David Kato, Uganda Gay Activist, Brutally Slain

A prominent Ugandan gay rights activist whose picture was published by an anti-gay newspaper next to the words “Hang Them” was bludgeoned to death after receiving multiple threats, but police said Thursday they had no leads on the killing.

Activists were outraged over the death of David Kato, an advocacy officer for the gay rights group Sexual Minorities Uganda. His slaying comes after a year of stepped up threats against gays in Uganda, where a controversial bill has proposed the death penalty for some homosexual acts. Kato was found with serious wounds to his head at his home in Uganda’s capital Kampala, late Wednesday, a police spokeswoman said. Kato later died from his injuries on the way to hospital.

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Don’t Ask! Don’t Kill!

Amen.

Indeed, the myopia of “gay rights” often throws broader socio-political progressivism under the bus in order to extend our own civil liberties. In New York, Empire State Pride Agenda’s endorsement of Andrew Cuomo is an example of supports a candidate who has said to be for marriage equality but whose attacks on organized labor, demonization of public employees, slashing of social services, and essentially gutting working people, the under- and unemployed, and the poor, is not the kind of politician that will help a majority of who aren’t already upwardly mobile and interested in getting hitched for the benefits.

[via:queermovieman]

by Daniel W.K. Lee

Another version of this essay was published in the September 23, 2010 issue of MetroWeekly under the title “Don’t Ask, Just Tell.” Below is the complete version.

Perhaps it was inevitable that the gay community’s commitment to New Left principles (that was the soil from which the Gay Liberation movement emerged) would splinter as gays became more mainstream—or perhaps more specifically—became visible in mass media and a coveted consumer market. As a whole, we gays have come to take our politics for granted: by and large, no longer are we street protesters and meeting organizers; instead, we do our activism through consumerism (buy this to support this and that cause), or use the Internet as a gay rights echo chamber (tweet one’s way to the “activist” moniker). Moreover, the gay political battlefield has never looked more strange than it does now with not just the usual Left forces and the Log Cabin Republicans, but also those stranger-than-strange gay teapartiers and über-Conservatives like those at GOProud, who openly embraced the racial scapegoating, classism, patriarchy, war-mongering, (basically all the things gay liberationists set out to end), and their pundits (Ann Coulter for one). But gay Conservatives aren’t the only ones who have internalized and then externalized the racism, misogyny, and militarism antithetical to our movement’s New Left roots; the “gay mainstream” has done so too in two very different ways.

First, it might be surprising to some, or many, to see our fight against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”—which once repealed, would give LGB (no “T” here because nowhere do we talk about transgender people in the military in discussions regarding DADT) the ability to serve in the military openly has the same-sex-lovin’ homos and bisexuals that they are—would probably not have been of much interest in our political forefathers of the late Sixties and early Seventies. To them, DADT would have been a short-sighted battle for a right that supports militarism. We cannot fool ourselves into thinking that letting LGB’s openly serve will transform the military as a site of contempt for the feminine in men and the masculine in women. Serving openly won’t transform gender in the military anymore than out gays and lesbians have revolutionized in Western civil society; that is to say, gender deviation is still gender deviation, and not a socially acceptable expression of one’s place on the gender continuum. On the contrary, traditional gender norms are further legitimized with our rubber stamp in our current battle for our right to kill with fatigues on. Which leads to another reason why repeal of DADT isn’t as progressive as we’d like to think: anti-war, peace-loving progressive impulses must somehow be reconciled with the liberty to participate in the military-industrial complex and war machine and the occupation of foreign lands, military abuses and war crimes, and the billions of dollars funneled into “defense” at the expense of building a better American society.

Second, and perhaps more insidious, is how gays, specifically gay men, have unapologetically become sexual racists, gender purists, and enforcers of a gay male body culture (that is on par with the oppressive beauty myth that women have had to deal with for decades) as manifested in the phrase, “No fats, No femmes, No Asians.” We gay men have seen it, or used it (or a variation of it) in endless personal profiles, but nonetheless, the disqualifying mantra is the un-critical acceptance of racial, gender, and body-biases often “naturalized” or rationalized with the subsequent phrase, “Just a preference.”

But it isn’t “just a preference,” because why one is attracted to what one is attracted to wasn’t written into his DNA, nor has he lived in a social vacuum since the day of his birth. We come to our desires because of a profound socialization process. People are taught to value one thing over another throughout our early lives. When parents say things like, “Boys don’t cry,” “Good is in the light, and evil in the dark,” or when you are habitually exposed to certain kinds of bodies deemed attractive, the messages a person receives from those cues are internalized. How our brain negotiates those messages is part of the process of forming our “preferences.” A “preference” for “straight-acting” men is not like Athena bursting out of Zeus’s brain: it emerges in part because of how you evaluated femininity – its meanings, its associations and how one has eroticized and associated body-types and behaviors with masculinity or “straight-acting-ness.” Likewise, racial preferences aren’t in-born. They are formed and entangled with associations about gender, body-type, and behaviors that have been racialized and evaluated.

I once challenged a guy who told me he wasn’t into Asian men. I asked him why was that? He said was more into beefier men. I said, there are many beefy Asian and especially Pacific Islander men. He said he liked hairy men. Certainly a bit more difficult to find, but there are hairier Asian men out there who are also beefy. So why make a blanket disqualifying statement like “I’m not attracted to Asian men” based on racialized assumptions on Asian male bodies when more accurately, his preference is toward hairy and beefy men. To say, “No Asians” would foreclose the possibility of finding a hairy, beefy, Asian man that one could really find attractive.  The absolute refusal to deconstruct those racial biases and to declare “No Asians,” “No Blacks,” or whomever is sexual racism, and so many gays looking for love or a hook up aren’t even embarrassed about it.

Gaysian men ourselves are not impervious to the self-contempt that would allow us also write, “No Asians. I’m not sticky*” on our profiles. I have heard so many gay Asian men express total mortification to the idea of dating or having sex with another Asian man, and also declare their almost exclusive desire for white men is “just a preference.” Again, it isn’t and it’s to our own detriment to not question why one has dismissed entire racial groups from romantic and sexual possibilities. We gaysians cannot bemoan our exclusion from the territories of “hot gayness” if we practice the same kinds of sexual-racial exclusions.

Our sexuality and our sexual desires are not static. Someone who claims to only be into “butch” men could very well find himself unbearably attracted to a more effeminate man. Perhaps not as feasible, but not impossible. And that’s the point: it isn’t impossible, so why go shutting out the possibilities with inane, broad stroke disqualifiers?

Above all though, this is a call to re-align our politics and our personal lives.  It is hypocritical to say one is totally against racial or gender discrimination meanwhile your Manhunt profile says, “Be a man. If I wanted to be with a woman, I’d be with a real woman” or “No Black men. Just a preference.” But if you’re an unabashed racist, a femininity-hater, or a body fascist, then be my guest and declare all your prohibitions. Just don’t be shocked if you’re called out for being an asshole.


*“sticky” refers to the term “sticky rice,” which is when two queer Asian men get together.

(Above, Gay Power graffiti in Washington Square Park, 1970. Photo credit: Ellen Shumsky)

Jay Michaelson, from “Ten Reasons Why Gay Rights Is a Religious Issue”

Gay Weddings Take Forever…

Unless it’s a Dutch gay wedding…or Spanish…or Canadian…or…you get the picture.

[via: ladydani]

One can’t “out” a bisexual political opponent as straight to gain votes and then backpedal and say, “I don’t even care anymore. A person’s sexuality has nothing to do with any of this.” But that’s exactly what Philadelphia’s 182nd Legislative District incumbent state representative candidate Babette Josephs has done in her attempts to defeat challenger Gregg Kravitz, reports Newsweek. Though Josephs has a historically strong record supporting LGBT rights, this could be a costly political blunder as Kravitz has defended himself with a little offense, stating:

Personally, I’ll get over it. But this kind of rhetoric is not only inflammatory, but damaging to members of the LGBT community. The public has a right to know when one of their elected officials is using these dirty campaign tactics to try to win votes. 

Kravitz explained to Talking Points Memo that he has had “intimate relationships” with both men and women, but is currently involved with a woman, which only somewhat explains why Josephs was “puzzled” when he arrived at an event with his girlfriend. Kravitz charged that Josephs accusation that he is actually straight ridicules his sexuality, and indeed, her heterosexist presumption that he is must be straight, or at least couldn’t be queer, because he is currently involved with someone of the same sex underscores the further marginalization of bisexuality identity.

TPM writes:

He [Kravitz] went on to say that although he “sincerely hopes” someone wouldn’t vote for him because he’s bisexual, he thinks it’s “important for people who are supportive of LGBT rights to know that if I win, they have a representative in Harrisburg who’s personally invested” in gay rights.

Happy voting, Philadelphia!

[Above: Gregg Kravitz]

(via myholigay)

-Lt. Dan Choi

In his first interview after being arrested for handcuffing himself at a White House gate, Lt. Dan Choi articulates to Newsweek’s Eve Conant a much-needed-to-be-heard critique of gay rights organizations whose strategy is to “play it by the rules” so as to not rock the boat too much or risk not making any progress. Clearly, Choi has lost patience with apologist organizations like the Human Rights Campaign who have failed to create the pressure on progressive politicians to move forward on policies that have tremendous affect on LGBT/queer lives (including immigration, ENDA, and even the recently passed healthcare reform bill) and are allowing others to dictate the timeline for which LGBTQ may be served equality. Indeed, this kind of “let’s not rock the boat too much” approach has eroded the strength of our demand. HRC continues to prostrate themselves to the proverbial “Masters” every time they plead for our patience. They forget the maxim that “justice delayed is justice denied.” 

by Daniel WK Lee

The new Mr. Gay World, Charl van den Berg of South Africa once did a j/o video for Liberate Studios before he was crowned—and oh, is a part-time stripper. Who’s shocked? Anyone? No? Well, prior to being crowned, the Mr. Gay World pageant producer Tore Aasheim told South Africa’s The Times:

Sometimes, within the gay scene there are opportunists who identify these men and promise them a better life and freedom within the adult entertainment industry, in which exploitation may result. Our organisation embraces those men that have found the courage to escape the exploitation in an effort to find a better life.

Aasheim’s blathering isn’t of course a unique voice. Along the way for the quest for “gay rights,” and no doubt influenced by anti-pornography feminist discourse, truly problematic labor issues in the adult entertainment industry, many many gays have turn their backs on the liberating, community power of sex and placed it in corner where it’s shamed and fitted into the sex-negative narrative that equates porn with exploitation. I have ranted before on sexual shame and resent the pageant’s notion that “finding a better life” is incompatible with embracing porn, stripping or other forms of sexwork.

Having been a stripper myself nearly a decade ago, I can honestly say that though my experiences in the industry wasn’t without repercussions, it did however give me a confidence about my looks, an upgrade of self-esteem because I couldn’t even intellectually deny that there was something sexually desire about me. Having been a chunky and very lonely adolescent did a doozey on my psyche, yet stripping had a transformative effect for the better.

We don’t all come out the adult entertainment industry being exploited creatures, as Mr. van den Berg clearly hasn’t suffered any psychological damage:

I did the video in April, way before I thought about entering Mr Gay SA. It helped me financially at the time and I gained good life experience. Porn is an integral part of the gay lifestyle, it’s just that most guys don’t have the guts to do what I did.

You may or may not agree with Mr. van den Berg’s assessment with porn’s role in the “gay lifestyle” (whatever that means), but in the heteronormativization of gay life and gay representation, gays are forgetting the diversity within the community and casting wicked judgement whose lives are a bit more queer their own. We must beware that this level of intolerance isn’t so far from one gay saying to another, “You don’t deserve the rights I’ve done nothing to enjoy.”

A moral quandary for conservative anti-abortionists, no? Just how much do or would you love your child?

(via halometalwing)