The Problem with the Gay Press

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Logan Lynn

As individuals in a marginalized group, we are often all placed together into a single pot by society. In this case, I am referring to the queer pot (but this happens around race, gender, age, religion, class -- you name it).

All of us, as members of the LGBT community, with all our differences, have this one thing in common: we are the minority.

There is something about all of us that is unlike much of the rest of the world, and much of the rest of the world's reaction to that difference can be painful, isolating, and dangerous.

Frequently, members of the greater community become fixated on our sexuality or gender expression, and they try to lump us together, assign us roles within our designated letter of the acronym, and dehumanize us in the process.

One would hope this outer pressure would be enough to bring us together as LGBT people, that we would unite and become stronger in numbers and build a community so organized and powerful that our being a minority no longer mattered.

Sadly, this has not been my experience as a man-loving man, nor in my work with gay organizations, nor as an out artist in the entertainment industry.

Being a public figure in the queer community is tough. You have to have pretty thick skin to tolerate the external homophobia that comes at you as a result of increased visibility, but I think I was raised to expect this, so it's never a big shock when it happens.

I know the world wants to see me dead on some level, or at least see me stop being such a "goddamn fag," so it doesn't surprise me when that pressure arrives.

I recognize it coming a mile away and have learned methods of processing the external hate in such a way that it no longer hurts me. I have not, however, found or been able to develop a way of moving through the crab mentality of my own community without injury.

For those of you who have not heard this saying before, "crab mentality" (also known as "crabs in the barrel," or "crabs in the bucket") refers to the metaphor of a pot of live crabs about to be killed.

Individually, the crabs could escape from the pot without any trouble, but when they are all in the pot together, they grab at each other in a pointless domination game that prevents any of them from escaping, thus ensuring their collective demise.

When related to human behavior in social movements, the term is most commonly used in association with a short-sighted, non-constructive approach instead of a unified, long-term, productive mentality. As an openly gay musician, I have experienced this problem mostly via the gay press.

Certainly, I've received my fair share of nasty emails and messages from people online and in person over the 10-plus years I've been doing this, as well, but there's a distinctive sting that comes from someone in the queer media pulling me and my people back into the pot, and I believe that action trickles down into our culture and leaks out into our community consciousness from there.


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Youth Activisim for a Better Tomorrow

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by Warren J. Blumenfeld

It was a brilliantly sunny, though rather cool, mid-June afternoon in Boston. Banners flying, music blasting, people of all walks of life assembled, reuniting, greeting, embracing, kissing, catching up on lives lived in the space between.

The signal was given with a contagious cheer rising from the crowd, and for the next few hours the streets would be theirs:

Dykes on Bikes revving their engines; shirtless muscled young men dancing to a disco beat atop flatbed floats winding their way down the streets; dazzling drag queens in red and gold and silver; the Freedom Trail Marching Band trumpeting the call;

a black-and-white cocker spaniel wearing a sign announcing "DON'T ASSUME I'M STRAIGHT"; lesbian moms and gay dads pushing strollers or walking beside youth of all ages; Gays for Patsy Klein decked out in their finest country duds, two-stepping down the boulevard;

AIDS activists falling to the pavement of those same boulevards in mock death to expose governmental and societal inaction, which is still killing so many; married same-sex couples walking hand in hand;

Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (P-FLAG) proclaiming "WE ARE PROUD OF OUR LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, AND TRANSGENDER SONS AND DAUGHTERS";

alongside political, social, and service organizations, business and religious caucuses of all stripes and denominations, and of course, bystanders watching the procession, holding court from the sidelines.

And in the midst of this merriment and this protest, the humorous posters and angry placards, the enormous rainbow balloon sculptures arching overhead, and the colorful streamers and glistening "fairy dust" wafting down from open windows, amid the shiny black leather and shimmering lamé,

the multicolored T-shirts and the drab business suits, came the youth, their radiant young faces catching the rays of the sun, marching side-by-side, hand-in-hand, their middle school, high school, and college Gay/Straight Alliance banners waving exaltedly in this storm of humanity, announcing their entry, their solidarity, their feisty outrage, and yes, their pride, chanting

"Two, Four, Six, Eight, Queer is Just as Good as Straight, Three, Five, Seven, Nine, LGBTs are Mighty Fine;" then, gaining intensity, singing, "Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Homophobia Has Got to Go," and then, as if hit by an all-consuming revelation, shouting, "We're Here, We're Queer, We're Not Going Back, We're NOT Going Back, WE'RE NOT GOING BACK!"

And indeed, they will not go back into those dank closets of fear and denial that stifles the spirit and ruins so many lives. Oh, they will physically return to their schools and their homes.

They will continue to study and play sports, to watch movies, listen to their iPods, and write about their days on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Some will most likely continue to serve as community organizers, and some will go on to become parents, educators and political leaders once their school days are behind.

The place they will go to, though, is nowhere that can be seen. It is a place of consciousness that teaches those who have entered that everyone is diminished when any one of us is demeaned; that heterosexism, sexism, and bisexual, intersex, and transgender oppression (as well as all the other forms of oppression) have no place in a just society.

From the sidelines of the parade, beginning as a whisper and gaining to a mighty roar of support: "We are so glad you are here," came voices from the crowd.

"We wish we could have done this when we were in grade school and in college," cried others too numerous to count. "Thank you so much for your courage!"


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Ins and Outs of Gay News Sites

via HuffPost Gay Voices, by David Badash

As gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans -- and their news -- become mainstream, will the gay news sites that have long supported the LGBT community be able to survive?

I spoke with nine different well-known LGBT publishers, writers, and industry insiders about the current state of gay media -- and if it has a future.

Towleroad partner and creator of Out magazine, Michael Goff, Pam's House Blend's Pam Spaulding, John Aravosis of AMERICAblog, the Vice President of the Human Rights Campaign, and many others share their unique perspective.

Is there a future for the gay news and politics sites and blogs that focus on and advocate for the LGBT community, or will we continue to see them consolidate -- or just disappear?

Why are so many gay news sites finding it so challenging to stay afloat? Are advertisers leery of being associated with distinctly gay sites? Is this niche just too "niche?"

"Whether corporate-run or a one person shop, the outlook for gay news blogs is that most of them are not turning a satisfying profit," writes Nikki Usher, at Harvard's own niche journalism site, Neiman Journalism Lab, in a recent article, "How niche is too niche? The case of gay news blogs."

Publishers of gay news sites talk about the issues Usher's piece raises: inconsistent advertising and few advertising network options, and lack of support from LGBT organizations.

While visits at many LGBT sites are growing, most journalists and bloggers work very hard to attract and keep each and every reader.


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Is Invoking Hitler the Right Way to Fight the AIDS Epidemic?

Germany's latest AIDS-awareness commercial evokes some strong emotions: shock, disgust, nausea. And that's exactly the point. The controversial ad, which was released online on Sept. 3 and starts running on German TV on Wednesday, shows a couple having steamy sex in a dimly lit room with menacing music playing in the background. The viewer only sees the back of the man's head until the very end, when the camera pans to his face — to reveal that he's Adolf Hitler. Then the slogan flashes across the screen: "AIDS is a mass murderer."

It's a strong message, but HIV/AIDS organizations in Germany are arguing over whether it's the right one. Rainbow, the AIDS awareness group spearheading the campaign — which also includes newspaper ads and posters featuring the images of other dictators like Stalin and Saddam Hussein — says it deliberately wants to provoke people, especially young Germans, into using condoms to help prevent the spread of HIV. "We want to give this terrible virus a face," Jan Schwertner, spokesman for Rainbow, tells TIME. "AIDS is a forgotten issue in Germany. It's been swept under the carpet. This shock campaign is necessary to get people thinking again."

Read the rest at Time.

Read an item about this on ABC News.

Read commentary by Shawn Syms on xtra.ca

LGBTI Health Summit WORKS its press voodoo

via Windy City Times, August 12, 2009

The 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit will take place Friday-Tuesday, Aug. 14-18, at the Chicago Hilton and Towers, 720 S. Michigan, and will cover a multitude of topics, including activism, elder issues and even meditation. Windy City Times talked with one of the summit's main organizers, Jim Pickett ( pictured ) , about the upcoming event.

Windy City Times: Tell me about the planning of this event. I assume it started after the previous summit ended [ in Philadelphia, Penn. in 2007 ] .

Jim Pickett: [ Laughs ] Actually, yeah. A number of Philadelphia people kind of cornered me one morning at the continental breakfast and [ asked ] , "What do you think of Chicago hosting the summit next time?" I said, "That's a really great idea but I can't speak for Chicago," so I came back and worked to pull together a coalition. So we have key partners involved, like the health department [ Chicago Department of Public Health ] , Howard Brown Health Center, AIDS Foundation [ of Chicago ] , Test Positive Aware Network, Center on Halsted, etc. We wanted to make sure that they were on board and were willing to do some of the heavy lifting. Serious organizing for this summit began in earnest in November.

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Also read Health Summit Approaches in the August 6 edition of the Chicago Free Press.

Learn more about the 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit - check out the program and register!