeded by forces in the judiciary, executive, and congressional branches as well as local and state legislative bodies that “felt that the LGBT movement had gone far enough.” The youth has taken this message to heart in the recent Gay marriage rights issue, equality rights, and push for hate crimes legislative efforts, as evidenced by their strong participation and grass roots activism. But there comes a caution from the youth as stated again by Michael Eichler;
“Our shared struggle for equal rights will NOT happen until we queer people, all of us GLBTQI folk, find appropriate venues for discovering our common interests and gain mutual respect and compassion for one another.”
And then youth are also acknowledging the need for, and pushing for, change among themselves. This is an excerpt from an article posted today, Sept 3rd, by net author Jean at TNG:
"Part of what makes TNG, “The New Gay,” is that we try to approach LGBT issues in a new way. We are Gay 2.0 — crews of gay twenty-somethings and their allies, blogging, tweeting, writing, posting, and organizing causes and events on facebook. The employed members of this posse bang away on their keyboards through lunch-hours and weekends, while students and the jobless sit in dorm study rooms and coffee shops creating a new wave of LGBT information like the web has never before seen. We all believe that we are reaching out in a new way, that Gay 2.0 is touching society faster, with a longer reach and with a stronger grasp. That is why we Tweet. Why we write and read sites like TNG."
It all boils down to perspective.
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