This photo is from last week’s Pride parade in New York. Everyone is always pretty friendly in allowing me to take their photo at these events — it’s one of the only times people are that gracious about having a stranger stick a camera in their face, and it’s one of the things I love about NYC Pride. I also love that it’s one of the most racially diverse queer events you could ever participate in. Not every state is that lucky. What I hate about Pride, though, is that like any queer-related event, the focus is still on very homonormative goals and values.

This year, there was a lot of focus on DADT and on marriage, as there was last year. Don’t get me wrong, when I decided to sneak into the march last year, I ended up walking with Marriage Equality NY – and they were lovely people! But the emphasis on “gay marriage” is problematic for a number of reasons: it ignores the fact that not everyone who wants a same-sex marriage is gay, and it also prioritizes marriage (something that mainly affects gays and lesbians) over issues that affect the other letters in our acronym, such as trans-inclusive hate crime legislation. Last year, I was at an LGBTQ conference with other colleges in the Northeast, and we were asked to state our opinions on a number of issues affecting our community by standing in various boxes ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. When marriage came up, 95% of students strongly disagreed with Prop 8. When HRC’s actions concerning ENDA came up, 95% of students stared blankly at the man asking us questions, as they had no clue what he was talking about.

Let’s think about this for a minute: a bunch of students living on the east coast were up to date and very much concerned with a law in California concerning marriage, yet none of them knew about HRC lying to the trans community and pushing for a non-inclusive ENDA, an action that probably set our community back a good decade. They’ve since apologized, but it’s still troubling that this doesn’t quite register as a big concern within the LGBTQ community (at least not within my age bracket, though I don’t think this is really specific to us).

I also saw a lot of “born gay” signs this year, a phrase that annoys me more and more every time I hear it. I think it’s one of the worst approaches to homophobia our community has ever created. Besides the fact that it (absurdly) singles sexual orientation down to this one so-called “gay gene,” it assumes gender by suggesting that biology predetermines our attraction to gender. If we understand gender to be biologically innate (rather than a social construct), the “born gay” standpoint further complicates the LGB relationship with the trans community, and we have enough tension there to begin with. “Born gay” is an easy comeback to the argument that homosexuality is unnatural as well as the religious argument, but it’s more problematic than anything else, and completely ignores the fluidity of sexuality.

In addition to the born gay posters were signs that appropriated the language of the Civil Rights Movement. I believe I’ve posted about this before (one one of my blogs, at least), but I’m bothered by it so much more after Prop 8. As it is, offending the black community by equating our struggle with the Civil Rights Movement does nothing to help our relationship with people of color, but it’s especially offensive after we blamed black and Latino voters for the outcome of Prop 8. And that was only after opponents of Prop 8 did not go into communities of color to appeal for their vote in the first place…

I still love Pride events, and I always enjoy myself in the craziness of it all. But we’re not immune to homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, or racism just because we are a fairly progressive community. As a community so focused on our own oppression, we should be more conscious of the prejudice within our own community and the voices we silence in favor of the ones more marketable to heteronormative society.

(cross-posted on my tumblelog)

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Here is my proud bed-racing team from the Charity Bed Race event that Demarest Hall participated in tonight. On the bed, from left to right, we have RJ, Dan, and Andrew (whose breasts looked fabulous — even better than they did during our drag show last year, when he wore the pink bra I lent to him from the picture on the right). Finally, squatting down, we have Catherine, who led our team to victory in the first round.

As outreach coordinator in our dorm (sorry, “residence hall” — apparently “dorm” sounds like a prison), I signed us up for this event and pitched the idea of a drag theme for our dorm. It was a subtler version of my original suggestion, “Free our Bathrooms,” which was a response to the housing administration “taking away” our gender neutral bathrooms this year, despite the fact that gender-free bathrooms have been a part of our dorm’s culture for years (largely because of the queer presence here, but also for the convenience of all residents, as we pride ourselves on having a very active and tight-knit community, and regulating which bathrooms students can use in a place they consider to be their home is absurd). However, a charity event didn’t seem like the appropriate venue for such antagonism, so we ditched the toilet seat and went with a giant purple penis modeled after the now infamous Power Penis Vibe. I’ll save the story behind that one for another time.

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This year’s NY Pride marked the 40th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Riots. During a time when raids of gay bars were rather common, the queer community finally organized itself in a fight against police brutality one night in June, almost immediately after receiving the news of Judy Garland’s death — a death that deeply impacted many members of the LGBT community. Ever since, this has been cited as the moment that gave birth to the modern gay liberation movement, and as I myself marched in NY Pride this year, I passed by a number of Stonewall veterans who were looked to with great honor and respect. One of the veterans in particularly was carrying a sign that read “WE NEED A MILLION STONEWALLS,” which I thought was particularly striking. The sign, of course, was not suggesting that more raids and rioting must happen, but that our current generation must revolutionize the way these Stonewall veterans did — but with more relevance to the issues we are facing today, of course, as raids and police brutality are no longer considered normative.

Unfortunately, though, the Stonewall sign seems to have taken on a more literal significance after this weekend. Though our community has seen much progress in the time that has passed since June 1969, our commemoration of the event that sparked the modern gay liberation movement coincides with a raid extraordinarily reminiscent of the raid on Stonewall. This past weekend, Fort Worth police raided a new gay bar called Rainbow Lounge. On that night, Rainbow Lounge was itself remembering Stonewall by screening documentaries about the event, and the night was going well until police showed up unexpectedly to make arrests — particularly targeting the most effeminate looking men. This targeting of individuals in a gay bar combined with the excessive violence used by police — violence that landed one man in the hospital with a fractured skull — is disheartening enough when we think of it in terms of history, but when we consider the fact that this is continuing in the year 2009, it’s difficult to still feel optimistic about the accomplishments we’ve made in society.

To add to the striking similarities between these two events, we have recently lost our own icon. Admittedly, a comparison between Judy Garland and Michael Jackson is quite the stretch — if only because Garland was more of an LGBT icon in particular than Jackson (I suppose sister Janet is more appropriate for that label). However, that in itself is the sign of progress evident in this unfortunate raid. Why? Because today, there is no icon like Judy Garland. If that seems strange to you, let me put it this way: the LGBT community is facing a lot of battles in 2009. This raid comes amidst debates about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, ENDA, Prop 8, and many other issues. There is so much going on within our community that it is almost impossible to keep up with it all, and just as there is no main icon within our community, we are not all dependent on one main issue, either. Our community is more diverse, more spread out, more visible and more active than ever before, and despite the constant struggle for our rights, we must remain proud of what we have accomplished and see the positive signs of change we have helped create.

If nothing else, this is for sure something we would have never heard in 1969: “Rest assured that neither the people of Fort Worth nor the government of the city of Fort Worth will tolerate discrimination against any of its citizens.” Stated by Joel Burns, a Fort Worth city councilman and Tarrant County’s first openly gay elected official, this quote should give us faith in the strength and support of our community. It should remind us that there will be plenty of battles, setbacks and disheartening moments along the way, but in the end, we know we’re facing the right direction.

(Also posted at Associated Content)

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In their advertising text, Burger King does away with any attempt to throw in the usual cunning, subtle remarks and instead goes with this:

“Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the NEW BK SUPER SEVEN INCHER. Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick and Hearty Steak Sauce.”

I’m not sure whether it’s even worth picking apart at the details of this text because the sexist imagery is so shamelessly vulgar I’m tempted to think the BK masterminds created it to be that way, if only to stir up controversy that will really have everyone talking. Otherwise, Burger King needs to hire a new employee for their Sexual Nuance Conceptualizer position, because the language sounds like something a 13-year-old boy might say while harassing a female classmate about his own long and juicy member blowing her mind. BK doesn’t even attempt to mask the sexual positioning of their female model, instead caking on her makeup in a way that makes me imagine her dressed as Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. I’m not even sure if the word “blow” is meant to further emphasize the obvious sexual act going on here, or if BK is gloating about the blow-up sex doll they’ve created out of their model for this advertisement. Thoughts?

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Personally, I say props to Obama to recognizing the fact that LGBT issues don’t begin and end with marriage. Good for Obama for commemorating the Stonewall Riots of 1969, the resistance out of which the modern gay liberation movement was born — an event many Americans don’t even know about, and one that is often missing from US history textbooks. Good for him for recognizing LGBT youth, the problem of harassment in schools, adoption rights, “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” HIV/AIDS, and other crucial LGBT-related issues we must combat but often ignore while wrapped up in debates about same-sex marriage.

Last week, a gender-variant person was shot in Memphis for “misrepresenting his gender.” How many people have read about that? Because my guess is everyone’s up to date on California and Prop 8, but not so much stories like this one.

Don’t get me wrong — I think marriage equality is important, and I think it’s quite the shame we’re so behind many other countries on that front. But I think it’s more of a shame that when a transgendered individual is shot in an apparent hate crime, we don’t care enough to talk about it. I think it’s a shame that when we elect a president who makes an effort to become a friend to the LGBT community, all we can do is criticize. I think it’s a shame that so many people are completely unaware of the various issues plaguing the LGBT community because marriage takes precedence in our minds. I’m all for the rallies, the letters, the push for legalization, and so on. But we can’t get so caught up in that one issue that we forget the others, and I’m glad that Obama hit on a lot of those. Perhaps this month is a good time to reassess our priorities.

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In one example, Barthes notes that photographs can reveal certain genetic features or similarities that we never notice. This brought to mind one particular image of my family from about 9 or 10 years ago (I think). My great-grandfather — we called him Pop — was still alive, and he was standing behind my dad and my little brother, the camera getting a profile of each of them, one behind the other. It wasn’t until I saw that picture developed that I realized they all have a distinctly similar nose. Unfortunately, the photo is sitting in a cabinet somewhere in my house, so I’ll have to wait until next time I’m home to find it.

I recently took a photo of my friend Dan at the drag show we host in our dorm once a semester, and it had a similar effect for him. This may not be quite what Barthes was talking about — the resemblance is probably due to the fact that Dan is wearing his mother’s wig, dress, and make-up — but it’s interesting how similar drag queen Dan is to mama Dan. Especially since it’s RJ, to his left, who seems to have been favoring the outdated jacket and plump, middle-aged woman type of style. I’m not sure what that says about his mother’s style, but either way, as soon as I put the picture up on Facebook, RJ and I marveled at the familiarity of Dan’s feminine side.

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