This week, we condemned the riotous actions of a radical queer group in Washington DC and covered the post-pride destruction by another group in Seattle.
But while we disagreed with their methods—the property damage undoubtedly upstaged their words—we don’t entirely feel like we gave them a fair shake. Truth is, we actually agreed with some of what they had to say and we bet some of our readers did too.
A fair number of the LGBT community think that the HRC does too little with its millions. An equal number may think “It Gets Better” has done all it can.
Some of us aren’t “interested in enlisting in the military to kill, be killed, or both, for US imperialism.” A bunch of us agree that the American prison and medical systems help kill queers especially those of color. Many of us don’t want the face of “queer history erased to promote whitewashed, upper-class causes.”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Our community even has people willing to use confrontation and disobedience to wake up the government, corporations, and LGBT community itself—but not all of us agree that spray-painting American Apparel stores and paint bombing an HRC outlet are the most effective means.
So members of the Puget Sound Anarchists’ Queers Fucking Queers and DC’s Right Honorable Wicked Stepmothers’ Traveling, Drinking and Debating Society and Men’s Auxiliary, please hear this. We wanna talk.
If you’re interested please drop us a line at [email protected]. Our communications can stay anonymous or off-the-record, we just wanna open a line of dialogue to discuss ideas that too often get shot down in “polite” company.
And in case you’re worried we’re too mainstream or nicey-nice to take risks, know this: several of our articles have pissed of our own readership and been used by our anti-queer enemies.
We are not afraid of engagement.
Jeffree
Wonderful idea! I hope they’ll take you up on the invite.
Matt Smith
What a crock of shit. In it’s effort to fight the evil forces of American imperialism Gay Cities is sponsored by AT&T, Virgin Airlines, Kempton Hotels, Progressive Insurance, American Airlines and ads for gay marriages in Maui. Yeah right – fight the power. I am sorry that the mainstreaming of gay culture has mad you feel less edgy but get over it. It’s over. Go fight your imaginary war against capitalism with out the bucks your sponsors pay you. Have a nice day. God, your attitude is almost enough to make me like HRC.
Josh
Good grief Queerty – get over yourselves. Are we supposed to applaud you for engaging a gay rights group in dialogue? The only reason you are interested in these groups is because they are on the margins. If/when these groups gain any traction you will just criticize them with the same holier-than-thou attitude you use to criticize the HRC, GLAAD, Dan Savage, It gets Better, Code Pink, Glitter bombs, RuPaul and anybody else with a pro-gay message. We get it – you are anti-establishemnt. Why don’t you go write another 10 articles about and bore your readers to death.
jay_max
Puget Sound Anarchists are not a gay rights group. Just because they call themselves queer doesn’t mean they are. One of the injustices PSA was railing against was the beer garden discrimination against young queers. Oh please. So that gives you the right to run around, smash police cars, break business windows, and spray paint homes.
missanthrope
As someone who is a queer with radical politics, I find this engagement refreshing.*
*Though I am not a member of the above named groups.
jean
Puget Sound Anarchists isn’t a group. PSA is a forum for people to post announcements, communiques, call to actions, etc. pertaining to radical politics in the Puget Sound Area. No group sponsored or promoted Queers Fucking Queers in Seattle. QFQ is the name of an annual mobile dance party that happens on Pride weekend.
Matthew
Good on your Queerty. Perhaps you should invite lgbt people with more radical politics to do feature columns. Have any of you read Sherry Wolf’s “Sexuality and Socialism”. It’s certainly not a comprehensive volume, but it’s worth reading and discussing. At a time of recession, growing anti-union, anti-woman, anti-queer politics, and the economic policies of austerity we should all be thinking about direct, collective action.
Eminent Victorian
The QFQ probably came up from Portland anyway.
question
will queerty become a terrorist website?
Concerned about Question
question: Could concern trolls get anymore obvious?
Marc
This vandalism is stupid and only adds fire to anti gay cause. Grow up. Great strides are being made in a very short time. I am 50 and can’t believe the things I am winessing. If you want to vent, the next time you here or see anti gay shit, do something about it. Let Queerty show a story of a Queer kicking some douchebags ass.
Danielle
I did. Heck, I can do my best to get in touch with them… since I live in Seattle, and all.
Kent
Hey radical queers – get a life a quit wasting your time with this childish bullshit!
AFruit4Thought
I would love to see what these queers have to say (and I use queers in the most non-pejorative form possible). I don’t quite understand the reason for vandalizing the HRC. Since we’re working towards the same cause, it’d be really interesting to see a dialogue at Queerty. We need mainstream AND radical groups to make queerphobia a thing of the past.
jeff4justice
Get that publicity. Anyone wanna ask mainstream Frontiers LLC why they’re promoting bareback sex in tier Frontiers For Men web site and magazine?
Kev C
I’d be interested to know what their general economic status is. Are these street survivalists or are they trustafarians? Seattle is said to have a lot of homeless and runaway youth. But if they’re better off than a lot of LGBTs, I’m not sympathetic.
Haightmale
I’m glad that you are doing this. I thought the earlier post directed at the pink painters was sanctimonious bullshit. Considering there are gay pride celebrations all over the country, with parades, concerts, and other events and White House fetes, to celebrate 3 days of riots, vandalism, and destruction, in New York’s West Village at the Stonewall Inn, to brand others as criminal is disingenuous. I have to plug my own blog – as I have been writing about HRC, GLAAD and the like. HRC and GLAAD are mismanaged and painfully out of touch
GAY ACTIVISTS BAPTIZE HRC http://bit.ly/jHdlSE
Cam
“A fair number of the LGBT community think that the HRC does too little with its millions”
———————–
Too Little??? No, the problem was, they came out AGAINST the cases that won us marriage in multiple states, they came out AGAINST the lawsuit that so far has struct down Prop 8 in CA. They origionally not only came out AGAINST fighting for DADT and DOMA repeal at this point, but attempted to tell the community to sit down, shut up and not bother OBama or Congress until he was basically out of office.
It isn’t that they are doing too little, it’s that they were taking our money and in some cases actively working against actions that ended up gaining us our rights.
Pitou
@AFruit4Thought: Please see Cam’s post above for insight as to why HRC is completely useless to the LGBT community and our fight for equal rights.
Enough said. Save your money. HRC will waste it.
Pette
Queerty should go back out of existence like it did recently. Those were its best days…
Pete
PS-Bitching on a blog is not gay activism, neither is vandalism.
oh_hell_no
@Eminent Victorian: definitely not. Q4Q is a Seattle thing.
Raza
I think this is ridiculous. Should we discuss strategies that make HRC’s dollars more useful? Yes! But bombing them?
And calling the It Gets Better project useless and overrated? I’m sorry, but as 21 yr old who just came out, and lives in the fundie Bible-beating South- the videos for the most part can be really encouraging. I agree with the commentor above, we’re all really sorry if these groups ( or some Queerty editors for that matter-no offense!) have lost their edgy, hip feeling, and so you have to start trouble by making it harder for our community (which can barely be called a cohesive anything) to work together and our straight neighbors, friends, AND enemy to accept us as a whole. You may not live in a liberal, laid-back, accepting paradise. You may. But I humbly suggest you visit the other parts of the country where you dare not be seen holding hands. Where you feel in danger of losing your job- and they CAN fire you for being gay. just a thought.
Wendy
@Queerty – Stop inciting infighting within the gay community. It’s counterproductive. I feel that you have crossed a threshold in recent weeks and are now doing more harm than good to the gay community. Please stop the sensationalism and start acting responsibly.
Cam
@Wendy:
Wendy, when gay groups come out against gay rights lawsuits because they don’t want to upset their friends in office, then infighting is EXACTLY what needs to happen.
xerxes
For profit Queerty is against all these gay non-profits they call Gay Inc?
Eminent Victorian
@oh_hell_no: I was kidding! Maybe if they’d put a bird on everything . . .
Toasty
It’s official. Queertyhas been deleted from my bookmarks list. There are better gay blogs out there.
Steve
Another self-aggrandizing piece of ridiculousness by this Villarreal person. You’re not interesting and you’re not edgy. You’re just vain.
Ganondorf
This is a knee-slapper. If it weren’t for the earnestness and lack of self awareness, I’d confused this for the onion. This author in particular was ready to slam the cell door shut, going so far as to suggest that those responsible for the ihop purple paint debacle be charged with hate crimes. I suppose the not so thinly veiled desire that they be charged with hate crimes just applied to the vandalism, because laws that don’t enhance sentences don’t cover that… So it’s not about entrapment–reporting people to the government or law enforcement agencies. What it is (this confused non-message), though, is so absurd it can only be interpreted comically or as a put-on. As confused and funny as anarchism with the word ‘queer’ preceding it.