Mayor Pete’s Gay Reckoning

Win or lose in Iowa tomorrow, Pete Buttigieg has been a groundbreaking candidate and, in many ways, is emblematic of the situation that so many in the LGBT community find themselves experiencing.  Namely, their sexual orientation does not define who they are, yet others - especially the Christofascists and Republicans who prostitute themselves to them - strive to define us with a broad, negative brush.   Sadly, not all in the LGBT community (foolishly, in my view) respect Buttigieg and complain that he's "not gay enough" or that he's too socially moderate.  In reality, many of the members of the LGBT community I know fall in the socially liberal, fiscally moderate, and progressive categories  - much like Buttigieg.  As for black voters, while they claim homophobia doesn't drive their failure to embrace Buttigieg more, I think they doth protest too much as they cling to a more conservative version of Christianity that white society has used throughout America's history to control minorities.  A column in New York Times looks at Buttigieg's groundbreaking role.  Here are excerpts:

You can listen to long stretches of Pete Buttigieg’s remarks and hear little or no reference to the trailblazing nature of his campaign. You can almost forget.

But as he wrapped up a rally here on Thursday night, with the clock ticking down fast to the Iowa caucuses, he made soaring, stirring mention of it. You remembered.

“Iowa has a remarkable knack for making history,” he told hundreds of supporters, noting that he’d initially visited the state to support Barack Obama during the Democratic primary in 2008, when Obama’s Iowa victory set him on his way. “You changed America’s — and the world’s — expectations for what was possible.”

Then he alluded to Iowa’s legalization of gay marriage in 2009, six years before that happened nationally, and how it gave him hope that he might someday “be a happily married man.” The crowd roared. I had one foot out the door — it had been a long, long day — and I stopped in my tracks. As a gay man and an American, I felt a surge of pride.

Win or lose, Buttigieg is the first openly gay American to become a serious presidential candidate, one who landed on the covers of prominent magazines, was fawned over on the most-watched television talk shows, raised exponentially more money than any of the governors in the race, outpaced Beto O’Rourke, outpolled Kamala Harris, caught President Trump’s attention, qualified for all of the Democratic debates and more than held his own in each of them.

Win or lose, he’s an example, an education and a hell of a story. That narrative is about youth — he just turned 38 — and the power of hyper-articulateness in an era of presidential crudeness. But it’s also about sexual orientation, which has and hasn’t factored into his pitch in surprising ways.

He has grappled, on the national political stage, with questions that all L.G.B.T.Q. people ask, so that his candidacy is a metaphor for our lives: To what extent am I defined by my sexual orientation or gender identity? What does and doesn’t it tell you about me?

Buttigieg’s answers have disappointed some L.G.B.T.Q. people — and were bound to, given the expectations placed on any politician who is blessed and cursed to become a symbol. Female candidates have had experiences similar to his; candidates of color, too.

He has weathered complaints, even derision, from L.G.B.T.Q. progressives, many of whom say he’s not gay enough, his manner and mannerisms too strait-laced, his policy preoccupations too moderate, his success infuriatingly reflective of how readily and well he assimilates into heterosexual America. “Gays Seem to Be Mayor Pete’s Worst Critics” was the headline of a column in The Washington Blade, an L.G.B.T.Q. publication.

That saddens me. As I’ve written before, part of what so many gay people have fought so hard for is the recognition that we don’t fit into tidy boxes, otherwise known as stereotypes — not sartorially, not ideologically. Absolutely disagree with Buttigieg’s opposition to “Medicare for all” if you have a different view, but don’t suggest that he should support it because he’s gay.

And don’t say that by discussing his own Christianity, he’s consorting with the enemy. Yes, religion has been used cruelly against L.G.B.T.Q. people. But one of the most profound dimensions of Buttigieg’s candidacy is how he has turned that around, for instance asserting that his marriage to his husband, Chasten, has brought him “closer to God.”

Buttigieg has campaigned frequently with his husband, embracing him onstage, and has mentioned his marriage in debates. And he doesn’t shy away from questions about his sexual orientation . . . But he doesn’t volunteer lengthy ruminations about its impact on how he sees the world or showcase it in any other way.

None of the voters at his rallies in Iowa brought it up when I asked them what drew them to Buttigieg. They mostly raved about his intelligence.

Were there any particular obstacles he might face in a general election?

“His youth,” said Louann Cooling, 62, of Le Grand, Iowa. It was the same answer — his youth, or his inexperience — that others gave. No one mentioned his being openly gay.

Being gay and an emblem of progress hasn’t given Buttigieg any special traction with younger Democrats, who respond much less favorably to him than older Democrats do.

“While I do not have the experience of ever having been discriminated against because of the color of my skin, I do have the experience of sometimes feeling like a stranger in my own country, turning on the news and seeing my own rights come up for debate,” he said. “Wearing this wedding ring in a way that couldn’t have happened two elections ago lets me know just how deep my obligation is to help those whose rights are on the line every day, even if they are nothing like me in their experience.”

Those remarks didn’t have the effect he intended. Some African-Americans accused him of equating very different kinds of discrimination, and polls show that his support from black Democrats remains abysmal.

What does Buttigieg’s being gay tell you? That he has trepidation and caution in him — he stayed in the closet all those years — but that he has courage, too, enough to pursue the presidency despite the inevitable spotlight on him as a novelty.

I’m not sure he really does “thrilled,” and he confessed to being more a Dave Matthews Band fan. In any case, he said, “I usually have a kind of celebrity blindness.”

A gay man who doesn’t twinkle at the stars around him? Yep, our creator makes us in all shapes and stripes. Thank you, Mayor Pete, for taking that message out on the trail.

Gay Olympic Athletes Provide Role Models

Growing up gay can be soul killing, not because there is anything inherently wrong with being gay, but rather because of the hate, maligning and denigration one must suffer from portions of society, especially the modern day Pharisees among the "godly folks" - think Mike Pence.  As I have noted before, it took a couple of years of therapy to undo the damage my Catholic upbringing had done to me.  I can only believe that growing up Southern Baptist or evangelical Christian would do even more damage to one's psyche. No child or youth deserves such indoctrination that leads to self-hatred and, in still far too many cases, suicide.  Compounding the problem, especially for LGBT individuals of older generations was the lack of role models to demonstrate that one could succeed and live a happy life.  Nowhere was the case more than in sports.  For so, so long, there were no role models.  Now, Olympians Gus Kenworthy and Adam Rippon (who helped the U.S. figure skating team to win a bronze medal yesterday) are proving to young gays that things do not have to be as some charlatan behind a pulpit tells them it must be.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at this welcomed development.  Here are excerpts:

Gus Kenworthy is free. Eat your heart out, Mike Pence, and anyone else predisposed to sneering at his good, gay life.

It took the freestyle skier 24 years to get to this place — to stop hiding, to love himself unabashedly — and that is more valuable to him than his slopestyle silver medal from the Sochi Olympics. Since Kenworthy came out of the closet in 2015, he hasn’t flaunted his sexuality as much as he has owned it, with an intent to inspire others to shun the shame. He and figure skater Adam Rippon are Team USA’s first openly gay male Winter Olympians. The fact is wonderful, not controversial. If you disagree, that is now your problem, not theirs.

 

“I’m here at the Olympics,” said Kenworthy, 26. “Not many people get to say that. And doing so as a gay man makes me feel amazing.”

The U.S. Olympic Committee hails its 243-athlete squad as both the largest group any nation has sent to a Winter Olympics and the country’s most diverse contingent. Some wonder why the latter deserves such recognition. They must not understand the harsh effects of social exclusion. It’s too easy to marginalize, to judge and to hinder people considered different. So Kenworthy’s pride matters. He’s one of the best in the world at what he does. And he’s gay. Don’t merely tolerate it. Celebrate it.

“It’s 2018, and you see how open-minded many parts of the world are,” Kenworthy said. “But there are also many parts of the world where being gay is punishable by death, punishable by jail time. It’s a new world, and it’s also not, and I think that the only way to change perception is through visibility, through representation, and the more that we have that, the more normalized queer becomes, the easier it is for people to wrap their heads around it, and I think that the more we’ll see positive change.”

At the Opening Ceremonies, Kenworthy posted an Instagram photo with Rippon. They embraced in the image. As part of the caption, Kenworthy wrote: “I feel incredibly honored to be here in Korea competing for the US and I’m so proud to be representing the LGBTQ community alongside this amazing guy! Eat your heart out, Pence. #TeamUSA #TeamUSGay”

Rippon has been outspoken in his criticism of Vice President Pence, who led the official U.S. delegation to the Winter Olympics. His strong and passionate words against Pence’s questionable record on LGBTQ rights became a major story this week when he blasted Pence once again to USA Today. 

It’s more beneficial to consider, with compassion, how liberated Kenworthy feels now. He looks back at his first 24 years and sees fear. He was an Olympic silver medalist and he was ashamed of himself. Once he stopped treating his sexual orientation like a dirty secret, he found peace and a higher level of performance.

His superpower — he can ski really fast with exquisite body control, wondrous grace and stunning athleticism — used to be a crutch. He used to use the spectacular within him just to feel normal. Now he’s free to be extraordinary in every way. . . . . "I think that being in the closet is really hard. It takes a toll on your mind. It takes a toll on you. I think it just makes every aspect of your life more difficult.”

The hardest part? He didn’t know who to aspire to be. He thought there was no prototype. That’s why he’s so open now. He wants to provide vision for other gay athletes or anyone foraging life to find a comfortable place.

“As a kid, I just felt like I didn’t really have anyone to look up to that I felt like I could really relate to, someone that was out and gay and also competing in sports and finding success,” Kenworthy said. “And someone I could kind of emulate and try to follow in their footsteps. And so I hope to just be someone that the younger generation can kind of see themselves in and just really be visible for people that haven’t really been able to be visible in the past.

Kenworthy doesn’t want to be known merely as “the gay skier, the gay Olympian.” But for now, it’s important that he live with the label to change perceptions and counter the hatred of people such as John Moody, the executive vice president and executive editor of Fox News, who wrote an embarrassingly closed-minded piece about the Winter Games last week. It was so bad that Fox spiked it on Friday, but it was too late. We had been exposed to the poison for nearly 48 hours.

The implication is that a more diverse U.S. team is somehow worse. The implication is that Team USA didn’t hold Olympic trials and instead tried to create a rainbow. The implication ignores that Shani Davis (the first African American to win an individual gold medal at a Winter Games) has four Olympic medals, that Kenworthy can earn his second here, or that Ghana-born Maame Biney is the future of U.S. women’s short-track speedskating and Korean American snowboarder Chloe Kim might be a transcendent talent.

Why does diversity matter? Well, for one thing, it can shut up people who think like Moody.

"So I’m so proud that now you can exist as a gay man and be an Olympian, and it can be beneficial rather than negative,” Kenworthy said. “So it’s amazing. And I just think I feel so liberated now that I’ve been out of the closet for a while, and so I’m free in that I just get to be myself, speak freely, act freely, and I think that I am competing confidently.”

Eat your hearts out, bigots.

If people want to cling to the myths and legends of ignorant, uneducated Bronze Age herders, they are free to do so.  However, they have no right to seek to force such beliefs on others or to denigrate and incite hatred against those who embrace how the creator made them.  Kidos to Kenworthy and Rippon - I hope they soar and show Mike Pence to be the ignorant ass that he is in fact. 

The Homophobic World of Surfing

I began surfing when my son was age 11 and wanted to learn to surf.  His mother was not keen on the idea of him venturing into the ocean alone, so yours truly was recruited/directed to start relearning to surf at age 45 after not paddling out on a surf board since I was about 22.   Both of us came to love surfing and my son got to be pretty good as did two of his boy cousins (both of my daughters ultimately learned to surf as well).   My son and I and his friends had many wonderful "boys surf trips" to Hatteras Island over the years driving down in a huge Ford Crown Victoria Country Squire wagon that could easily handle six or more surf boards plus my son and at least 3 of his friends.  

Surfing is wonderful for a number of reasons: it's great exercise, it's a great form of stress release - something I needed desperately in my closeted years - and it is a wonderful way to enjoy nature and the ocean.  The draw back is that surfing culture tends to be kind of macho and not what one would describe as gay friendly, especially at the professional surfer level. My blogosphere friend Thomas Castets of Australia decided that this mindset need to change and launched his website gaysurfers.net which I have written about before.    I signed up early on and now the organization as a documentary entitled "Out in the Line Up" which looks at gays and surfing (I am purchasing a copy) .  The Guardian has a piece on the organization.  Here are highlights:

When Thomas Castets sat down at his computer in Sydney four years ago and began writing a blog, he had one modest aim. “I thought it would be nice if I could find at least one other gay surfer out there,” he says. “And find out if they had some time to surf with me.”

Within two weeks, 300 people had got in touch. Now his website, gaysurfers.net, is a thriving social network with almost 6,000 members, ranging from former world champions to people living in villages in West Africa. And as the membership grew – to include many who thought they were only gay surfer in the world – so did the stories. Surfers, including many professional ones, were writing to Castets to explain how they had felt compelled to keep their sexuality secret, faced homophobia in the sport or struggled in the surf industry as a result of coming out.

Last year Thomas, along with Australian former state champion surfer David Wakefield – who chose not to pursue a surfing career out of a fear of being “found out” as gay – decided to go on a trip around the world to meet some of them. Their journey – captured in award-winning documentary Out in the Line-up, which premieres in the UK this week – sheds a light on the experiences of gay surfers around the world as it seeks to understand why the sport continues to struggle to be open about the issue.

Among the stories heard are that of former competitive surfer Susie Hernandez, whose fellow surfers and roommates moved out after finding out she was gay. And Robbins Thompson, who was a pro surfer in the 90s but dropped out of a tour after finding the word “fag” spray-painted on his car. It also touches on the tragic case of Ben Roper, a young gay surfer from one of Sydney’s infamous surf gangs, the Bra Boys, who killed himself last year.

“Surfing is still locked in its old stereotypes from the 60s,” says Castets, describing the tanned, blond, ripped, definitely heterosexual nomad most of us still imagine when we think of a surfer. “There’s not much room for the individual in surfing.”

The issue of homosexuality and surfing draws in a lot of wider problems the sport has with diversity in general – something that seems at odds with the easy-going, counterculture lifestyle many feel it represents. There is still yet to be an openly gay male pro surfer at the elite level who is currently on tour – despite the fact that more traditional sports, such as football, rugby and boxing, have had successful athletes come out.

“There are a lot of reasons why surfing has this problem,” says Castets. “One cause is that surfing is, unfortunately, primarily a male-dominated sport. And when you have all these men travelling together, hunting for waves, there is an element to the psychology that is about making sure there is no ambiguity between the men. To prove your heterosexuality, you need to prove your skills in the water. And another cause is just that there have never really been any gay surfers out there, so I would just call that ignorance and a lack of visibility.”

The marketing of surfing is also markedly heterosexual. It is dominated by white men, and female surfers are frequently objectified – an issue that came to the fore last September, when sports clothing brand Roxy ran an advert for a surf competition featuring seductive shots of surfer Stephanie Gilmore’s body, without any footage of her actually surfing. As Kennelly says, female surfers are required to be “straight, young, feminine, pretty … oh yeah, and a talented surfer”.

Not one straight professional surfer they approached was prepared to speak publicly about the issue on film.

Leading surf organisations responded with equal aversion. Surfing Australia declined to comment, while the Association of Surfing Professionals agreed to go on film, but then withdrew permission to run the interview at late notice. “That’s when we realised it was a real taboo,” says Thomson. “They just don’t want to know about it and they don’t want to talk about it. But then in their backyards there are people killing themselves, people suffering from depression, surfers having great careers cut short by what’s going on. So that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ mentality, which ultimately didn’t work for the US military, cannot work in the future for surfing either.”

“I thought if we were able to make this film, we would be able to change that stereotype and show a new image of what it is to be gay in 2014. It goes beyond just gay surfers. It is a story about being able to live your life the way you are, without being bound by the stereotypes of the subculture.”

Kudos to Thomas and those who worked on this important film!!