Newsflash! Whatever you’re specifically attracted to doesn’t give you an excuse to say whatever you like about whomever you choose.

Racism, femmephobia/transphobia, homophobia, ageism, body shaming, slut shaming, pozphobia, and general douchebagness are NOT excusable under the weak, pathetic defence of “It’s just my preference.”

Hunties, the winner of this week’s Gay Douchebag Realness challenge is the Lady Dan! Oohhhh Girl you is the fiercest!

Pic#1: The Melbourne Chargers rugby team 

Pic#2: poster for the film “Kick Off” (2012)

Unsurprising as it should be to anyone with half a brain, the non-heterosexual communities are a diverse bunch. Of course, heterosexual society, with it’s inherently homophobic bias, likes to hone in on our more effeminate brothers, and in doing so make a connection between homosexuality and effeminacy at every turn. But as any queer male will tell you, we aren’t all like that.

We aren’t all like that. Sounds like an innocent enough statement, right? We aren’t all like THAT. Like what? LIKE THAT! Effeminate sissy-boys who dress, talk and dance like women and give the rest of us a bad name. THAT!!!!!

If we take some time to unpack this seemingly harmless sentence, it won’t take very long to see how easily the language we use actually perpetuates negative stereotypes, nor to see how easily us queers fall into the trap of inflicting on each other the very homophobia we claim to despise.

Let’s backtrack a little. I live in Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, and home to a gay rugby team, the Chargers. Fantastic, right? It’s so good that in the 2010’s, a mere 40 years since gay liberation really first  came into being, there can be a gay team in a traditionally heteromasculine sport, playing in a league where the only other teams are heterosexual.*

I, for one, absolutely support the existence and the creation of as many non-hetero groups, clubs, and organisations as possible, including gay rugby teams. I’m particularly impressed with gay rugby teams because they have to stake out a place for themselves in a sport that jealously guards it’s heterosexuality by promoting itself as a “real man’s game”. As we all should be aware, women’s rugby/football barely gets a mention, and when it does it is ridiculed as weak and pathetic, an embarrassment, as a team for a bunch of “dykes”. Women can’t play rugby, the mythology goes. And neither can homos, being pseudo-women and far less than “real men”, the lie our society reinforces daily. So it’s absolutely awesome that a gay team will challenge this false-truth that only heterosexual men can play this sport. Clearly gay men are “real men” too, and who they choose to fuck has zero impact on how they play. Although I can’t help but think that if they were truly committed to debunking the myths surrounding sex/gender and rugby (as they claim), they would recruit females and trans people onto their teams as well (forgive me if they already do and I’m ignorant of this). Any FTM/MTF trans individuals in Melbourne who are reading this and who love rugby: contact the Chargers immediately!

The idea of a gay rugby team is so interesting to heterosexuals that the Chargers even managed to get a story about themselves in the mainstream press. Oooohhhhhh how exotic! Gay rugby players!! Curiously, it was entitled “Gay team plays a straight bat on the rugby field” – whatever that means. I came across this story recently although it was written in January 2013. It really highlighted the collective need in our communities to raise our understanding of ourselves and to be careful with the way we use language, because unfortunately, as most readers of this blog are all too aware, non-heterosexual males excel at perpetuating homophobia through the language they use.

The article approaches gay rugby players from the same position I just did: breaking the stereotype that gays aren’t “real men”, and therefore can’t play a “real man’s game” like rugby. And of course, the article was heavily supportive of the team. Bloody fantastic, I say! Unfortunately, Ben Lancken, who spoke for the team, only managed to set up an identically oppressive hierarchy when discussing gay rugby. 

“We don’t all have feminine characteristics; we’re not all interested in going to nightclubs and taking drugs or dressing up as women and dancing. These are masculine guys who love rugby who just happen to be gay.”

In two and a bit sentences, Lancken manages to say, without barely a conscious understanding of his words, the following:

1. Rugby is still a sport just for “real men”.
2. Masculine identifying gays are “real men”.
3. Effeminate gays are not “real men”.
4. Masculine men play rugby.
5. Effeminate men go to clubs, take drugs, dress up as women, dance, and don’t play rugby.

I’m sure Lancken would disagree, because most gay men become highly triggered when confronted with the idea that they are in fact quite homophobic themselves, but the language he has used, and what it actually means, is right there on the page in black and white.

Imagine an effeminate gay man who LOVES rugby and can play the sport, reading the above statement. What would he be thinking? Or a transgender woman or man who loves rugby? Shouldn’t the “gay rugby team” be open to the idea that the ability to play the game is the first and foremost criteria for joining their team, as opposed to one’s gender expression or trans/cis status? The moment the word “masculine” was used by Lancken was the same moment a majority of our community was excluded from the gay rugby team, to its own detriment and theirs.

Now, what I’m writing here is not actually an attack on Lancken or any members of the Chargers who use similar language. I have absolutely no doubt at all that the intention here was to challenge negative stereotypes and do a good thing for the community. Unfortunately, it only perpetuated those stereotypes. What I’m doing here is pointing out how homophobic a lot of gay men actually are without even realising it, and how we need to become better than this, especially when we engage with the media, or use the media ourselves when we construct our profiles and represent ourselves, or position ourselves as leaders/spokespeople of our communities.

Looking at their website, the Chargers say, front page: “Melbourne Chargers RUFC is inclusive and welcomes everyone with an interest in rugby whatever their age, fitness level or sexuality. We’re always looking for new players and supporters.” (bolded for emphasis) Unfortunately, the language that was used in the media wasn’t inclusive at all, because apparently effeminate men can’t play rugby. Just “masculine men” who “happen to be gay”. Ironically, there’s a lot of professional hetero footballers out there these days, getting their faces in the media for getting high in dance clubs and behaving inappropriately/violently/etc. Would these people be more correctly classified as effeminate, perhaps? Since dancing and drugs are, after all, what effeminate gays do.

Someone might argue that the above statement is true : that only masculine gays should want to join a gay rugby team, since only masculine guys play the sport. But that’s a very weak argument for one fundamental reason – there’s a lot of effeminate queens in the team already! (Only some of them realise they’re queens though, the rest are kinda unconscious of it).

We all know this phenomena: the fag in the corner bitching about all the skinny fem twinks usually has the nasal-vocal quality of several thousand Fran Dreschers. Or he swings his arms around so much when he speaks most of his friends leave the bar with black eyes and bloody noses. Or he sissies his walk so hard that even RuPaul would crown him Her Majesty. This phenomena is not new. Most guys who have learnt to love themselves for being queer tend to embrace both their masculine and feminine qualities, move on with their lives, and develop into fully functioning, authentic people who, incidentally, those masc4masc-no-fems homophobic types tend to drool over. The only hypermasculine Charger I have ever met was straining so hard to maintain his heteromasculine appearance I thought his appendix was bursting. The rest of them were either a nice mix of masc/fem (as described above), or quite camp and not realising it. So when one of their representatives claims to the mainstream media that they are just a group of “masculine men” who just “happen to be gay”, I am personally affronted and think all this manages to do is perpetuate the very stereotypes they claim to be breaking. Othering effeminate men, particularly when there are so many in your own team, and insinuating they can’t play a game because of their effeminacy, is a bit rich in my book.

Also on their website is this, under the FAQs:

“Wouldn’t there be homophobia?”

You’d be surprised to hear that we haven’t really experienced any homophobia at all. Rugby puts everyone on a level playing field and by simply running out onto the field, we are proving that whilst we are a club with a difference – we are no different than any of the other guys out there.

It’s so good they have barely experienced homophobia from other teams. And it’s so good that they are reinforcing here how it’s about playing the game, not who you fuck or any other criteria, that matters on joining the team. “Rugby puts everyone on a level playing field”, apparently. This is why it’s disappointing when careless language about gender is used in the media by gay men who really should know better. This sort of language makes it clear that there actually are aspects of a person that would make it difficult for them to join the team. Judging by what Lancken said, sexuality isn’t an issue, but gender performance certainly is.

What he said reminds me very much of the movie Kickoff. The team captain was terrified that the opposing team would take issue with his team’s homosexuality, and reacted very aggressively when any of his team mates behaved effeminately. 

The homophobia on the field appears to be less of a problem than the homophobia within the actual club, I’d say.

Heteronormative gender binaries are poison to non-heterosexuals. The more we perpetuate the idea of masculinity vs femininity, the more we perpetuate the very homophobia that heterosexual society uses to oppress us. The moment any one of us associates ourselves exclusively with masculinity (and for that matter with femininity too), is the moment we shoot ourselves in the foot. Those of you who read what I write know how critical I am of gay men using their claim to masculinity as a way of distancing themselves from effeminate men and perpetuating the  homophobia we all experience. But it works both ways: identifying strictly as feminine immediately pigeon-holes you into a series of behaviours and thoughts and beliefs that excludes other aspects of your personality normally associated with masculinity. The binary needs to go. We are all a bit of both (even the heteros are), so we need to stop using gendered language in such a way that the claims to diversity and inclusion (such as those made by the Chargers) become weak and hollow.

Once again, my intention here isn’t to flame the gay rugby team. I’m glad they exist and I’ve met several great guys who play for them. Genuine, honest, kind-spirited people. I’m writing this not to denigrate them, but to ask them and all non-heteros to think about how they portray sexuality and gender to the hetero world and to each other. This concept should not be too hard for them to understand, considering one of the team’s partners is the ENUF campaign, which is aimed at challenging the stigmatising behaviours and language gay men use against people living with HIV. Time to challenge the language and behaviours that stigmatise large numbers of the non-heterosexual community on the basis of gender as well. We need to be better at this, because if we aren’t, we wallow in the mud of homophobia permanently.

* I will say “allegedly” heterosexual here because the assumption in these sports is that your team members will be heterosexual. They don’t promote themselves, of course, as heterosexual teams, because heterosexuality is, as always, invisible. It is compulsory and assumed, to the point that if one happens to be a fag, one keeps it to himself in order not to make the “real men” feel uncomfortable in the locker room, and of course to avoid the isolation and harassment that heteromasculinity automatically visits upon non-conforming male sexualities.

“Austria should be ashamed.” “If you’re going to pretend to be a woman, at least shave off your beard.”

These two statements were said right in front of me (in fact they were said TO me, an out queer male), by two cisgendered heterosexual female people at work today. It’s been many years since I’ve experienced homophobia from heterosexuals first hand, and it cut me right to the bone. The worst part was when I made it really clear that I was offended by these statements, only to be scoffed at, as though I was (yep, you guessed it) over-reacting. The difference between now and the last time this sort of thing affected me is that the laws in Australia are different. Discrimination against people on the basis of sex, sexuality, and gender is now illegal on a federal level. Of course that doesn’t mean discrimination won’t happen, but there is a recourse when it happens and can be proven. What happened to me is not discrimination, but with federal laws like this it’s a lot easier to show that such statements are offensive. Fact is: I’m a gender non conformist with a beard, and such comments are directly offensive to me. The worst culprit of this language is a heterosexual woman in her later 40’s who has a successful career. She is what many would call a powerful, strong woman. Many feminists would point to her as an example of how far women have come. What’s frustrating is to listen to her denigrate gender and prop up a binary, heteronormative gender system in the exact way most men used to (and too many continue to) against women. 50 years ago she would not have a successful career in the law, and at her age would be lucky to get work anywhere other than perhaps at a factory as a machinist, and certainly would be expected to wear feminine attire (not the pants she is so fond of) and could not expect to work in an office like she does today at the weight and shape she is. Yet here she is complaining that someone who identifies as a woman doesn’t have the decency to present herself the way a woman “should”. Calling her an “it” and stating that Austria should be ashamed is, as far as I am concerned, absolutely no different to a male stating that women should wear the clothes he thinks are appropriate for women to wear, or to do the work he thinks is appropriate for women to do, or to say the words he thinks are appropriate for women to say. So, I’ve demanded sensitivity training in my workplace after this event. Conchita Wurst has done amazing things this week with Eurovision, and it’s great that these ignorant human beings are being exposed in their ignorance as a result. Gives us all the chance to get to the sources of the problem.

I feel for you seriously. I think the worst part of all of this, and the reason I started this blog years ago, is that I can’t accept that this sort of behaviour and language is so rampant from my own community. It is beyond disgusting.

Scruff: Providing a safe space for the words that make effemiphobia

So I thought I would write about Scruff. Not the hair, the app. It’s a bit of a problem, although it’s not all bad. Soon after I woke up this morning my phone alerted me to a knee-jerky piece of queeny bitchiness from Scruff’s owner and self-appointed community leader, Johnny. He doesn’t like being criticised. Apparently it amounts to hate. Then again, when you take a critical look at most North American discourse, it becomes apparent that anything disliked is labelled as hate and subsequently bombed to smithereens (because slaughter, as we all know, is the most efficient way to spread “freedom”).

So anyways I’m a hater apparently. Cheers Johnny. You keep raking in the gay dollars, positioning yourself as a community leader, feeding your enormous ego (what IS that compensation for, I wonder?), and acting like a general grade-A douche who can’t keep his shirt on. Sad much? But let’s have a look at your own role in all the hate, too.

Scruff, as we all probably know, is a location-based app that has basically inherited Grindr’s position (because these apps, just like the sites of the 2000’s they superseded) have lifespans of about 2-3 years before something else captures the attention of the Faggotry. So yeah, don’t blow all that cash up your nose or on thirty gym memberships, Johnny; it won’t be around forever.

Scruff is a much more robust app than Grindr. Rarely buggy, with plenty of features, although the price tag is hefty (and unjustifiable IMHO) at $13.99 per month here in Oz. It also insultingly places your account on auto-renew, which no doubt has caught out many people who thought they were buying a subscription for a month. Such underhanded sales tactics unfortunately show a clear contempt for the customers who are paying for Johnny’s lifestyle. No matter how much he might cry “hater”, just remember there’s other forms hatred can take, and deliberately attempting to rip your customers off is one of them. (A quick email to Apple results in a refund of this dishonest fee, FYI).

But let’s look at some positives too. The app does a better job than any other in providing a fairly comfortable space for older gay men, HIV positive men, and transmen. There’s no denying this, it’s obvious and it shouldn’t be ignored for the sake of proving a point. Although this doesn’t do too much to stop the ageism, pozphobia, and transphobia that rears it’s head in user profiles daily.

This leads me to the main issue (as always): the sheer volume of internalised homophobia projected onto other users as effemiphobia. Sure. Johnny “and his crew” didn’t create this problem, nor are they solely responsible for eradicating it. But if you are going to create an app and position yourself as publicly as Mr Scruff so clearly has, then you need to be doing something about the platform you created that encourages said effemiphobia. Hiding behind claims of freedom of speech doesn’t cut it. Sponsoring drag shows isn’t the solution either (unless your aim was to make people like me switch off from RuPaul altogether, in which case, SUCCESS!).

Scruff, it is claimed, was started because Johnny didn’t think there was an online space for mens like him. This idea that there’s no place in the “gay community” for hairy butches is a commonly proclaimed excuse that only thinly veils the contempt so many of these butch queens hold for the rest of the community, based purely on an insecurity surrounding their own sexuality and gender expression. It’s the same sentiment you hear from homophobic gay men who complain that pride parades are just full of glittery half naked twinks that bring shame upon all gays, a claim that is curiously blind to all the other non-twinky non-glittery gay men that ALWAYS make up the majority of a gay pride parade. Well anyway, in order to provide a “safe space” online for all these pride-trauma victims, Scruff was born. And you can’t get past more than three profiles at a time without seeing words like “straight acting”, “masc4masc”, “no femmes”, “real men only”.

It would be fab if Johnny spent a little of his energy on attempting to educate his users AWAY from this hateful discourse (since he has such an issue with hate) instead of spending so much of his time taking off his t-shirt and embarrassing himself with naked grabs for attention anywhere he can get it (seriously I don’t need to see you and your friends professionally photographed topless bodies every time I open your damned app; glad that stopped!). I know it would be too much to place filters on this language within the app, and I would be opposed to that anyway since it doesn’t teach people a thing. But certainly he could talk about the negative impact language such as MASC4MASC has on the community in general. See, he’s created a platform that makes it very easy for homo-on-homo hate to proliferate, so he really is the last person to lecture on the subject of hate himself.

I’d have less of a problem with him personally if he didn’t attach himself to this sort of language so closely. He threw his tantrum at me because I criticised his dance party. Poor baby! But let’s remember this is a dance party that is self-described as a party for “scruffy, hot, sweaty, manly men”. If he can’t see how this language polices gender expression, then he really has no business walking his flashy, give-me-all-your-cash walk. This sort of language sits at the foundation of effemiphobia: the idea that a particular type of man is “manly” instantly creates a category of “unmanly men”, and we all know that being shoved into that category are men who don’t fit the mould Johnny Scruff is so eager to promote.

He probably would disagree with all this. They always do. But I say put down the dumb bells for five minutes and start giving some thought to how what you created is helping to perpetuate the internalised heterosexism and self-hatred our entire community (including me and yourself Johnny) have been made victims of. It isn’t hard to choose language that doesn’t divide. It won’t turn you into an effeminate queen. It won’t mean you will attract any more effeminate men than you already do. It won’t mean that you have to have sex with the types of men you find personally unattractive. All it will mean is that the language you use no longer excludes or denigrates (consciously or not) members of your own community. You know, it will mean we are all treated, by each other, with equal amounts of respect.

Sponsoring a drag show doesn’t cut it, especially when you’re running parties that exclude membership into the “men’s club” based purely on the presence of hair. And that’s coming from a big, hot, sweaty, hairy, muscular man who you’ve woofed at more than once yourself, Mr Scruff.

New Perspective

I think I’m going to go ahead with my idea that the LGBT is a broken phenomenon and focus solely on the perspective of the G from now on. I am tired of this blog being hijacked (and of me allowing it to be hijacked) by the anger and concerns of the other letters, specifically the T. I absolutely wish for the freedom and happiness of every oppressed group, but I find the misdirected rage and vile aggression and downright illogical positions I’ve encountered within T politics to be unbelievably counter-productive.

Much if this behaviour is coming from very young queers with little experience of the world, encountering ideas for the first time. Some of what they have to say is impressive and interesting, but unfortunately it seems (online at least) mixed with an arrogance and an inability to comprehend complex arguments without shouting and screaming and name-calling. I’m blaming Twitter, which incidentally starts with a T! (Joke, well sort of). On top of this, many of these very young people think they know everything there is to know (who doesn’t at a young age?) so it becomes impossible to express points of view because they have totally closed minds to anything new that isn’t expressed by one of their own, but rarely does anything new get expressed by one of their own. Furthermore, the obsession/addiction with the concept of being oppressed is difficult to understand in many from these groups simply because, from the perspective of someone twenty years ahead, a lot of these young people are far from oppressed (in fact many of them are living in privilege). It was the same when I was 19. The AIDS plague was at its peak, and many of the older gay men had already died. But those lucky enough to escape it would complain about how lucky my generation of gays had it compared to theirs, and how little appreciation or respect we afforded them for what they had to go through at the beginning of the liberation movement and before. The difference between then and now is so much information is at our fingertips, and we don’t have to rely on others to tell us what it was like and how they experienced the world. And yet despite this, it appears many of the younger generation of queers are living in a vacuum as though they are somehow dealing with the issues of being queer for the first time. They aren’t, and those of us who came through it before them have validity in what we say. We don’t deserve to be shouted down by people who seem more interested in creating enemies than achieving positive outcomes.

On my blog here I have always defended the T community, particularly in terms of the transphobia exhibited by gay men online in their profiles. Unfortunately I now find myself in a situation where I feel very negatively towards trans people purely based on the awful behaviour of a minority of its members. One apple has spoiled the bunch, as the saying goes. What’s more frustrating is that on a personal level, and for a very long time, I have identified as transgender in many ways, although I remain comfortable at the same time within the identity if queer male as well. No doubt there are some unpleasant T people who will attack this, and decide that “I don’t get to” identify as trans, but unfortunately for them I get to identify in any way I please.

I don’t know if I’m perceiving it right, but it seems this kind if vileness erupts a lot more regularly on Tumblr in the last few months than it did before. It is incredibly unpleasant. I am definitely tired of a small but loud group of people shouting down others with valid points of view, simply because they decontextualise a lot of what others have to say. I wonder what they are even in Tumblr for? Is it just to shout down people? Is that some kind of new, insane, evil sport? It seems that way!

Ultimately queer men have a right to their own space as well, to discuss issues through their own filters. Clearly many trans people don’t like what comes out of such a space, but the feeling is obviously mutual: many others don’t like what comes out of trans spaces. If some trans people want to resort to name calling because they can’t handle the fact that I have lost respect for much of what they have to say, then so be it.

jarilo:

Growing Strong& Growing Strange: lookatthisfuckingoppressor: hateyrgutsloveyrface: the word…

endracismandhomophobia.

I have yet to see ANYTHING labeled transphobic that’s not actually transphobic. Please provide an example. In fact, this goes for any kind of oppression, you need to listen to women when they say something is sexist, you need to listen to POC when they say something is racist, and etc. So why is this so hard for you to understand?? Also, FASCIST WILL??! Are you for real?

PLEASE! You people are really quite sad. You have your blinkers on and can’t see anything, what with so many of you addicted to your oppression. Gets to the point when you see oppression everywhere, even when it’s not present. And then you bully people into cowering to you and your demands for them to speak in language you determine suitable, even when the way they were talking wasn’t offensive at all. It’s basically a problem of oversensitivity, rather than a problem of transphobia/misogyny/racism etc.

But since you are DEMANDING proof (lol at that concept in itself. I mean seriously, can you imagine the outcry of some of the more warped trans people if I demanding any sort of proof of them that they are oppressed), but since you want it, here you can have it.

I published the following post in response to the number of gay males who resort to steroid abuse because they only find other men who have taken steroids attractive and therefore decide that their own bodies aren’t beautiful unless they inject testosterone and other hormones. Here is the link:

http://endracismandhomophobia.tumblr.com/post/30713773620/masculinity-in-a-syringe

I was immediately branded ‘transphobic’ because apparently my post was offensive to FTM trans people who take testosterone. Even though the taking of hormones for trans people in order to transition has absolutely nothing to do with the taking of hormones in the gay male community in order to adjust their bodies to fit a standard of attractiveness dictated to by an unhealthy adoration of the white male muscular body. The two things are worlds apart. But somehow I’m transphobic. Didn’t even have to mention the word ‘trans’, didn’t even have to think about the word ‘trans’, before the accusations started to fly around.

Needless to say, the self-appointed authority on all things transphobic couldn’t actually have a discussion about the situation – it was just the typical name-calling and abuse, which lead directly to this exchange:

http://endracismandhomophobia.tumblr.com/post/30983063179/im-turning-anon-off-for-a-bit

I haven’t mentioned it, but there were quite a few trans people who came to my defence as well, which just goes to show that some trans people out there really should speak ‘on behalf of the trans community’  because they really don’t represent them all. And finally, I write this piece called “t*r*a*n*s*y*a*w*n*” because I basically thought how ridiculous it was that some queer people spend so much time fighting and yelling and ‘calling out’ people on Tumblr that they neglect the task they claim is their main focus: ending oppression. I particularly wrote this because it seems starting a blog to discuss the issue of racism and homophobia on gay dating apps offended certain members of the trans community because they decided my blog should have been about them. By focusing as I have on a couple of particular aspects of the gay community that were causing a pretty big problem for a lot of gay men, I was offending some trans people because they felt excluded. What???? They couldn’t start their own blogs? They had to dictate to me what my blog should have been about? GTFO!

http://endracismandhomophobia.tumblr.com/post/30894851934/t-r-a-n-s-y-a-w-n

All of this happened in September 2012. I’ve just re-read these posts, and even though my opinion on many things has evolved since then, I still hold with every word I wrote a year ago on this issue. There were incidents before it, and many incidents after it. This was the one the stuck in my mind the most because of how ridiculous and insane it actually was. You want more proof? Go search for it yourself, because it’s out there. Although something tells me you will just dissect everything I’ve just posted and then, surprise surprise, label me once more a ‘transphobe’. That’s your right, but I’ll reserve my right to sweep you off my porch when the inevitable name-calling begins.

If the people at Grindr were serious about ending homophobia and transphobia, they’d be asking people to take the “no fems” out of their profiles. But of course, Grindr isn’t serious about ending homophobia or transphobia, they are only concerned with looking PC whilst raking in the $$$ with their badly programmed piece of crap app.