Categories
Queer

The Fascist State of Gay USA

02 Nazi rally, 1937

1.

Homosexuals were separated into two distinct groups during the Third Reich.  

The first, an elite corp who acquiesced to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and found favor with Adolf Hitler.  Adolf conveniently turned a blind eye to our ‘degenerate’ ways (like Margaret Thatcher 50 years later) whilst simultaneously enacting anti homosexual legislation.  

The other group of homosexual men and women were less fortunate.  The thriving LGBTQ ‘out’ community were rounded up and sent to the concentration camps where thousands were murdered, raped and experimented upon in barbaric clinical trials. They were the butch dykes, the fairies, the trans.  They refused to keep quiet or give in to the newly established master race and paid dearly for their rebellion.

During the past year I asked 100 gay men if they had lived in Nazi Germany would they have joined the Nazi party?  Not one said yes.

We delude ourselves that we are more anti-establishment than we actually are.

I asked 100 jewish gay men under the age of 30 if they could imagine a white homosexual elite sending LGBTQ people to the gas chambers.  86% could not imagine a gay Nazi sending anyone to the gas chambers.  They could not imagine what a gay Nazi looked like.

Ernst Rohm, the head of the SA (the Brownshirts) – the forerunner of the SS – was gay, as were several other key figures in the SA such as his deputy Edmund Heines.  

Röhm’s chiefs, men of the rank of Gruppenfuehrer or Obergruppenfuehrer, commanding units of several hundred thousand Storm Troopers, were almost without exception homosexuals. Indeed, unless a Storm Troop officer were homosexual, he had no chance of advancement.

Hitler was aware of Röhm’s homosexuality.  Hitler and Rohm were so close they addressed each other as du (the German familiar form of “you”). No other Nazi enjoyed that privilege and their close association led to rumors Hitler himself was homosexual.

Röhm was the only Nazi leader who dared to address Hitler by his first name “Adolf” rather than “mein Führer.”

Rohm was instrumental in the rise of Nazism.   When Hitler decided to do away with his great friend it was with a heavy heart.  Nothing could or would get in the way of Hitler’s ambition to rule the world.  Roehm’s parochial mindset was his undoing.

After the night of the long knives Roehm was sent to prison where he was given the option to commit suicide or be executed.  When the time came he stood in his cell, his chest puffed out.  He was shot point blank.  He was 46 years old when he died.

Rohm and his homosexual gang of bullying Brown Shirts believed that they were invincible.  They allied themselves to Hitler and disgracefully purged their own. Rohm’s story might have some relevance today as the Fascist State of Gay takes shape in the USA.   Buoyed by Presidential support, organizations like GLAAD and the HRC use bullying rhetoric and bullying behaviors.  Our unelected gay officials go unchecked, unchallenged by the establishment who are wary of being described as ‘homophobic’ and dissenting LGBTQ accused of ‘self loathing’.

We have become quietly consumed by the Fascist State of Gay.   Look around you.

Capital_Gay_Pride_parade_in_Albany_New_York_2009

Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia.

Rainbow flags are everywhere: symbols on clothing and public displays.  The rainbow flag flies proudly over businesses, lights up the Empire State Building and thousands upon thousands line the streets during every ‘pride’ manifestation.  

I wondered if the Rainbow flag was my flag and what it represented.  

Truro cornwall gay pride parade 23.08.08

I reimagined these Gay Pride parades like the great communist militaristic rallys during the 1970’s and the parades of other fascist regimes.   Buff, bare-chested boys for all gays to aspire.  Overseen by the gay white elite, like the polit bureau… or Hitler surveying the perfect blond youth of Nazi Germany.

The gays have, within a very short time, achieved huge and enviable human rights gains.  Yet, within the broader gay community there is a disdain for the recognition of other human rights.  Gay white men seem fatigued when asked if they support the rights of women, people of color, undocumented workers, the freedom of expression for all.

Despite Glenn Greenwald (a gay white man) championing the causes of both Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowdon these human rights heroes have found little favor within the larger gay white male community.  My friend and writer Benoit Denizet-Lewis dismisses Glenn Greenwald as ‘unattractive and unnecessarily combatative’.

Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the fascist state of gay believe certain human rights can be ignored because of “need.”   They (like the general population) look the other way, approving of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

Within a very short time the gays have forgotten that all the above were once used against… us.

The Fascist State of Gay, using organizations like GLAAD, identifies Enemies/Scapegoats as a unifying cause. The gays are rallied into a patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious.

Gay white men believe in racial purity.

I asked 100 white, gay men under the age of 30 years old if it was reasonable or unreasonable for others to state on their Gay Dating App or Gay Hookup Website a specific racial preference (no Asians/blacks/Latinos etc.)  85% of those interviewed stated that they thought it ‘reasonable’.

I asked 100 white, gay men under the age of 30 years old if it was reasonable or unreasonable for others to state on their Gay Dating App or Gay Hookup Website a preferred  ‘interest’ in men who had penis’ over 10 inches long.  92% of those interviewed thought it ‘unreasonable’.

To the Fascist State of Gay the end of DADT was a profound victory.  They believe in the supremacy of the military.  Soldiers and military service are glamorized/sexualized.

Within the Fascist State of Gay there is rampant sexism.  Women are degraded, trans derided.   Fascist cults tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid.

The Fascist State of gay seeks to control mass media. Sympathetic media spokespeople and executives.  Encouraging self censorship, the ownership of certain ‘gay’ words that only gays are privileged to use.

Within the Fascist State of Gay there is rampant cronyism.  Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to positions of power and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability.

Powerful anti establishment voices within the LGBTQ community are silenced, those with alternative views… alienated.

I asked 100 gay men if trans Chelsea Manning should be pardoned for leaking classified documents.  5% said yes.  42% said no.  53% didn’t know who she was.

I asked if those who knew who she was thought her a hero or a traitor.  Most gay white men who knew her name described Chelsea Manning as a traitor.

Denver Nicks, one of Chelsea’s biographers, writes that the leaked material, particularly the diplomatic cables, was widely seen as a catalyst for the Arab Spring that began in December 2010.

When we were young (foolishly imagining a gay Utopia) we fought for an inclusive gay community under the rainbow flag…  evolved from years of brutal struggle.  Sadly, our community is anything other than inclusive.  The dream some of us had has been highjacked by naturally right-wing, affluent, gay, white men who merely tolerate others in the unwilling LGBTQ coalition.

2.

A Long Time Coming.

On the morning of London Gay Pride, 1983 I was taken by friends to a small party near The Houses of Parliament.  The men I met were drinking champagne. They were closeted, openly right-wing and sneered at the ‘herd’ gathering across the Vauxhall Bride to celebrate their gayness.

I remember them laughing at the bull dykes, the fairies and the trans.

These men were powerful, public school/Oxbridge educated men holding important positions in government.  Civil Servants, Member’s of Parliament and to my surprise, lurking in a corner, an ex Prime Minister.

One of the men at that small party was Michael Trestrail, the Queen’s personal protection officer who had resigned the year before after being ‘outed’ by the press.  Apparently he had taken a liking to me.  The others boasted about him… as if his proximity to the Queen and his infamy would persuade me to have sex with him.

I asked him about his resignation.  He seemed less than eager to talk about it, lunging at me for a wet kiss.  I recoiled.

Many of the men in the room like MP Harvey Procter (even though he later resigned for having sex with underage boys) would stand mute beside Margaret Thatcher as she enacted laws based on her loathing of homosexuals… unless, of course they shared her right wing values and kept their gay lives to themselves.

Not one of those gay men would challenge Thatcher.  Like Ken Mehlman in the USA (who stood by the Bushes deferring to their homophobia) they ignored the plight of the many to line their own pockets.  

It is the first of the tenets of fascism: OBEDIENCE.  As Andy Tobias wrote in his best selling book The Best Little Boy in The World a self loathing gay man will do whatever it takes to go unnoticed by excelling where ever he can.

Rights, it turned out, were reserved for the few not for the people.  Realizing these men were scoundrels I drank their champagne, laughed at their views and kept my pants on.  Recognizing a dog in the manger I was quickly sent to join my own kind drinking beer and playing tug of war behind The Royal Vauxhall Tavern.   As it turned out, these men did not forget my appearance at their party and caused, wherever they could, as much trouble for me as they were able.

Right wing gays in the UK have nothing on the right wing gays in the USA.

Purity.  Military.  Obedience .

I have always been a thorn in the side of the establishment.  Last year, if I needed any further proof, messing with the right wing velvet mafia proved very dangerous.  Critical of their business practices and on the precipice of revealing fraud and sexual unmanageability they had me arrested and switches flipped deep in government that held me illegally in LA County Jail.

I was told by one powerful man within the Democratic Party the media mogul ex boyfriend of the man I accused of defrauding me had seriously considered ‘putting a bullet in my head’.

The white male gays, emboldened by the repeal of DOMA and DADT are not interested in creating an inclusive LGBTQ community.  They would prefer that bisexuals did not exist, that the trans put on men’s clothes/owned their penis, that the lesbians do their dirty work and the queers sent to prison.

Their Utopia, under their rainbow flag, does not include us.  It is a terrible sham, and sooner or later we will wake up to what is happening under the pride banner.  Acts of rebellion may become forcefully suppressed… like the flash mobbing of San Francisco Pride in support of Chelsea Manning.

The relationship between the gays, the establishment and the corporations is ideal for all involved.  Every gay man infected with HIV will, during his lifetime, generate a million dollars plus in added revenue to big pharma. The gays (white males) are avid consumers and have been embraced as ideal capitalists.  They are good at being good, they seldom break the law. They are clear about their message.  They have, in terms of human rights, leapt over those of the blacks and women.

Nothing will stop them.  Except maybe… their hubris.

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Queer

The Problem With Pride

FDF 3

President Obama has third graders announce LGBTQ pride month at the White House.  Whose idea was that?  Even POTUS looked a little incredulous.  Obviously I don’t have any problem with 3rd graders manning the barricades but… perhaps we can have kittens next time… or puppies… or fluffy yellow chicks… or a new born foal?

The gays are in Pride party overdrive.  Circuit parties, sex parties, pride events, bear parties, underwear parties, mourning parties, party parties.

When Joe and I lived in The Pines on Fire Island we went, over the years, to various high-octane, drug fueled, over lubricated, semi-naked circuit parties.  Yet, however many drugs I took, however great my body was… I still felt alienated.  I still experienced a strange, out-of-body disconnect from those men around me.  You see, I remember thinking quite clearly that they… GOT IT… and I didn’t.  I thought back then… they understand something more about homosexuality than I did… than I do.

Don’t get me wrong… I wasn’t looking down my nose at them.  I wasn’t feeling superior.  I would love to have connected with those men.  Like I used to feel connected (high on E) in my mid twenties exploring London (straight) club land.  The same heaving mass that miraculously included me.  Joyfully, willingly abandoning self, self consciousness terminal uniqueness and dancing as one with a thousand others.

That is what I felt then.  This is what I feel now:  To have ones life defined by gay circuit parties is simply revolting.

Some people prepare for weeks for Pride, in the gym, tanning, organizing parties, getting the right tickets for the right events.  Making sure the drink and the drugs are pre-ordered.  Leaving nothing to chance.  The last ‘pride’ parade I attended I saw a drunken man defecating in the street. It was not the enduring image of LGBTQ solidarity after which I was hankering.

There is a hideous disconnect between the civil rights we demand and the public face of ‘pride’.  A parade of semi naked gyrating narcissists.  How can anyone take that seriously?  Pride simply reinforces the difference between me and them:  I do not drink or take drugs.  I am not driven (compelled) by my homosexuality.

The parade terrifies me.  Aesthetically.  The corporate floats lack ingenuity and wit.  The rent boy/sex worker float lacks class.  The thongs, the swagger, revealing the lie of Pride.  The near identical bodies in various hues.  Searching, begging for tiny differences between each naked, muscular physique that may determine the uniqueness, the individuality of just one of these men.  Of course, I am excited to see so many out men.  But they are all the same.  I look at them and, as much as I want to be, I am not attracted to them.  I am not attracted to their essence… to their remarkable lack of ego.

The Pride parade is a celebration of sexuality.  First and foremost.  And I, absurdly, want to fall in love.  You see, I proved it.  They wanted sex… and I didn’t.   I wanted to fall in love… and they didn’t.

“I want to tell you how much I love you.”  I whispered.

When I have sex.  I tell them to say… I love you.  It turns me on.  “Even if you don’t mean it.”  I was useless then and I am useless now to those gay men at those gay circuit parties because I didn’t want to have sex.  I wanted to fall in love.  I didn’t/couldn’t/wouldn’t and they knew it.  They could see by the look in my eye that their sexuality terrified me, baffled me.  I wanted to fall in love.

That man I loved.  After he came out… he told me about the sex he was having with many, many men.  He was really good at meeting strange men and having sex with them.  His priorities shifted.  When we were together and he was in the closet he told me he loved me, he was emotional… the moment he came out he threw his emotional interest in men away.  In favour of sex.  I wanted to fall in love.

It was my fault.  I had this sex genius at my disposal and couldn’t work out how to use what he was brilliant at.  When we made love I felt the same disconnect.  Out of body.  Away.

Pride is a tough word to have appended to any celebration because it means so many different things to so many different people.  That’s why I love the LGBTQ Mardi Gras in Sydney, it doesn’t have PRIDE  in the title.  Mardi Gras is everything you want it to be because Mardi Gras mean nothing to me.  Means everything to me.

Mardi Gras implies celebration.  It doesn’t pretend to be anything it isn’t.  Even though it eschews the word Pride, on the several occasions I attended… I felt really proud.  Proud to be just like them.  Just like you.  I looked for the similarities and not the differences at:  The silly Mardi Gras community events, the Mardi Gras parade, the film festival, the theatre festival, the LGBTQ city art tours… even the leather cruise… something I would never usually do seemed fun and interesting.

It was a gathering of the LGBTQ clan and made no mistake by calling itself something it isn’t.  The parade and the party.  Mardi Gras was so different from London Pride.  London Pride in the 1980’s, was a sombre affair.  Men and women.  Simply being seen.  It was originally held during the miserable months of the British year.  Overcast skies.  Rain.

London Pride has evolved from a bunch of angry gays and lesbians marching through Westminster (Margaret Thatcher’s back yard) denouncing the infamously homophobic Section 28 to right now and a profoundly different landscape for the LGBTQ community.  We have enthusiastically embraced the Blair (credit where credit’s due) government’s equality overhaul and the introduction of legal parity for all citizens of the UK regardless of gender.

London Pride is a deserved celebration… but it was earned.  It’s not my cup of tea.  But it was earned.  If it isn’t your cup of tea… what is?  What does this old queer want?

Well.

Somewhere between the seriousness of a civil rights march and the celebration of Mardi Gras there is a parade I want to attend.   There’s a parade I want to join where all men and women are respected and nurtured regardless of age, sexuality and religion.  Let me know if you find that Parade because I’ll be there… to hold your hand.

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Gay Queer Rant Whitstable

Winning The War Against Homophobia/Racism/Sexism

Garden 3

Ha.  Don’t hold your breath.

Will you tell your grandchildren that you remember a time when people hated on black people because they were black and your grandchildren raise their eyebrows in disbelief?

Will you tell your grandchildren that you remember a time when nearly all top jobs in industry and government were taken by white men and your grandchildren raise their eyebrows in disbelief?

Will you tell your grandchildren that you remember a time when a gay man was shot in the face in the middle of the most liberal city in the western world for being a faggot and your grandchildren raise their eyebrows in disbelief?

A thousand years from now?  Maybe that’s the kind of incremental change brown people, women and queer people expect?

When will you fight for more?  Why do you put up with the status quo?

Fight for marriage and all things are equal?  No.  Fight for white men to stop taking everything, determining the agenda and we might get somewhere.

A French octogenarian shoots himself in the face because he hates gay marriage.  If he were American he would have massacred first then killed himself.  I think that this scenario seems plausible.

I wouldn’t like to hang around in gay bars right now.  Not with all these emboldened haters amongst us.

Thank God I don’t drink.

I am wearing my pink shoes.  People understand what I am when they look at my feet.

I’m trying to jettison ‘straight acting‘, I’m trying to abandon my invisibility but I know what that means.  It means hostility from gay men and straight men.

I like it when they describe drag queens as fierce.  That’s what I have spent life being:  FIERCE.  Of course, this has been perceived as angry or anti social or…  can I explain something?

Anger is an emotion related to one’s psychological interpretation of having been offended, wronged, or denied and a tendency to react through retaliation.

Anger management?  The management of justified anger.

Listen to this.  I have been reasonably angry for a long time.

I was a kid and I knew I wanted to fall in love with and have sex with men (and women) but the man part of my desire was outlawed, derided.

I fell in love at school.  I fell in love and explored men’s bodies.

I remember when I was 14 I was walking along the beach in Whitstable.  I met a man.  I lay on the sea wall with him.  Furtive.  Illegal.  I never saw him again.  I wonder about him.

They hated us for something we could not change.  I ignored them.  I parried the blows.

I lived in a dream world because living in that reality was simply too painful.

Margaret Thatcher didn’t want me and men and women like me… she didn’t want us to exist.

I’ll tell you what makes me angry:  Brown people not getting a fair trial.  A third of all black men in the USA are in jail.  Women in the military being raped and sexually abused.   Drag queens damning trans people.  I am angry that some people are denied bail.  I am angry that my lover left me when I found my tumor.   I am angry with myself for falling in love with men who could never love me back.  I am angry that the breast cancer gene is privately owned, that innocent brown people are still being held in captivity in Guantanamo Bay.  I am angry that gay men think that marriage is the answer.  I am angry that I grew up with an angry step father.  I am angry that Monsanto kill bees.  I am angry that my neighbors park in front of my gate so I can’t get in and out of my house.  I am angry that two young girls are criminalized for falling in love.  I am angry that most agents (realtors and talent) are sociopath.  I am angry with gay men and straight men for over simplifying sexuality.

How do you live with that?

I set it aside.  The anger.  I find peace wherever I can.  I pull weeds.  I walk the dogs.  I feed the fish.

I forgive them for their sexism, their murder, their bullying, their insistence that they WIN.  At all costs.  Like the bees.  Winning the market means… killing the bees.

When I buy something at auction the others applaud.  They congratulate me.  They tell me that I have won.  I didn’t win.  I just paid the highest price.  It’s not hard to do.

So.  Today I am wearing my pink shoes.  There you go.  ‘Nice shoes,’ they scoff.

Oh, I’m wearing them because I’m queer and I really want you to know.  Because I exist somewhere between Liberace and Jason Collins but I’m still trying to work it out.  Working out what kind of man I am.

I don’t think I’m alone.

Men make their own history but they do not make it as they choose.

Karl Marx