GLBTQ Pride 101

It’s Pride season, and you know what that means. Lots of people excitedly attended their first GLBT pride event, or watching them from afar, and both groups frequently not really understanding why we have pride events. I can tell this by many of the comments and questions I hear from new Pride attendees, younger people, folks who have come out more recently, allies who have this one GLBT friend/family member but otherwise don’t know much about the movement or communities. GLBT folks who have moved from different countries, other parts of the country, rural communities, more conservative backgrounds and so forth also have different perspectives that they bring in. It’s a huge range of people that comes together to celebrate who we are now as well as remember our past, which is both fun and exciting, as well as the potential for many types of misunderstanding! So let’s clear some of that up!

Why/when/by whom was Pride started?

Gatherings of gay, lesbian and bisexual folks were often secretive because homosexuality (or as it was called “sodomy”) and cross-dressing were illegal, gay bars were frequently subjected to police raids and harassment. At the Stonewall Bar in New York City, patrons got fed up after numerous such raids & arrests, and resisted and rioted on June 28, 1969. Many of the participants of the Stonewall Riots were poor & working class Black and Latin@ drag queens and trans women, gay men, bisexuals and lesbians. The next year, a committee was formed to organize events to commemorate the riot, and the phrase gay pride was coined as a name for the events. (More about the founders of Gay Pride)

Why be proud of your sexual orientation? Why make a big deal out of it? Why isn’t there a Straight Pride?

Nowadays, while GLB* folks are increasingly accepted in many places, we still face various forms of discrimination- both legal and illegal, health disparities, rejection from friends, family and community. There isn’t a “Straight Pride” because there doesn’t need to be one, heterosexual people don’t even need to think about their orientation. People assume that their children will grow up to be heterosexual.  Briefly mentioning one’s orientation, partner’s gender or other telling things is still seen as “making a big deal” out of being gay/lesbian/bi, while someone can directly or indirectly mention things that indicate romantic or sexual interest in a different gender constantly without that being seen as strange or “flaunting” heterosexuality. Having a relatively few characters that are gay/lesbian/bi or out celebrities may be seen as “shoving this gay stuff” down “regular” people’s throats.

There are also many festivals and parades throughout the summer in most communities in which GLBT people are often unsure (at best) whether we can be openly ourselves. We are sometimes expected to go partly or fully back into the closet, or at least “shut up” about who we are in order to participate in other community events so we don’t make someone who can’t deal with us uncomfortable.

*Note: I’m going to discuss the T some more in a later post, transgender people & transgender issues are definitely part of our movement, communities (though not always as much as they should be)

Rev. Melissa Hill of ADF has written a more detailed summary of the Stonewall Riots here, as well as discussing honoring leaders of the movement as heroic ancestors.

Article from Bustle about the history of Pride Month

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Pride Reflections

Like a lot of American celebrations with more radical roots, as GLBT Pride festivals & parades across the country have grown over time, they have become more mainstream and commercialized. (Great critique of Pride here) Some folks of a more radical bent wring their hands over this, longing for more overt expressions of sexuality, anti-capitalism, and pointing out trends with obscure academic sounding terms like “homonormativity” and pinkwashing. While I think there are many valid criticisms that can be made especially of larger Prides and the movement as a whole, these are internal community debates. Prides, while remaining GLBT-centered, are also a reflection of continued acceptance and integration into broader communities- much as ethnic celebrations like Cinco De Mayo, St. Patrick’s Day and so forth have become not just for Mexican and Irish-Americans. At the same time, there’s a balance to be struck. Straight & cis allies can enjoy Pride, while understanding that they are in a queer-centered space, so they can’t be complaining about being hit on by someone of the same sex, or guys parading around in leather chaps and such. There’s space for both the conventional lesbian soccer moms as well as the wacky drag queens.

This year of course we have even more to celebrate, as the Supreme Court just ruled in favor of marriage equality. Of course, I’m quite excited, though I realize there are many more issues we need to work on, both domestically and around the world. I do think we need to give folks a chance to celebrate before lecturing about gloomy statistics about queer youth suicides/murders and the continuing AIDs epidemic.  Anyone who thinks the entire GLBT rights movement was just about marriage and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell obviously has a pretty superficial understanding of it (and probably is only really thinking about the G and L parts) But I think this is part of why it’s a good thing that a more diverse range of people attend Prides- we can get the chance to educate non-activist GLBT folks & allies about these issues and convince them to do more than wear rainbow beads and dance to ABBA.

One of my fellow Unitarians- reflecting on the General Assembly- our national conference held that same weekend- points out two other important Supreme Court rulings that we should be celebrating– the one upholding the Affordable Care Act* (yes, I’d like a single payer system, but I’m still glad we have this one!) which I did hear about, and another the makes it easier to prove implicit discrimination in housing– proof of explicit intent to discriminate based on a protected status is no longer required. (I may have described that wrong- it’s hard to summarize legal stuff- so read the article) This is huge, because for decades the Supreme Court has been getting pickier about how obvious discrimination has to be before they will accept that it’s happening.

(By the way- if any “No pre-existing conditions/I’ll magically never lose my cushy job with benefits, so screw you”  people want to bitch to me about how it’s soo unfair they are being forced to pay for insurance they don’t need, don’t bother commenting, you can cry me a frickin’ river.)

LGBT Identities & Intersectionality: A Little Research

Last night I went to Chic Chat, a gathering of bisexual women (trans/genderqueer inclusive) hosted by the Bisexual Organizing Project (BOP) and had a good time. I have been to their events in the past but hadn’t made it to one in a couple years, due to my many competing interests! I was excited to find out that they are going to be doing a series this year of community education sessions about racial/ethnic diversity and discussions of white privilege. We also discussed the cross-section of disabilities and bisexual community. I decided to start doing some research on racial diversity among LGBT populations and possibly bisexuals in particular.

2012 Gallup Poll: 3.4% of Americans identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender  A couple of limitations are noted by the way the poll was taken: differences among the GLBT identities can’t be accounted for, and it is purely based on self-identification, not on past or present sexual behavior or other traits.

My own thought: People with other identities, such as queer, genderqueer or intersexed might not respond in the affirmative. This is much less than Americans often think, due to the prominence of GLBT issues in the media, as well as the oft-used statistic that 1 in 10 men has had sex with a man from Alfred Kinsey’s research (it’s suspected that this was a result of selection bias on Kinsey’s part, due to his interests!) It’s often been thought that it was less for women. Due to media framing and the history of the movement, it’s also assumed GLBT identities are primarily a “white” thing, sometimes even implied to be symptomatic of privileged white decadence- an effete elite. Based on the findings of the Gallup, these assumptions are quite false!

Non-Hispanic White: 3.2 Black: 4.6 Hispanic: 4.0 Asian: 4.3

Altogether- a third of LGBT identified people are non-white (33%) whereas 27% of the non-GLBT population is non-white. Also- slightly more women than men. (I suspect the number of women who identify as bisexual vs. men may have an effect on this)

Men-3.3. Women 3.6

Being gay, lesbian, bi or trans is also often assumed to correlate with going to college, and being gay or lesbian in particular is somewhat assumed to go with a middle-class or higher status. Also wrong!

High School or less 3.5

Some college           4.0

College grad             2.8

Post grad                  3.2

Under $24,000             5.1

$24  k- less than 60 k 3.6

60 k to less than 90 k 2.8

90,000+                          2.8

The numbers related to income, education and racial diversity also correlate with the higher number of younger Americans who self-identify as LGBT-

18-29 6.4

30-49 3.2

50-64 2.6

65+     1.9

Broken down by gender: 18-29 Women 8.3 18-29 Men 4.6

So yeah- make way for young, queer women of color- with kids! LGBT women are just as likely to be raising kids under 18 as non-LGBT identified women. More than 41% of Hispanic and African-American lesbian, bisexual or trans women are raising kids. 38% of Asian-American les/bi/trans, and 28% of whites. (I’ve also heard that queer women of color are more likely to be raising biological children from heterosexual relationships) I have also seen some stats that higher number of people with disabilities identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual (not sure if trans was included) and vice versa, particularly lesbian and bi women, and that there are higher percentages of people with disabilities in communities of color. I’ll save that for another post- this is a lot of info for now! But in short, if we want more people to come to our events, they should be affordable, at different times (not assuming 9-5 Monday thru Friday schedule) so people who work evenings/weekends/nights may attend, are kid-friendly or provide childcare if not. We could try holding events in different neighborhoods than usual and reaching out to more community organizations.