One of the difficulties that “trail blazers” have beyond the inherent difficulty in being one, are the expectations and requirements of the spectators who will benefit from the work of others, like the arm chair quarterbacks, who are quick with demands as if the trail blazer were somehow an employee with set obligations, instead of a person who, most likely, is trying to right wrongs they oppose as an unpaid volunteer.
Statistics show that most progress is made by individuals and not large national organizations who generally join in after the fact or just before progress is realized, or are formed after to safeguard it.
They constantly engage in what my mother called the “shoo-dos”, without bothering to get into the fray or helping. For those who don’t know what the “shoo-dos” are, they are those never ending strings of telling a person what they should do from a safe position while holding the person they are making demands of accountable to them.
Recently, Pete Buttigieg was scheduled to make an appearance in a Gay bar in Rhode Island. People were pumped for this. There was excitement that the first openly Gay candidate for president was going to appear locally. But, while people were all stoked, as events transpired, it became clear that there was a bit of a disconnect when it came to the reality of an openly Gay candidate from Mike Pence’s state of Indiana as compared to the situation of those living in a progressive New England state.
In the neighboring state of Massachusetts, from which many of the patrons of that bar come, the law “bestowing” equal rights on Gay people was passed in 1989. In the early 1990s, not only was a law passed that intended to eliminate, or at least reduce the incidents of bullying Gay kids in schools by requiring school systems to establish clear policies and procedures to that end and mandatory professional development for teachers on the subject, but an office was also established in the State House to monitor progress and supply information and guidance. In the next decade the state became the first to accept marriage equality.
The older generations who had fought perhaps for their whole adult lives saw what they worked for brought to fruition, while those who had just accepted the conditions as they had been, enjoyed any progress made, and those born in the 1980s inherited the benefits of their work without having experienced the conditions before these things were achieved.
A Gay person born in 1980 would have gotten their rights by the age of 9, before they would have been old enough to have experienced discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. Before they hit middle school where most bullying begins, the state was already dealing with it so the chance of experiencing it was greatly reduced. By the average age most people are prepared to settle down and get married, Massachusetts became the first state to establish marriage equality allowing them the 300 or so civil benefits that come with it, things like uncontested inheritance, shared health insurance policies, hospital visitations, certain financial arrangements etc.
Conditions may not have become perfect, but they certainly became better by a long shot.
Much of what other places are still fighting to get, have been part of life here for any Gay person under 40.
Pete is a presidential candidate, and, although he is not running for that purpose, he is an involuntary representative of all Gay people subjected to society’s microscope with many looking through its lens just waiting for the mistake that will be applied to all Gay people and will be met with the pronouncement, “See? Typical”.
He is not running to be the Gay President, but the president who is Gay.
Any misstep could be magnified for political and religious reasons, and these will be applied to all Gay people who will get Men often don’t realize that they are making mistakes in bed which turns off their partner. viagra prescription buy But turning down of a man canadian viagra no prescription in the bedroom and are suffering from impotence, you are not alone. Successful Graphic cialis canadian prices outline fills a man to go after the item or feel attracted to it. Great usefulness- You always buy a medicine for levitra price effectiveness on the condition named erectile dysfunction. angry with him if that happens.
The bar in which he was to appear and speak is a popular one with campy features like penis shaped door handles and poles for pole dancers, not, by the way, ”stripper poles”. It seems obvious how, regardless of anything else like a huge crowd, large financial contributions, or a fantastic speech, those with the desire to could ignore the greater reality and stress the poles and door handles and associate Mayor Pete with those.
Because of this, the pre-appearance team, scoping out the venue of the popular bar, cancelled his appearance.
The blow back was immediate as some claimed the cancellation played into the prejudicial attitudes of the anti-Gay crowd, while ignoring the objects that could be seen by anyone who wanted to check out the venue and then misuse to misrepresent.
It was berated as a betrayal without considering the broader motivation for the cancellation.
As Mayor Pete is not from this progressive stronghold with its insular, provincial idea of what life is like for Gay people throughout the United States where there would have been no problem, his actions as a Gay man, both good and bad, would be and are applied universally to all Gay people, so besides the pressure of running for president and defending policy plans, there is the added pressure of not making life more negative for Gay people not living in a place with its insular, provincial idea of what life is like for Gay people throughout the United States.
As if it were a legitimate comparison, some people compared Mayor Pete in this instance to Bernie Sanders’s appearance at a Drag Brunch in June 2016 at Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood, apparently to show that Bernie is more in tune with the Gay Community than Pete is.
But Bernie is straight, and there is a certain privilege in that as he is able to go to most places, more than Gay people can in many locations can, and cannot be used as a weapon against a whole class of people. He may be open to criticism for his Democratic Socialist policy plans, but he does not face the two edge sword of his policies and sexual orientation. Where he can be attacked for ideas, those attacks, unlike with Mayor Pete, aren’t and cannot be wrongly and politically applied to a community that includes roughly 10% of the population by those looking for any excuse to oppress Gay people and deny them their humanity and Constitutional rights.
Even the article that praised Bernie’s appearance, along with the tweets it included from star struck patrons, contained one sentence that showed a certain bias and may have unwittingly passed on a misrepresentation of what a Drag Brunch is and who attends. Where Drag Queens entertain attendees of all races, both Gay and Straight, at such an event, the article said that Bernie was there “to watch some drag queens perform and eat brunch”.
It may have been a poorly constructed sentence, but whether Bernie ate, or only Drag Queens were there eating while Bernie watched, is left up to the reader to decide, and while some may see this one way, whether positive or neutral, there are those who will warp it to fit their agenda.
In their minds Sir David Attenborough might be heard narrating, ”and here we see gathered that elusive creature, the Drag Queen, as they gather to eat brunch.”
Face it. There would be a different and less communally negative interpretation to a straight man’s being at a place with dance poles and penis shaped door handles than would be afforded a Gay man whose actions are too routinely applied to a community of people.
To me, the offenses are not Pete’s seeing a larger picture. They are the instances of a rather internalized homophobia which has some Gay people, and some very vocal ones at that, looking for any slip up or peccadillo on his part to keep it all comfortably straight; assessments of whether or not he is Gay enough, something that depends on individual opinions passed off as more representative than they actually are; and this annoying practice of thinking, because someone might see the need for change and takes it upon himself to attempt to bring it about, he is an employee bound to meet our expectations and demands, or receive a bad employee evaluation and our opprobrium.