LGBT culture
Encyclopedia
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, bisexual
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
, transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
, and queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
(LGBTQ) people. It is sometimes also referred to as Queer culture. The term gay culture, though not synonymous, is sometimes also used though this may also apply specifically to the culture of homosexual men.
LGBT culture varies widely by geography and the identity of the participants. Elements often identified as being common to the culture of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people include:
- The work of famous gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. This may include:
- Present-day LGBT artists and political figures;
- Historical figures who have been identified as LGBT. It has often been questioned whether it is appropriate to identify historical figures using modern terms for sexual identity (see History of sexuality). However, many LGBT people feel a kinship towards these people and their work, especially to the extent that it deals with same-sex attraction or gender identity. This is evidenced by websites such as VictoryFund.org which are dedicated to supporting homosexual politicians.
- An understanding of the history of LGBT political movementsLGBT social movementsLesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...
. - An ironic appreciation of things linked by stereotype to LGBT people.
- Figures and identities that are present in the LGBT communityGay communityThe gay community, or LGBT community, is a loosely defined grouping of LGBT and LGBT-supportive people, organizations and subcultures, united by a common culture and civil rights movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality...
; in Euro-American LGBT culture, this could include the gay villageGay villageA gay village is an urban geographic location with generally recognized boundaries where a large number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people live or frequent...
, drag kingDrag kingDrag kings are mostly female performance artists who dress in masculine drag and personify male gender stereotypes as part of their performance. A typical drag king routine may incorporate dancing and singing, live as in the Momma's Boyz of San Francisco's performances or lip-synching...
s and queensDrag queenA drag queen is a man who dresses, and usually acts, like a caricature woman often for the purpose of entertaining. There are many kinds of drag artists and they vary greatly, from professionals who have starred in films to people who just try it once. Drag queens also vary by class and culture and...
, PrideGay prideLGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
, and the rainbow flag.
Not all LGBT people identify by or affiliate with LGBT culture. Instead, some hide behind the false image of heterosexuality. Reasons can include geographic distance, unawareness of the subculture's existence, fear of social stigma
Social stigma
Social stigma is the severe disapproval of or discontent with a person on the grounds of characteristics that distinguish them from other members of a society.Almost all stigma is based on a person differing from social or cultural norms...
, or personal preference to remain unidentified with sexuality or gender based subcultures or communities. The Queercore
Queercore
Queercore is a cultural and social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of punk. It is distinguished by being discontent with society in general and its rejection of the disapproval of the gay, bisexual, and lesbian communities and their "oppressive agenda"...
movement, as well as the group Gay shame
Gay shame
Gay Shame is a movement from within the LGBT and queer communities described as a radical alternative to gay mainstreaming and directly posits an alternative view of traditional "gay pride" events and activities which have become increasingly commercialized with corporate sponsors and "safer"...
, critiques what they see as the commercialization and self-imposed ghettoization of LGBT cultures.
In some cities, especially in North America, LGBTQ people live in gay village
Gay village
A gay village is an urban geographic location with generally recognized boundaries where a large number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people live or frequent...
s neighbourhoods with a high proportion of gay residents. LGBTQ communities organize a number of events to celebrate their cultures, such as Pride parades, the Gay Games
Gay Games
The Gay Games is the world's largest sporting and cultural event organized by and specifically for LGBT athletes, artists, musicians, and others. It welcomes participants of every sexual orientation and every skill level...
and Southern Decadence
Southern Decadence
Southern Decadence is a week-long, predominantly gay-male event held in New Orleans, Louisiana and its environs by the gay and lesbian community during Labor Day Weekend, climaxing with a parade through the French Quarter on the Sunday before Labor Day...
.
Gay male culture
According to Herdt, "homosexualityHomosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
" was the main term used until the late 1950s and early 1960s. After this point, a new "gay" culture came to be. "This new gay culture increasingly marks a full spectrum of social life: not only same-sex desires but gay selves, gay neighbors, and gay social practices that are distinctive of our affluent, postindustrial society".
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, gay culture was highly covert and relied upon secret symbols and codes woven into an overall straight
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
context. Gay influence in early America was mostly limited to high culture
High culture
High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture...
. The association of gay men with opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
, ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
, professional sports
Professional sports
Professional sports, as opposed to amateur sports, are sports in which athletes receive payment for their performance. Professional athleticism has come to the fore through a combination of developments. Mass media and increased leisure have brought larger audiences, so that sports organizations...
, couture
Haute couture
Haute couture refers to the creation of exclusive custom-fitted clothing. Haute couture is made to order for a specific customer, and it is usually made from high-quality, expensive fabric and sewn with extreme attention to detail and finished by the most experienced and capable seamstresses,...
, fine cuisine
Cuisine
Cuisine is a characteristic style of cooking practices and traditions, often associated with a specific culture. Cuisines are often named after the geographic areas or regions that they originate from...
, musical theater, the Golden Age of Hollywood, and interior design
Interior design
Interior design describes a group of various yet related projects that involve turning an interior space into an effective setting for the range of human activities are to take place there. An interior designer is someone who conducts such projects...
began with wealthy homosexual men using the straight themes of these media to send their own signals. In the very heterocentric Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a musical number features Jane Russell
Jane Russell
Jane Russell was an American film actress and was one of Hollywood's leading sex symbols in the 1940s and 1950s....
singing "Anyone Here for Love" in a gym while muscled men dance around her. The men's costumes were designed by a man, the dance was choreographed by a man, and the dancers, as gay screenwriter Paul Rudnick points out, "seem more interested in each other than in Russell", but her reassuring presence gets the sequence past the censors and fits it into an overall heterocentric theme.
After the Stonewall riots
Stonewall riots
The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City...
in the United States in 1969, gay male culture began to be publicly acknowledged for the first time. Some gay men formed The Violet Quill
The Violet Quill
The Violet Quill was a group of seven gay male writers that met in 1980 and 1981 in New York City to read from their writings to each other and to critique them...
society, which focused on writing about gay experience as something central and normal in a story for the first time, rather than as a "naughty" sideline to a mostly straight story. A good example is the short story A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White
Edmund White
Edmund Valentine White III is an American author and literary critic. He is a member of the faculty of Princeton University's Program in Creative Writing.- Life and work :...
. In this first volume of a trilogy, White writes as a young homophilic narrator growing up under the shadow of a corrupt and remote father. The young man learns bad habits from his straight father and applies them to a gay existence.
Celebrities such as Liza Minnelli
Liza Minnelli
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress and singer. She is the daughter of singer and actress Judy Garland and film director Vincente Minnelli....
, Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
, and Bette Midler
Bette Midler
Bette Midler is an American singer, actress, and comedian, also known by her informal stage name, The Divine Miss M. She became famous as a cabaret and concert headliner, and went on to star in successful and acclaimed films such as The Rose, Ruthless People, Beaches, and For The Boys...
spent a significant amount of their social time with urban gay men, who were now popularly viewed as sophisticated and stylish by the jet set. And more celebrities themselves, such as Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
, were open about their relationships. Such openness was still limited to the largest and most progressive urban areas such as New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, San Francisco, Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, Seattle, Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Washington DC, New Orleans, and Philadelphia, however, until AIDS forced several popular celebrities out of the closet due to their contraction of what was known at first as a "gay cancer".
Some elements that may be identified more closely with gay men than with other groups include:
- pop-culture gay iconGay iconA gay icon is a public figure who is embraced by many within :lesbian, :gay, :bisexual and :transgender communities...
s who have had a traditionally gay male following (for example, discoDiscoDisco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
, MadonnaMadonna (entertainer)Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
, Judy GarlandJudy GarlandJudy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, CherCherCher is an American recording artist, television personality, actress, director, record producer and philanthropist. Referred to as the Goddess of Pop, she has won an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, an Emmy Award, three Golden Globes and a Cannes Film Festival Award among others for her work in...
, Diana RossDiana RossDiana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
, and so forth); - familiarity with certain aspects of romantic, sexual, and social life that have been common among gay men (for example, PolariPolariPolari is a form of cant slang used in Britain by actors, circus and fairground showmen, criminals, prostitutes, and by the gay subculture. It was popularised in the 1960s by camp characters Julian and Sandy in the popular BBC radio show Round the Horne...
, poppersPoppersPoppers is a slang term for various alkyl nitrites inhaled for recreational purposes, particularly isopropyl nitrite and isobutyl nitrite , and now more rarely, butyl nitrite and amyl nitrite...
, campCamp (style)Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
, and the fag hagFag hagFag hag is a gay slang phrase referring to a woman who either associates mostly or exclusively with gay and bisexual men, or has gay and bisexual men as close friends. The phrase originated in gay male culture in the United States and was historically an insult. Some women who associate with gay...
; in South AsiaSouth AsiaSouth Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
n LGBTLGBTLGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
culture, evening people).
There are a number of subcultures within gay male culture, such as the bears
Bear community
"Bear" is a LGBT slang term that refers to members of a subculture in the homosexual and bisexual male communities and to an emerging subset of LGBT communities with events, codes, and a culture-specific identity...
and chubbies
Chubby culture
A chub is an overweight or obese gay man who identifies as being part of the related chubby culture. Although there is some overlap between chubs and bears, chubs have their own distinct subculture and community...
. There are also subcultures that have historically had a large gay male population, such as the leather
Leather subculture
The leather subculture denotes practices and styles of dress organized around sexual activities. Wearing leather garments is one way that participants in this culture self-consciously distinguish themselves from mainstream sexual cultures...
and SM subcultures. Out critic Michael Musto opined "I am a harsh critic of the gay community because I feel that when I first came out I thought I would be entering a world of nonconformity and individuality and, au contraire, it turned out to be a world of clones in a certain way. I also hated the whole body fascism thing that took over the gays for a long time.
Relationships
With respect to relationships, some U.S. studies have found that the majority of gay male couples are in monogamous relationships. Research by Colleen Hoffon of 566 gay male couples from the San Francisco Bay AreaSan Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
found that 75% had monogamous relationships. That study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health...
Openly gay actor Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris
Neil Patrick Harris is an American actor, singer, director, and magician.Prominent roles of his career include the title role in Doogie Howser, M.D., Colonel Carl Jenkins in Starship Troopers, the womanizing Barney Stinson in How I Met Your Mother, a fictionalized version of himself in the Harold...
has remarked, "I’m a big proponent of monogamous relationships regardless of sexuality, and I’m proud of how the nation is steering toward that".
In the 1980 and 1990s, Sean Martin drew a comic strip, Doc and Raider
Doc and Raider
Doc and Raider is a Canadian comic strip, created by Sean Martin. Published in newspapers and magazines for LGBT audiences beginning in 1987, the strip's main characters were Doc and Raider, two gay men who began the series as roommates but eventually became a couple...
, which featured a gay couple living in or near Toronto's Gay Village. The characters have recently been updated and moved to the Web. The comic was humorous but sometimes addressed serious issues such as gay-bashing, HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
, and spousal abuse.
Online culture and communities
Recently, a number of online social interaction websites for gay men have been established. Initially, these concentrated on sexual contact or titillation. Typically, users were afforded a profile page as well as access to other members' pages, member-to-member messaging and instant-message chat.Smaller, more densely-connected websites concentrating on social networking without a focus on sexual contact have been established. Some forbid all explicit sexual content; others do not.
Lesbian culture
As with gay men, lesbian culture includes elements both from the larger LGBT culture and elements that are specific to the lesbian community. Often thought of in this regard are elements of countercultureCounterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
that have been primarily associated with lesbians in Europe, Australia/New Zealand and North America and includes large lesbian specific events such as Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
Michigan Womyn's Music Festival
The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, called "the Original Womyn's Woodstock" and often referred to as MWMF or Michfest, is an international feminist music festival occurring every August since 1976 near Hart, Michigan...
and the Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend
Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend
Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend, popularly known as “The Dinah”, is a five-day weekend getaway and music festival catering to the LGBT communities that takes place annually in California in the United States. It is considered the largest lesbian event in the United States and the world...
.
Contemporary Lesbian culture also has its own icons such as Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Etheridge
Melissa Lou Etheridge is an American rock singer-songwriter and musician.Etheridge is known for her mixture of confessional lyrics, pop-based folk-rock, and raspy, smoky vocals...
. Others include k.d. lang
K.D. Lang
Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC , known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress...
(butch), Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen DeGeneres
Ellen Lee DeGeneres is an American stand-up comedienne, television host and actress. She hosts the syndicated talk show The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and was also a judge on American Idol for one year, having joined the show in its ninth season....
(androgynous), and Portia de Rossi
Portia de Rossi
Portia Lee James DeGeneres , known professionally as Portia de Rossi , is an Australian-American actress, best known for her roles as lawyer Nelle Porter on the television series Ally McBeal and Lindsay Bluth Fünke on the sitcom Arrested Development...
(femme).
The history of lesbian culture over the last half-century has also been tightly entwined with the evolution of feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
. Lesbian separatism is an example of a lesbian theory and practice which identifies specifically lesbian interests and ideas and promotes a specific sort of lesbian culture.
Older stereotypes of lesbian women stressed a dichotomy between women who adhered to stereotypical male gender stereotypes ("butch
Butch and femme
Butch and femme are LGBT terms describing respectively, masculine and feminine traits, behavior, style, expression, self-perception and so on. They are often used in the lesbian, bisexual and gay subcultures...
") and stereotypical female gender stereotypes ("femme
Butch and femme
Butch and femme are LGBT terms describing respectively, masculine and feminine traits, behavior, style, expression, self-perception and so on. They are often used in the lesbian, bisexual and gay subcultures...
"), and that typical lesbian couples consisted of a butch/femme pairing. Today, some lesbian women adhere to being either "butch" or "femme," but these categories are much less rigid and are now uncommon as lesbianism becomes more mainstream. Also notable are diesel dykes, extremely butch women who use male forms of dress and behavior. Lipstick lesbian
Lipstick lesbian
Lipstick lesbian is a slang term used to describe lesbian and bisexual women who exhibit extremely feminine gender attributes, such as wearing make-up , wearing dresses or skirts and having other characteristics associated with feminine women...
refers to feminine women who are attracted to other women.
Bisexual culture
Sexual identity
Sexual identity is a term that, like sex, has two distinctively different meanings. One describes an identity roughly based on sexual orientation, the other an identity based on sexual characteristics, which is not socially based but based on biology, a concept related to, but different from,...
and gender identity
Gender identity
A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...
called monosexism (discrimination against bisexual, fluid, pansexual and queer-identified
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
people), bisexual erasure
Bisexual erasure
Bisexual erasure is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or reexplain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources...
, and biphobia/panphobia
Biphobia
Biphobia is a term used to describe aversion felt toward bisexuality and bisexuals as a social group or as individuals. People of any sexual orientation can experience such feelings of aversion...
(hatred and/or distrust of people who do not adhere to monosexual behavior). Biphobia is common (although lessening) in both the gay and lesbian community and the straight community.
Many bisexual, fluid and pansexual people consider themselves to be part of the LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
or Queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
community, despite any discrimination they face. Contemporary western
Western culture
Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, refers to cultures of European origin and is used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and...
bisexual/pasexual and fluid
Bisexual community
Bisexual community is a term used to describe members of the LGBT community who identify as bisexual, pansexual, "fluid", and queer-identified, as well as their allies...
culture also has its own touchstones such as the books Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out
Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out
Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out, an anthology edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka'ahumanu, is one of the seminal books in the history of the modern bisexual rights movement...
, edited by Lani Ka'ahumanu
Lani Ka'ahumanu
Lani Ka'ahumanu is a bisexual and feminist writer and activist. She is openly bisexual and writes and speaks on sexuality issues frequently.She is the co-editor with Loraine Hutchins of Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out ....
and Loraine Hutchins
Loraine Hutchins
Loraine Hutchins is an American bisexual and feminist author, activist, and sex educator.She is the co-editor with Lani Ka'ahumanu of the anthology, Bi Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out...
, and Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World
Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World
Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World is an english language anthology edited by Robyn Ochs and Sarah E Rowley. It is an important book in the history of the modern bisexual rights movement and appears on numerous Bisexual/general LGBT reading lists.The book is composed of short essays...
edited by Robyn Ochs
Robyn Ochs
Robyn Ochs is an American bisexual and LGBT rights activist who helped found the Boston Bisexual Network in 1983, and the Bisexual Resource Center in 1985....
, the British science fiction
British television science fiction
British television science fiction began when the broadcast medium was in its infancy. Despite an occasionally chequered history, popular programmes in the genre have been produced by both the BBC and the largest commercial channel, ITV...
television series Torchwood
Torchwood
Torchwood is a British science fiction television programme created by Russell T Davies. The series is a spin-off from Davies's 2005 revival of the long-running science fiction programme Doctor Who. The show has shifted its broadcast channel each series to reflect its growing audience, moving from...
, and icons including British singer and activist Tom Robinson
Tom Robinson
Tom Robinson is an English singer-songwriter, bassist and radio presenter, better known for the hits "Glad to Be Gay", "2-4-6-8 Motorway", and "Don't Take No for an Answer", with his Tom Robinson Band...
, The Black Eyed Peas
The Black Eyed Peas
The Black Eyed Peas are an American pop group , formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1995. The group includes rappers will.i.am, apl.de.ap, and Taboo, and singer Fergie. Since the release of their third album Elephunk in 2003, the group has sold an estimated 56 million records worldwide...
member Fergie, Scottish actor Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming
Alan Cumming, OBE is a Scottish stage, television and film actor, singer, writer, director, producer and author. His roles have included the Emcee in Cabaret, Boris Grishenko in GoldenEye, Kurt Wagner/Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United, Mr. Elton in Emma, and Fegan Floop in the Spy Kids trilogy...
and American performance artist and activist Lady Gaga
Lady GaGa
Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta , better known by her stage name Lady Gaga, is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, she primarily studied at the Convent of the Sacred Heart and briefly attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts before withdrawing to...
.
The bisexual pride flag
Bisexual pride flag
The bisexual pride flag was designed by Michael Page in 1998 in order to give the bisexual community its own symbol comparable to the Gay pride flag of the larger LGBT community...
flag was designed by Michael Page in 1998 in order to give the community
Bisexual community
Bisexual community is a term used to describe members of the LGBT community who identify as bisexual, pansexual, "fluid", and queer-identified, as well as their allies...
its own symbol comparable to the Gay pride flag of the mainstream LGBT community. The deep pink
Pink
Pink is a mixture of red and white. Commonly used for Valentine's Day and Easter, pink is sometimes referred to as "the color of love." The use of the word for the color known today as pink was first recorded in the late 17th century....
or rose stripe at the top of the flag represents the possibility of same gender attraction
Same-sex attraction
Same-sex attraction is a term occasionally used instead of the more common term homosexuality to refer to a person's feelings of sexual attraction toward members of the same gender identity....
; the royal blue
Royal blue
Royal blue describes both a bright shade and a dark shade of azure blue. It is said to have been invented by millers in Rode, Somerset, a consortium of which won a competition to make a dress for the British queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz....
stripe at the bottom of the flag represents the possibility of different gender attraction and the stripes overlap in the central fifth of the flag to form a deep shade of lavender
Lavender (color)
Lavender is a pale tint of violet. It applies particularly to the color of the flower of the same name. The web color called lavender is displayed at right—it matches the color of the very palest part of the lavender flower; however, the more saturated color shown below as floral lavender more...
or purple
Purple
Purple is a range of hues of color occurring between red and blue, and is classified as a secondary color as the colors are required to create the shade....
, which represents the possibility of attraction anywhere along the entire gender spectrum
Gender identity
A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...
.
Additionally, Celebrate Bisexuality Day
Celebrate Bisexuality Day
Celebrate Bisexuality Day is observed on September 23 by members of the bisexual community and their supporters.This day is a call for the Bisexual community, their friends and supporters to recognize and celebrate bisexuality, bisexual history, bisexual community and culture, and the bi- and...
has been observed on September 23 by members of the bisexual community
Bisexual community
Bisexual community is a term used to describe members of the LGBT community who identify as bisexual, pansexual, "fluid", and queer-identified, as well as their allies...
and their allies since 1999.
Transgender culture
The study of transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
culture as such is complicated by the many and various ways in which cultures deal with gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
. For example, in many cultures, people who are attracted to people of the same sex — that is, those who in contemporary Western culture would identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual — are classed as a third gender
Third gender
The terms third gender and third sex describe individuals who are categorized as neither man nor woman, as well as the social category present in those societies who recognize three or more genders...
, together with people who would in the West be classified as transgender or transsexual.
In the contemporary West, there are usually several different groups of transgender and transsexual people, some of which are extremely exclusive, like groups only for transsexual women who explicitly want sex reassignment surgery
Sex reassignment surgery
Sex reassignment surgery is a term for the surgical procedures by which a person's physical appearance and function of their existing sexual characteristics are altered to resemble...
, or male, heterosexual-only cross-dressers
Cross-dressing
Cross-dressing is the wearing of clothing and other accoutrement commonly associated with a gender within a particular society that is seen as different than the one usually presented by the dresser...
. Transmen's groups are often, but not always, more inclusive. Groups aiming at all transgender people, both transmen and transwomen, have in most cases appeared only in the last few years.
Some transgender or transsexual women and men however do not classify as being part of any specific "trans" culture, however there is a distinction between transgender and transsexual people who make their past known to others and those who wish to live according to their gender identity and not reveal this past, stating that they should be able to live in their true gender role in a normal way, and be in control of whom they choose to tell their past to.
Youth culture
Youth Pride, an extension of the Gay prideGay pride
LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
and LGBT social movements
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...
, promotes equality amongst young members (usually above the age of consent) of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Questioning (LGBTIQ) community. The movement exists in many countries and focuses mainly on festivals and parades, enabling many LGBTIQ youth to network, communicate, and celebrate their gender and sexual identities. Youth Pride organizers also point to the value in building community and supporting young people as they are more likely to get gay bashed and bullied. Schools that have a Gay-Straight Alliance
Gay-straight alliance
Gay–straight alliances are student organizations, found primarily in North American high schools and universities, that are intended to provide a safe and supportive environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth and their straight allies .-Goal:The goal of most, if not all,...
(GSA) handle issues of discrimination and violence against LGBTIQ youth better than schools that do not because they help develop community and coping skills and give students a safe-space to get health and safety information. Sometimes the groups avoid labeling young people and instead let them identify themselves on their own terms "when they feel safe".
Gay and lesbian youth bear an increased risk of suicide, substance abuse, school problems, and isolation because of a "hostile and condemning environment, verbal and physical abuse, rejection and isolation from family and peers" according to a U.S. Task Force on Youth Suicide report. Further, LGB youths are more likely to report psychological and physical abuse by parents or caretakers, and more sexual abuse. Suggested reasons for this disparity are that (1) LGBT youths may be specifically targeted on the basis of their perceived sexual orientation or gender non-conforming appearance, and (2) "risk factors associated with sexual minority status, including discrimination, invisibility, and rejection by family members...may lead to an increase in behaviors that are associated with risk for victimization, such as substance abuse, sex with multiple partners, or running away from home as a teenager." A 2008 study showed a correlation between the degree of rejecting behavior by parents of LGB adolescents and negative health problems in the teenagers studied. Crisis centers in larger cities and information sites on the Internet have arisen to help youth and adults. The Trevor Helpline, a suicide prevention helpline for LGBT youth, was established by the filmmakers following the 1998 airing on HBO of the Academy Award winning short film Trevor
Trevor (film)
Trevor is a 1994 American short comedy film directed by Peggy Rajski about a gay 13-year-old boy who, when rejected by friends because of his sexuality, makes an attempt to take his life....
; Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Radcliffe
Daniel Jacob Radcliffe is an English actor who rose to prominence playing the titular character in the Harry Potter film series....
donated a large sum to the group and has appeared in service ads for them condemning homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
.
The increasing mainstream acceptance of the greater LGBTIQ communities prompted the Massachusetts Governors' Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth to start an annual Gay-Straight Youth Pride observance in 1995. In 1997 the Youth Pride Alliance was founded as a non-profit to put on an annual youth pride event in Washington, D.C. In 1998 Candace Gingrich
Candace Gingrich
Candace Gingrich-Jones is an American LGBT rights activist at the Human Rights Campaign. She is the half-sister of former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who is more than 20 years her senior...
was one of the speakers at Washington D.C.'s Youth Pride Alliance, a coalition of 25 youth support and advocacy groups. In 1999, the first annual Vermont Youth Pride Day was held. As of 2009 it is the largest queer and allied youth event in Vermont and is organized by Outright Vermont
Outright Vermont
Outright Vermont is Vermont's only queer youth service organization. Its mission is to build safe, healthy, and supportive environments for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth....
to "break the geographic and social barriers gay youngsters living in rural communities face". In 2002, a college fair was added to the event to connect students with colleges and discuss issues relating to how to track students and ensure their safety. In April 2003 a Youth Pride Chorus partly organized with New York's LGBT Community Center started rehearsals and later performed at a June Pride concert at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
with the New York City Gay Men's Chorus
New York City Gay Men's Chorus
The New York City Gay Men's Chorus is a choral organization in New York City that has been presenting an annual concert season for more than three decades.-History:...
. in 2004 the San Diego chapter of Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network
The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network is an organization in the United States that seeks to end discrimination, harassment, and bullying based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression in K-12 schools. GLSEN is headquartered in New York City and the District of Columbia...
(GLSEN) worked with the San Diego Youth Pride coordinators to organize the Day of Silence
Day of Silence
The Day of Silence is the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network's annual day of action to protest the bullying and harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students and their supporters...
throughout the county. In 2005, the Decatur Georgia Youth Pride participated in a counter-protest against Westboro Baptist Church
Westboro Baptist Church
The Westboro Baptist Church is an independent Baptist church known for its extreme stance against homosexuality and its protest activities, which include picketing funerals and desecrating the American flag. The church is widely described as a hate group and is monitored as such by the...
, led by church head Fred Phelps
Fred Phelps
Fred Waldron Phelps, Sr. is an American pastor heading the Westboro Baptist Church , an independent Baptist church based in Topeka, Kansas...
' daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper
Shirley Phelps-Roper
Shirley Lynn Phelps-Roper is an American lawyer and political activist. She is best known as the spokesperson of the controversial Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, an organization known for its highly publicized public protests conducted under the slogan "God Hates...
, who were "greeting students and faculty as they arrived with words such as "God hates fag enablers" and "Thank God for 9/11"" at ten locations. In 2008, Chicago's Youth Pride Center, primarily serving "LGBT youth of color", opened a temporary location and will move into their newly constructed building on Chicago's South Side in 2010. In 2009, Utah Pride Center held an event to coincide with Youth Pride Walk 2009, a "cross-country walk by two Utah women trying to draw attention to the problems faced by homeless LGBT youth". In August 2010, the first Hollywood Youth Pride was held with a focus on the "large number of homeless LGBT youth living on Los Angeles streets." According to a 2007 report "of the estimated 1.6 million homeless American youth, between 20 and 40 percent identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
At larger pride parades and festivals there are often LGBTIQ or queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
youth contingents, and some festivals designate safe-spaces for young people to provide safety and security.
Other groups within the LGBT community
Several other segments of the LGBT community have their own significant communities and cultures.One is the Deaf
Deaf culture
Deaf culture describes the social beliefs, behaviors, art, literary traditions, history, values and shared institutions of communities that are affected by deafness and which use sign languages as the main means of communication. When used as a cultural label, the word deaf is often written with a...
Queer community.
Heterosexual idea of "roles"
Society's attempt to make homosexuals fit the heterosexual mold has resulted in ideas such as that all gay men are either "tops" or "bottoms" and that one of the men in the relationship must be "the woman" while the other is "the man", an idea that is often met with irritation by gay men.Criticism and dissent
Criticism of LGBT culture has come from a variety of sources. Some, like Michael MustoMichael Musto
Michael Musto is an American columnist for the The Village Voice, where he writes La Dolce Musto. Musto was born in Brooklyn to an Italian American family. He attended Columbia University graduating in 1976. During his studies, he was a theater critic for the Columbia Spectator...
, view the culture as being too conforming to certain caricatures or stereotypes that alienate more 'fringe' members of the community. Others believe that the LGBT community's emphasis on pursuits like Marxism, socialism, or any political ideology is unworkable given the biological nature of being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender and the diversity of backgrounds within the community. Further, some believe a notion of 'separatism' or falling into any particular lifestyle as a group is highly alienating to many people, as well as alienating LGBT members within ordinary society.
Another problem is that bisexual and transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
individuals often experience heavy social pressure to identify as gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
or lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
and can face ostracism and discrimination from mainstream LGBT culture. For bisexuals, this pressure is known as 'bisexual erasure
Bisexual erasure
Bisexual erasure is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or reexplain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources...
'. New York University School of Law
New York University School of Law
The New York University School of Law is the law school of New York University. Established in 1835, the school offers the J.D., LL.M., and J.S.D. degrees in law, and is located in Greenwich Village, in the New York City borough of Manhattan....
professor Kenji Yoshino
Kenji Yoshino
Kenji Yoshino is a legal scholar and the Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law at New York University School of Law. Formerly, he was the Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale Law School. His work involves Constitutional law, anti-discrimination law, civil and human rights,...
has written, "gays de-legitimatize bisexuals... the lesbian and gay community abounds with negative images of bisexuals as fence-sitters, traitors, cop-outs, closet cases, people whose primary goal in life is to retain heterosexual privilege". In response to these criticisms, some gay and lesbian commentators retort that many or most of the people who call themselves 'bisexual' are actually straight people co-opting a chic culture
Bisexual chic
Bisexual chic is a phrase used to describe the public acknowledgment of bisexuality among various segments of society. In some cases the phrase can be considered pejorative, when used to trivialize or dismiss genuine feelings of same-sex attraction, especially if those expressing these thoughts...
and that this deception hurts real gay people and lesbians.
Finally, criticism has been levelled that the LGBT community represents an artificial separation, rather than one based on tangible customs or ethnic identification. (In particular, the labels certain LGBT members use to describe themselves vary widely and some simply prefer to identify as loving a particular gender.) On this point, it should also be noted that certain members see the LGBT community idea as being alienating as the abbreviation itself deliberately displays difference with straight people and as a separate group (further, demarcating 3 terms to do with sexuality with transgenderism, which is a significantly broader phenomenon, is highly artificial), when equality advocates would claim to represent integration.
Some gay male commentators who are in monogamous relationships
Monogamy
Monogamy /Gr. μονός+γάμος - one+marriage/ a form of marriage in which an individual has only one spouse at any one time. In current usage monogamy often refers to having one sexual partner irrespective of marriage or reproduction...
argue that the mainstream gay culture's disdain of monogamy and its promotion of promiscuity
Promiscuity
In humans, promiscuity refers to less discriminating casual sex with many sexual partners. The term carries a moral or religious judgement and is viewed in the context of the mainstream social ideal for sexual activity to take place within exclusive committed relationships...
has harmed efforts to legalize same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
.
British journalist Mark Simpson
Mark Simpson (journalist)
Mark Simpson is an English journalist, writer, and broadcaster specialising in pop culture, media, and masculinity. He has been described by one critic as "the skinhead Oscar Wilde" Simpson is a frequent commentator on British television shows....
published a book titled Anti-Gay in 1996 that described various alleged forms of intolerance by the mainstream gay community towards various subgroups. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
wrote that Simpson succeeded in "pointing out that oppression and prejudice do not become legitimate just because they happen to be practiced by the previously oppressed". Aiden Shaw of Time Out New York wrote that "Thank fucking God someone did this, because... whatever happened to our individuality, our differences?" Other commentators panned Simpson's argument, with Boyz
Boyz (magazine)
Boyz is a free, London-based magazine, targeted at gay men and distributed mainly through gay bars, clubs and saunas in the United Kingdom. Published weekly, it tends to focus on news about the gay scene and celebrities popular with young scene-going gay men.Boyz is relatively light on "serious"...
declaring "Simpson is a cunt".
See also
- Bisexual communityBisexual communityBisexual community is a term used to describe members of the LGBT community who identify as bisexual, pansexual, "fluid", and queer-identified, as well as their allies...
- Gay communityGay communityThe gay community, or LGBT community, is a loosely defined grouping of LGBT and LGBT-supportive people, organizations and subcultures, united by a common culture and civil rights movements. These communities generally celebrate pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality...
- HeterosexismHeterosexismHeterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and relationships. It can include the presumption that everyone is heterosexual or that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the only norm and therefore superior...
- HeteronormativityHeteronormativityHeteronormativity is a term invented in 1991 to describe any of a set of lifestyle norms that hold that people fall into distinct and complementary genders with natural roles in life. It also holds that heterosexuality is the normal sexual orientation, and states that sexual and marital relations...
- LGBT historyLGBT historyLGBT history refers to the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender peoples and cultures around the world, dating back to the first recorded instances of same-sex love and sexuality of ancient civilizations. What survives of many centuries' persecution– resulting in shame, suppression,...
- List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people
- List of transgender-related topics
- Media portrayal of bisexualityMedia portrayal of bisexualityThe portrayal of bisexuality in the media reflects societal attitudes towards bisexuality. List includes portrayals of bisexual identification as well as non-identified bisexual behavior.- Film :-Fiction:- Comic books :-Non-fiction:...
- QueerQueerQueer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
- Sexual orientationSexual orientationSexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
- Sexuality and gender identity-based culturesSexuality and gender identity-based culturesSexuality and gender identity-based cultures are subcultures and communities composed of persons who have shared experiences, background, or interests due to a common sexual or gender identity. Among the first to argue that members of sexual minorities can constitute cultural minorities as well as...
- Top, bottom and versatile
Further reading
- Bockenek, Michael, A. Widney Brown, "Hatred in the hallways: violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students in U.S. schools", Human Rights Watch, 2001, ISBN 1564322599, 9781564322593.
External links
- The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society
- Nonprofit Research Collection Dedicated to LGBT Youth Published on IssueLab
- Gay Resources and Encyclopedia
- bi.org (international Web Hub for bisexual sites and resources)
- Bisexual Index (UK)