Pride in Progress: How to Call Out Oppression

 It’s Pride Month. For most LGBTQ folks, Pride is complicated, and our experiences are nuanced and vary greatly within the communities. As an LGBTQ-specialized therapist, I hold a critical eye for how social systems and power dynamics in our communities impact our mental health and community wellness.

As a cisgender, white, gay male, I recognize the pronounced disparities within our communities as the nation’s attack on transgender rights and racial inequality continues to escalate.  This article is designed as a “name it to tame it’ approach to calling out oppression within our queer communities and a calling in my privileged gay brothers to be more effective in advancing LGBTQ social justice.

Can We Do Better, Please? 

As Queer Liberation Leader and the Stone Wall Riots initiator  Marsha P. Johnson stated, “You never completely have your rights, one person, until you all have your rights.” We (gay men) need to be accountable for showing up and supporting our marginalized queer community members. This Pride Month, and moving into this election season, let’s address the significant issues hurting our queer folks and holding back queer social justice advancement.

Heteronormativity

LGBTQ psychologist and  author Douglas Haldeman described the pervasive nature of heterosexism as “the presumption of heterosexuality as the only normal sexual identity and behavior.” Essentially, heterosexism is the unacknowledged belief that heterosexuality is the norm, further marginalizing the community through invisibility.

When LGBTQ identities are demonstrated, they are met with biases, prejudices, and discrimination. In a heteronormative system, “LGBTQ+ people are considered undeserving of equal access to heteronormative structures… that are the unquestioned rights and privileges of the heterosexual majority.”

Psychologist  Beth Firestein observed that “the effects of heterosexism are pervasive.” The default assumption that someone is straight is a form of oppression pushing down the nonnormative individual. Heteronormativity, like other harmful forms of oppression, are systemic, ever-present, and at the forefront of American cultural dialogue today.

Dominate Culture

 Heteronormativity is cultural domination exerted consciously and unconsciously through socialized normatively. In addition to homo-bi-transphobia, heteronormative dominant cultural subversion of minority populations is present in white supremacy, misogyny, ableism, and economic disenfranchisement. The relationship between dominant cultures, access to privilege, and attempts to gain power, constructs social hierarchies and trickle-down social orders is also found in subcultures and minority groups. Every minority’s dominant culture is comprised of those in closest proximity to heteronormative ideals. In queer communities, the dominant culture perpetuates a hierarchy that mirrors heteropatriarchy, placing white, cisgender gay men at the top and POC and Black, transgender women at the bottom.

Homonormativity

Homonormativity is the dominant culture within LGBTQ communities and is a huge problem. Cisgender, white, able-bodied, educated gay men possess the most similar social attributes of a heteronormative ideology. Almost the same, but gay, you know?

Since the 1990s and the movement for gay rights, there have been significant movements of gay men assimilating into heteronormativity. Corporations capitalize on gay men through their “pink dollars,” which is considered dispensable income, since many of them don’t have children. This economic opportunity concretized gay, white, cisgender men as the dominant culture within LGBTQ communities, providing us the most power and privilege through economic advancement.

Hierarchy and History

There’s an established hierarchy of gay men having the most access to privilege that perpetuates paralleled oppression in LGBTQ communities: racism, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, and economic inequities. The most egregious issue here is going back to 1969, the Stonewall Riots, the Black Cat Rebellion, and early queer liberation, we know the major leaders of these movements were Black and Latinx community members, trans folks, and women. Yet once gay, white, cisgender men gained access to power and privileges in the 1990s, they established dominance.

Today the major issue with Pride and the visibility of LGBTQ+ rights is rainbow washing and corporatization of the liberation movement under capitalism. This has created a comfortable environment for privileged white cis gay men in large cities around the world who feel protected legislatively by law enforcement and within social norms. However, when we look at transgender rights being erased and laws being created against trans populations along with homicide rates of trans women of color escalating on a frightening scale, we see a pronounced disparity within LGBTQ+ communities across the US.

The driving force of homonormativity is not that we want to be oppressors. It’s our untracked and often unconscious internalized heteronormativity. It’s hard to understand that we have internalized and subsequently perpetuated harmful beliefs when our parents, families, communities, and culture as a whole reward us for possessing them. We get approval and praise for enacting normativity. Who doesn’t want to be validated? We all do, but we need to think outside of ourselves.

David Sedaris

On CBS’s Sunday Morning in 2022,  David Sedaris shared a segment called “On Coming Out, All Over Again.” His dominant cultural privilege as a white, cisgender gay man was illuminated in his indignation in response to the evolution of inclusion and diversity in LGBTQ communities. He stated:

“I never liked the term coming out; still, I did it way back in the 1970s. Now I’m having to do it all over again. I’m 65 years old; I’ve been with the same guy for 31 years, and on this day, I am announcing to the world that I am straight. I haven’t met anyone else, haven’t fallen in love with a woman. I’m done fighting the term ‘queer.’

“What bothers me is not that it used to be a slur. I just don’t see why I have to be rebranded for the fourth time in my life. I started as a homosexual, became gay, then LGBT, and now queer, and for what; why the makeovers, and what will it be next? I read an interview with a woman who identifies as queer because she’s tall; that’s it. She’s never had a relationship with another woman and doesn’t care to, for all I know. So, what does it mean that we’re both suddenly queer? I’m not tall, just the opposite. There are parking meters that stand higher than I do.

“I’m told that queer is about inclusion. It’s an umbrella that lesbians and nonbinary people and bisexuals and tall women can all stand under. But why not just say I’m intersex; I’m trans; I’m a lesbian, etc? Why do we need an ever-changing umbrella? Is it just to make the parades easier? It no longer matters what you are in practice or how you identify. I’m going with heterosexual because, like the words Jewish or female, it rarely, if ever, changes. I need a resting place, and this is as good a one as any, so from here on out, I’m as straight as they come (but with a boyfriend).”

David, this aint it…

No one is asking anything of David. The inconvenience found in the evolution of language and labels is nothing compared to the oppression of our Black, Indigenous, and POC Queer community members, the anti-trans legislation, and the homicide rates of trans-black women.

His frustration distracts from pressing issues at the forefront of queer rights. He has a platform; people and youth look up to him and find comfort and safety in his persona, writing, and presence in our culture. His platform occupies space in our culture, and now, from this video segment, he has filled that space with performative exhaustion and a lack of desire to see outside himself.  This video segment is a hard example of the misuse of homonormative privilege. It sounds and feels very similar to the invalidating heteronormative family members at a holiday gathering, annoyed by our queerness because it challenges them to see the world outside themselves.

David paved the way for so many of us. There is so much gratitude for his voice in the 90s and 2000s LGBTQ social justice commentary and visibility. Personally, his unique voice and even more unique perspective on  NPR’s, This American Life gave me the confidence to come out in the early 2000s. This segment was such a disappointment.  This sentiment is harmful because he aligns himself with the same oppression and indignations as straight ignorance and heteronormativity. He is essentially saying, please stop growing; that inconveniences me.

Let’s see outside ourselves

I invite all of us to see outside ourselves. It is so easy to get caught up in our own experiences and not witness the experience of marginalization in our own communities. Heteronormativity fucking sucks, yes, and homonormativity is also dangerous. If we remain complacent in our lanes and do not use our privilege effectively, we are just as bad as that bigot uncle who has no filter at Thanksgiving. The only difference is that we are gaslighting and further marginalizing queer community members by saying ‘love is love,’ rainbow-washing, and not doing anything to support and advocate for their survival. What is more harmful, being an overt bigot or pretending you aren’t?

Consider this

This Pride month, consider how we can value and prioritize diversity in all our LGBTQ communities and use our dominant cultural privilege to advocate and hold each other accountable in seeing outside of ourselves.

Consider what allyship looks like, even within our communities.