i work with a 22 yr old gay man and we frequently get into discussions revolving around "my day" vs. "today". his experience of being homosexual seems to be radically different from when i was his age, to the point of him telling me that he's not defined by his sexuality. it sort of makes me feel hopeless-we spent all of those years trying to tear down the barriers, now i hear that it was pointless because homosexuals are assimilated into the culture and it isn't that big of a deal anymore. but, fuck it, i don't want to be assimilated. i love being gay and being defined by that...i'm proud that i lived my life as a gay man in a straight culture and survived. maybe i'm just old and bitter as my young friend tells me i am but i don't think so. i think slogging through the everyday shit of living as an out fag, living through the aids holocaust and still loving being a fag has to be of some worth. good god, where are the 70's when i need them???
any thoughts from either side of the generation chasm?
The topic threw me off, maybe because I'm a dumb 20yo who doesn't know what passe means. But I read all the previous comments and I have a "general" idea. I think we haven't forgotten what our elders (not in an insulting way) have done for us, just we don't think of it in. everyday occurences. There is still discrimination all over as we all know...I'm not into politics or news, but I look on facebook and other social media and I see hate crimes going on everyday or two and I think.....okay, chalk another to bigots.
The actions of previous activists and what they have done is very appreciated, but we don't all think back to 19-whatever decade u were born in. We usually think of the here and now. If nothing had been done, we all would be very closeted and sneaking around for a quick fuck or so. The progress made is big and again very appreciated (maybe I should say we are very thankful instead).
I don't think any of this is making any sense, but the general idea is (even though I can't speak for EVERY younger gay man) is that most of us appreciate what's been done and we are grateful for what we have in todays culture.
I'm horrible in writing what I want to say, so pardon this if you had no clue in what I said lol
Reminds me of how little thought there is about the pure hell earlier generations went through to get where we are today. For instance, I was a soldier in Vietnam. Kids coming out of high school today don't even know where Vietnam is much less that the US lost over 58,000 in that sad military venture. Kids coming out of high school, for that matter, do not know that the first George Bush led a coalition to retake Kuwait from the invading Iraqui government. This really isn't surprising because when I was a kid in the Army and serving in Iran I had no idea that the Shah was in power because of the CIA. The people hated the Shah but as a kid fresh from the farm in Michigan I had no idea... Not until many years later when the Shah was removed from power and the Mullah came out of exile to govern that country. Now look what we have in Iran - a President who believes the holocaust never happened and that Israel should be removed from the earth...
People cannot know everything about everything... Young people are especially challenged. But for gay young people I imagine that the present generation cannot begin to understand the significance of the shoulders they stand on for those who came through their hell.
I suspect that young blacks in this country have much to learn about people like Reverend King and others who confronted racism, who suffered, died and who left a society that is largely more tolerant, more accepting. Perception is always relative to what one knows. Thus a young black person might now be able only to relate to his own experience and say "things could be better" and not fully realize how trul awful they were for far too many years...
Could this not also be true for young gay people in our culture?
eversyoften
west Michigan
i WAS one of those young people who was suicidal over being called names and bullied. and one of the most liberating experiences of my life was to say, "yes, i'm a fag and i'll be a fag till i fly away." i took ownership of those terms and they lost their ability to wound. st. lenny bruce in one of his monologues talked about the N word and how it should be constantly used, it should be taught in schools and in the media because it needs to be robbed of its power so that no little black girl need ever run home from school crying because of a word. it's the same idea with fag. and guess what, if straight america calls me a fag, i'm going to be the screaming fag of their nightmares and they can all kiss my faggot ass. i get sick of hearing the N word, especially at three million decibels from the car next to me in traffic but i understand the dynamic.
and i also want the younger generation to enjoy and build on what has been accomplished but i also don't want them to dismiss out of hand what came before them. one of the most blood curdling experiences i've had in recent years came when a young gay guy asked me how i spent the 80's. i replied that it seemed to me that i had spent those years going to funerals, reading he obits to see who had died now and crying. he asked why all of my friends had died and i just said "aids" and he replied, "Oh yeah, i forgot about aids." the same guy, later in the discussion, when i told him about another friend's experience of walking through the village in the late 80's and noticing that where there used to be a teeming gay street life now noticed a lot of young marrieds with children living in the previously gay housing replied, "i'm sure he was exagerating, it couldn't have had that big an impact."
where did gay culture go?
On the other hand, you can't blame your colleague if he wants to see himself as more than just a gay man. Just because he sees his sexual preference as one part of the whole, and chooses to be defined by other aspects of his life, does not mean he is being disrespectful towards the gay rights crusaders. Sure, there still are fights to be fought, battles to be won, but the current/next generation seems to have other priorities too. Condescending rainbow warriors might call it callousness, apathy or ingratitude, but that's biased personal judgment.
And lumping all the youngsters who choose not to get personally involved in gender/sexual politics as entitled flippant stereotypical homos is just plain condescending.
i'm just saying....