The gays really kick ass

Fred Swanson is Executive Director of the Gay City Health Project in Seattle. Fred contributes the following to thenational conversation LifeLube has been fostering around the vision of a 2009 Gay Men's Health Agenda.

Gay men are not only impacted by HIV policy, but we are also directly impacted by economic justice issues, immigration policies, and national security-- so we need to be involved in those issues. We also need to fight policies even when-- or perhaps especially when-- they don't appear to directly impact gay men, and we need to let others guide us in their movements.

As any of us who work in or try to access services in gay men's communities know, the last eight years have been tough. Given the latest economic crisis, the looming recession, and an unpredictable future for our country, it's hard to imagine that gay men will be high on anyone's agenda in the near future (and even harder to imagine if that gay man is a gay man of color, or poor, or living in a rural area, or a gay trans man). Even if we elect a more friendly administration-- and we MUST elect a more friendly administration-- queer people remain distinctly dispensable for those in command, or who hope to be in command in the near future. So, while we need to push hard to support the candidates who seem comfortable with us or who pay us some lip service, we need to shift our strategy from JUST electing people who seem gay friendly enough to one where we make ourselves and our issues important and vital to all progressive (and not so progressive) candidates.

Okay, so where does that leave a Gay Men's Health Agenda for 2009? Ultimately, I think we need a two pronged approach: we need to reframe, rebuild and reenergize our community from within and, in doing so, we need to reframe our value to those in power.

The gays really kick ass.

Reframing Gay: Gay men are incredible. I've known this for a long time, but I think I didn't really get it until I heard Eric Rofes speak for the first time in 1998. What I heard him say out loud was something we're all afraid to say at times: the gays really kick ass. And it's not just about exceptional dance moves or pushing the envelope with hairstyles-- though let's not brush those aside. At our best, gay men are a thoughtful, compassionate, accountable, creative, caring group of people. I know this because I have a community of gay men who surround me, including the 10 other gay men I spend most of my time with day in and day out at work, as well as hundreds of volunteers, who show their humanity and vulnerability and leadership on a daily basis. We check in on each other to make sure we're doing okay, and also check each other when we get out of line. We hold ourselves-- and one another-- accountable.

So what does this have to do with a gay men's health agenda? It is my belief that you're never going to win the respect of someone else until you earn it, and you'll never earn it if you don’t respect yourself. We need to strengthen and bolster our community from within, and end our dependence on a government or saviors or people in power who find it all too easy to take our investment for granted and not give us the dividends we earned. We need to stop listening to people who frame us only in terms of risk behavior categories or attention grabbing headlines. We need to stop perpetuating the idea that gay men are all wealthy, white consumers, or that we are all caught in an extended adolescence. Gay men are dynamic, complicated, whole people. Once we accept and own that fact, it gives us the freedom to stop having to run from the parts of ourselves that might be stereotypical, and also gives space for the parts of ourselves that might be unexpected.

Looking at the example of the eleven gay men in my office, we can quickly see how hard it is to define "gay man" in simplistic terms. We're people who were born in this country and those who weren't. We're people who are happy to be older and those who wish they were younger. We're chubby and fit, muscular and skinny, tall and short. We've lived in at least six different countries and speak at least five different languages. We're in recovery. We're genderqueer. We're people who make mistakes. We're black and white, Latino and non-Latino, Asian, Blatino, and "of mixed heritage." We're faggot, fierce, religious, conservative, and bald. We're drag queen. We're coalminer's granddaughter. We're traditionally masculine. We're sissy. We're former undocumented immigrant. We're father. We're daddy. We're husband. We're uncle. We're HIV+. We're working class. We're overeducated. The list goes on and on.

Some of these may be expected and some may not. But the point is that gay men need to embrace all of these things if we're going to make any progress. You don’t need to identify with all of these-- or any of them-- to value that they are part of our communities. Our current health systems are based on fragments of who we are as whole people-- behavioral or social groupings that give us access to this or that service. But none of us live only in fragments-- and it's up to us to create change in our communities that allow people to be whole again. And whole people are powerful people.

Reframing our Value: How does all of this relate to "people in power?" For one, whole people stop looking at themselves as broken, shattered, or fragmented, and stop looking for someone else to fix them. Whole people recognize that they are made up of many parts, and use those parts to build bridges and alliances with others. This is what social justice organizing is all about-- recognizing that we're stronger in coalition or together than we are on our own. Gay men are not only impacted by HIV policy, but we are also directly impacted by economic justice issues, immigration policies, and national security-- so we need to be involved in those issues. We also need to fight policies even when-- or perhaps especially when-- they don't appear to directly impact gay men, and we need to let others guide us in their movements. When we bring our full selves to the table on these issues, it not only redefines for others in these movements their perceptions of what gay men are or care about, but it also makes it harder for people in power to think of us as dispensable.

Gay men rock. We're strong, nimble people. But there are very real challenges that face us, and we can't begin to address them until we stop thinking of ourselves as broken or wrong or bad. And we can't fight our challenges in isolation. There is power in our communities-- and each one of us needs to engage to unleash it.

[Click here to read previous input into the 2009 Gay Men's Health Agenda. Please feel free to comment there - or you could send in a full post of your own here. We will be happy to publish it! The feedback we receive will be featured in the closing plenary of the upcoming National Gay Men's Health Summit and will be a means of moving the community forward in the new year around issues that are important to all of us.]