Hi, I want to vent... Aaaaarrrggghhh! There are no gay bars/restaurants in our city. The only gay club around is a dive in a dangerous area. Drive by shooting dangerous. Saturday is the Pride parade and I made a suggestion to parade organizers that at the parade after-party we as as a community should nominate and elect to adopt a healthy bar as a gay venue in our city. I got a reply that a pub was "restarting" gay dances on Sundays. At first I thought that was great, but quickly realized that is second class thinking. Sunday? Sunday! Who goes out on Sunday nights as a rule??!!!!! Most people plan early Sunday nights because of work Monday. So freaking what they are going to give us a night nobody wants for practical reasons. No offence intended to blacks but I feel like I am being directed to the back of the bus! I just need to vent. I am NOT a second class citizen happy to get the scraps nobody wants!!! Tom
Hi Tom, sorry to hear about that. Yeah, it sucks. No it's not fair. Realize, though, that there are reasons why this is hitting you as hard as it is. You are male. And it sounds like you're white. This means that you have probably *never* been a minority of any kind. As a white woman, I can sympathize (women are technically less of a minority than men...but women have been treated as second-class citizens in virtually every culture forever). You are at the tippy-top of the privilege list of your society, and so the notion of being treated as second-class is new and frustrating to you. But please realize that no woman is *really* a second-class citizens happy to get the scraps nobody wants. No black person is *really* a second-class citizen happy to get the scraps nobody wants. Similarly, no LGBT person is truly second-class...people in all of these categories are deserving of respect and privilege. It's just that some of us are more used to being treated that way than others. Privileged classes of people typically do not realize their privilege or social power...they think of themselves as just people. BUT here's the good news for you. You are still a white male. That means you still have a great amount of power in society. So you have the power to be a strong voice for equality for *all* disadvantaged classes. If you really think being treated as second-class sucks, consider learning about power and social privilege...and then using your power for good! Those of us who are more socially disadvantaged than you...need you.
Hi, I never considered myself powerful. In my youth I had strong social anxiety. I envied the gregarious and those who navigated social situations with ease. I suspect I have a touch of Aspergers. I always thought of people as equals and only moved away from those who scared me. The first time I was comfortable at a social event was 5/31 of this year. I attended the gay party after the city's Pride month flag raising celebration. I could be me for the first time in my life in public and it was exilerating. I am not powerful. It is funny... I find certain black men attractive because they are black. I see the same thing across all races. But what attracts me most is what is going on in their heads and hearts. Put my dream man in front of me and if he opens his moth and stupidly flows I am totally turned off. Nothing powerful or special about me. ---------- Post added 26th Jun 2013 at 06:27 AM ---------- In short... What I did by living in the closet was no different than a light pigmented black passing as white to avoid oppression. I know what discrimination and oppression is. Every closeted gay of every race, gender and spiritual belief knows. I ran and hid from it for a long time. I really owe a lot of people a lot of apologies. ---------- Post added 26th Jun 2013 at 06:35 AM ---------- It is funny... My brother is a red head. I used that saying "how would your life be if people oppressed you and discriminated against you because you are a re head, something totally out of your control?". He then went on to tell me how being a red head had affected his life. He knew exactly what being a minority felt like, he just never connected that to being gay.
First of all, we've all felt the discrimination against LGBTQ, and yes, technically, this does put us all in the second class. Here's a link to an interesting lecture that talks a bit about anyone who's LGBTQ being a second class citizen and more... iO Tillett Wright: Fifty shades of gay | Video on TED.com Secondly, if you want a bar so badly, do something about it! Ask around to see if anyone else wants the same. Start a rally. Have a few friends pitch in and open a bar that's exclusively gay. complaining and ranting isn't going to get you into the first class. but doing something about it and being empowered is. so go for it!
I just moved to this city. I have no friends yet gay or straight. I don't want a bar. Bars are the only things gays seem to attend. So any port in a storm. Meetup-gays do not show up, gay churches only seem to have lesbians and gay couples (no gay singles). I am not in love with bars but they are anchor points of the gay community. Not whining, I will make it work.
maybe you guys can organize a "Guerilla Queer (or Gay) Bar" where you just take over a straight bar for one night, rotating among bars each week, here's the page from the LA version: www There's an app for that! The Welcoming Committee
Isn't Boston sort of close by? Sometimes, the suburbs don't hold as much for GLBT folks, though GLBT folks live in them for one reason or another, like a job, costs, family, support system, and other reasons. You never know. You might meet people from nearby suburbs in a downtown bar.
On pride month opening ceremonies on 5/31 the after party crushed a local bar. It will happen again Saturday after the parade. One bar is 5:00pm and the other 9:00pm, but there are 363 other days of the year. I am 55... I am not driving into the city, drink and then drive home. A taxi or walking are fine but no being stupid with alcohol today. Man things have changed since the 70's.
Transit train service? Late hours bus service? If there's a will, there's a way. But, no, don't drink and drive. Sometimes, there are afternoon events on weekends.
Gay events have traditionally been Sundays. Like always. Why -- and yes, this is the truth -- because so many gay men were in service industries -- yes, hair dressers, florists, etc -- and had to work on Saturday. In my Coming Out and Bi/Gay Dads groups I don't think there's a single man whose work is in this category. However, in the Living Out groups -- where the age skews higher, there are several.
