New York Times reporter Marcus Mabry sat down with RuPaul this week to chat about the success of RuPaul’s Drag Race, what makes a gay icon, and the future progress of LGBT rights.
Though Mabry claimed the gay rights movement is gaining momentum, Ru had a different take on the subject: That gay rights are like a swinging pendulum, and despite our progress, the pendulum will ultimately swing backward. Ru thinks the next step in the gay rights movement will be “gay people extracting the shame out of the experience.”
“There’s still so much shame attached to men and femininity, and being gay,” he continued. “Even within the gay community, there’s still so much of it.”
More surprisingly, Ru tells Mabry that he’s shared the last 19 years of his life with a special someone, and may be planning on tying the knot real soon! And with that, we offer our finest words of advice: Good luck, Mother Ru, and don’t fuck it up!
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Dionte
Swing backward? Nope.
Orean
@Dionte: He’s very likely right. Our quick momentum in the last few months is brewing a seething storm of hatred that will have to explode somewhere. The next election will be a nightmare for us, and once the government swings, so will the laws to the extent possible. Don’t fool yourself.
andy_d
Regardless of how the pendulum may swing, we must be ever vigilant to ensure our rights.
As to RuPaul possibly getting married, whether it happens or not, this most talented and supportive person has my congratulations on a long and happy relationship. May it continue to be so.
Dionte
@Orean: I can’t go back, I won’t. Either humans get it together or I want nothing else to do with them.
Charles175
@Orean: I agree. Once a tipping point is reached, religious folks that hate us will most likely make good on their threat of civil war over this issue. As their old phrase goes, “Onward Christian Soldiers”. My own brother is a fundamentalist and when I recently rejected his fundamentalism and the misery that comes with it, he sought to destroy me. In this these and those like them believe the ends always justify the means and to destroy the enemies of God is doing His will.
jwrappaport
@Orean: I don’t really think there’s justification for his claim.
Lefty
When the sh1t hits the fan it’s minorities and outsiders who become targets.
We’ll always be a minority and we’ll always be “different”, so we’ll always be vulnerable.
It’s a Western conceit that we’re in control and our societies and their mores are set in stone. We’re all subject to all sorts of factors beyond our control.
We’re already seeing considerable upheaval around the world with the relative collapse of the economy and the concomitant rise of the right in some countries.
Religion will never go away, because it’s man-made and therefore served a need which itself still exists.
Like everything else, it changes too; but it’s far from going away for good.
So all of this suggests we should never take for granted the advances we’re experiencing in society. History shows we were largely accepted in certain societies in the past but became pariahs again.
Having said all that, wasn’t Ru Paul talking specifically about openings in *culture* closing again?
gauty
I think Ru is also a very spiritual person and he can feel the way the times are headed, not only from a logical standpoint but also in a “finger in the wind” kind of way. And yes, we have made such amazing progress, but I’m still afraid that there are very bad things on the horizon. Personally I don’t see it as a pendulum swinging back this time, because that backwards movement started in the eighties after the civil rights movements and feminism, and led to the exponentially decadent and hypersexualized era of the naughts. I think we are now actually finally beginning a new upswing towards a more enlightened couple of decades and it will snowball BUT at the same time the reactionary movement will be violent and the more we advance towards a type 1 civilization the more resistance we are going to get from the people that feel left behind, the bigoted, ignorant, hateful portion of the human race that fears change and otherness. And honestly, a big part of our salvation will be those generations dying out. In twenty or thirty years I’m sure the world will look very different socially from what it has been in the last couple of thousand years, and hopefully we will have outlived the horrible assholes that caused so much justice and inequality.
tdx3fan
@Orean: I gained a lot of respect for Ru from this interview. However, I completely and utterly disagree with him on this. The pendulum has never swung once. This has been an ongoing advancement that has taken decades of small steps. We have never seen a true backlash. The thing is, our rights have been gradually given to us as more and more of us have come out and became more willing to take them.
Will it always be as open as it is now? Possibly not and possibly so. No one really knows, but will we ever get to go back to true discrimination? NO! That will never happen. To believe it will is to believe that your time at the party better matter because midnight will strike. It is living in a culture of fear, which ironically is part of what Ru says needs to be done away with.
tdx3fan
@Orean: Also, this is NOT quick momentum. This is part of a journey that happened in the 1950s and has continued onward. There has been no part of it that has happened quickly. Barring a national tragedy that causes people to run back to the churches, there is not a real chance in hell that we will ever go back to being as closed off as we were during the days following 9/11. The religious fanatical leaders are dying off, and their religious fanaticism is dying off with them.
tdx3fan
@Charles175: In response to their “civil war” bullshit, I say… “BRING IT ON!” Seriously, if any religious dumb ass is so out of touch that they think they have the same chance that the South had 200 years ago to stand up to the national government then they are clearly so out of touch that thinking is not part of their strong suit. Bring your M-16 or what have you out of retirement when you have military training and see how it stands up against the weaponry and trained officials possessed by the United States government, and the preservation of this union will continue despite what these zealots think.
tdx3fan
@jwrappaport: Anyone that can even attempt to justify this claim has not paid attention to history for the last 60+ years. To even make the claim that progress has happened quickly is insane. It has not happened quickly. Hell, it has been a very slow crawl. It has been 40+ years since our lifestyle has been taken off the list of mental disorders and now 50 million people (11 states one district) actually recognize our rights to marry each other. That least 250 million people and 39 states that do not. That is hardly even progress to begin with.
tdx3fan
@Lefty: Really bro, REALLY!?! Please tell me which European nation has collapsed and which has seen an upsurge of conservatism. There are none. I really do not give a damn what happens outside of the European nations, and most Americans are in agreement with me. Also, the world economy has been in MUCH worse predicaments and to make the claim that it is on the verge of collapse because a few million unskilled laborers are unable to pay their bills is LAUGHABLE. Those that actually bothered to make reasonable decisions are still doing fine.
ScaryRussianHeather
tdx3fan RIGHT. “This has been an ongoing advancement that has taken decades of small steps. We have never seen a true backlash. The thing is, our rights have been gradually given to us as more and more of us have come out and became more willing to take them.”
I didn’t read this one but I read his SPin interview last month. Anyway, Ru has been inconsistent on this. In his Spin article, he clearly states that the pendulum started swinging away in the late 90’s, but in his opening statement he states it all happened right after 911 out of some misplaced fear. He has Clinton to thank for that late 90s pendulum it’s not some weird happening nobody can explain. It doesn’t even make sense to conflate 911 terrorist actions to anti-LGBT outcomes. If anything, IMO it would be the opposite.
It’s exactly as you said, as more people live openly and change HEARTS more hetero people will evolve. Worst case, there’s the Supremes or this senior generational attrition.
Lefty
@tdx3fan: So your point is “fuck all the millions who are unable to feed themselves around the world because (presumably) you and a few others are doing just fine”?
Good for you, dear.
I’m not sure you speak for “most Americans” as you seem to feel you do, but who knows…
alterego1980
I don’t think it’s a pendulum but i get the idea. It’s that the gay rights movement has been on a bit of a fast track lately and that could, probably will, slow down soon, especially once all the core democratic states have marriage equality. I also see a potential war on our rights if a republican makes it to the Presidency in 2016. Some of the religious right will take that as cart blanche to treat gays as they plaese. I’m enjoying the ride now, but if I must, I will get the gloves back on…