I don't know, what do you think?

[Tyo]

Doing a quick "cruise" through the Lobby tonight and seeing "GLBT" along with all the other groups has prompted me to comment on something that I've never really thought about much until recently. Maybe it's just that I'm not by nature very political. Anyway...

Is there really any such thing as a gay or a lesbian “community” or even less a GLBT community? We talk about it a lot. We seem to accept that it exists. But it feels to me like it is simply convergence diverse interests and people who may have little more in common than the need to present a common front in the face of a common threat.

In as much as this has helped us to broaden our horizons and to reach out to and form alliances with folks we might not otherwise make the effort to get to know or work with it’s been good. But isn't “The Community” as characterized by Gay Pride Parades an artificial construct resulting primarily from the presence of a shared enemy? And will it go away once that enemy has been more or less subdued?

[sui generis]

1. Well what do you think a community SHOULD be?

A group of individuals with common interests.

You seem to be belittling us a bit - don't let the beatings demoralize you into believing that our communities are less worthy of the title than any other community.

Tyo, the fact is in large cities communities are fluid. Black Tie, and HRC and DIFFA and a hundred organizations that support the needy and sick and traumatized exist, and they exist because the broader "community" (not JUST GLBT) gives and cares and believes enough to support them. But they're also fluid because nobody has just one interest to unite them with a "community"; only where those interests involve our shared self preservation do they command more attention.

Starting with the very oppressive pre-Stonewall years, with the fact that gays were jailed, institutionalized, and thoughtfully recommended for "castration" and frontal lobotomy "therapy" as little as fifty years ago in state run institutions, that we have pride parades at all instead of pogroms is a mark of what tenacious "community" gives.

No, we have our own culture too, clearly. Any group of people with higher disposable income, fewer children, and the chance to dispose of all that income will build a service and product based dynamic that keeps that money flowing in circles.

When American Airlines threatens to abort a flight because two gay men kiss, in first class no less, I can tell you I'd much rather fly a gay airline if it existed even if it cost three times as much. The same holds true on a smaller scale at restaurants, shops, grocery stores, gyms, and any other service a GLBT person would want to use, and we usually end up with better service and more perks as a result of that loyalty dynamic.

DU is clearly a community with many sub-communities. Would it exist without a common enemy of Republicans and Free Republic? I like to think so. There are still books and kittens and broad social issues and cooking recipes that require endless commentary.

And of course, The Lounge will never die. It's not a community, it's more like a growth. :P The kind of growth you think fondly of and give a pet name to and occasionally show at parties when you've had a couple of drinks. :hide:

just kidding about the lounge :P

[Tyo]

2. Well I do agree with you about the Lounge

Although in my case it's not a growth, it's a scar. I only show it to people I really like, and usually only when well lubed (me, not the scar). ;)

Seriously, I don't know if DU would be here, at least not in all of its glorious and occasionally annoying diversity, if it were not for the Rethugs, the theocrats, and our poor bent Freeper pals. We might continue as kind of a shadow of what we are today, but with our state and national governments under different management we would have more opportunities outside of cyberspace to push our various projects and agendas and I think we would take advantage of that.

As for the GLBT community, I question whether sexual orientation in and of itself is enough of a common bond in the absence of an outside threat. We are slowly being integrated into the greater society and I think we will eventually find that we are more comfortable on the inside rather than on the outside.

Those gays who have maybe a higher than average disposable income and no kids are mirrored by straight individuals and couples in the same situation. I would argue that in most ways they would have more in common with each other than not. Same for gay or lesbian couples with kids. They would fit more into the PTA soccer-mom/dad lifestyle with their straight counterparts than they would with that of the young single gay guy or the childless middle-aged lesbian couple.

The big caveat is that all this assumes that homophobia and discrimination are largely things of the past. We are not quite there yet, but that is where we are headed, sometimes it seems with mixed feelings. I think that our gay culture or more accurately, gay "cultures" will go the way of all those old Chinese and Italian and German and Polish and you-name-it neighborhoods that our grandparents remember but that in most places are gone now except for maybe some names and a few restaurants. We are as worthy as anyone else, but like everyone else, we also change.