Following the police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, Minnesota erupted in chaos as the anger of inherently discriminatory policing policies came to a boiling point. Soon after, the nation itself ignited with protest as demands for justice overtook the American psyche and white America woke up to a reality black Americans had lived in for far too long.
For the queer community, however, it is important we not forget the role of black organizing in the beginning of queer liberation. Stonewall, a New York City riot that marked the beginning of pride, was started by trans women of color. Marsha P. Johnson, a trans black women, threw the first brick in what has now become a continuing fight for queer liberation. Yet, historically, these very same people have been left out of a community formed by their bravery. Shortly after Stonewall, for example, many white gays excluded trans people from their social circles and created unwelcoming and overtly antiblack environments. Already the “other” in society, white gays took advantage of what little power they had to further marginalize the most vulnerable among them.
Left alone and forsaken, many queer people of color formed their own community in what has come to be known as “Ball culture.” In it, anyone could be anything, and performance was used as a weapon for queer liberation. Voguing, a dance form based off of runway poses, was formed. But now, ball culture and its remnants can be seen everywhere. From billboards to music videos and runways, the undercurrent of many forms of contemporary artistic expression contains elements of ball culture.
Now, white gays continue past traditions of exclusion by stealing the culture of queer people of color without giving credit. Screaming phrases like “yass queen”, “tea”, and “c*nt” while gentrifying black neighborhoods, maintaining standards of whiteness as beauty, and refusing to sleep with people of color. Does this define all white gays? No. Does this also make up a large percentage? Yes. Enough of a percentage, in fact, to make mainstream gay culture an inherently antiblack space; as study after study has proven being queer and a person of color only compounds stress.
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So to all the white gays who love stealing black culture without loving black people: now is your chance. It is pride month, and we cannot be liberated until we are all liberated. That starts with the most marginalized among us. That starts with trans black women and femmes. That starts with black queer people. That starts with fixing the racism within our own community so we can begin to fight the racism that exists outside of it. Lest we not forget it was only a little bit ago our white skin did not serve as a shield against police for our queer identity. Lest we not forget white gay men were also jailed in the raids of gay bars, and gay white men were also killed for their gayness.
When it happened to us, we screamed gay power from the rooftops and put queer bodies on the line to fight for queer bodies in the future. Now, when it is black bodies, and you are fighting for black bodies in the future, why is it so hard for you to go outside and scream black power? Now that your white body serves as a shield from your queer identity in the violence of the system, why do you go silent? Why do you hide?
We stole from black queer people, the least we can do is fight for them. Anyone who says otherwise ought not have a seat at the table of the queer community and they ought not identify with it either. For moving forward, white queers, it is our job to tear down the systems of anti blackness that we created. To do anything less would be complicity in the death of black America.
Jacob is a current high schooler at Viera High School who is working to ban conversion therapy in his county. You can keep up with his work on instagram @jacobgelman.
Polaro
No we don’t. Black people have been and are some of the worst homophobes ever with their phony religion. Can’t wait to look down on someone else. We don’t talk about their hatred. Most of the black trans women are killed by black men. Still, I choose to support BLM. Not because some liberal dick tells me I have a responsibility to do so. I don’t owe them anything and this kind of preaching pisses people off. I do it because it’s right to do.
candylaine
grow up. what kind of world do you want to live in? one where everyone gets to enjoy the rights promised in the constitution or one that is lawless, corrupt, violent, and racist? wake up and join the 21st century.
AnthonyK
@candylaine
He said that he supports BLM and their ideas. what exactly can’t you understand? On the other hand It’s phony to tell that LGBTQ people owe anything to heterosexual black people. It’s enough to remember what happened in CA during Prop8. Which group of people was much more homophobic than all others?
2ndcoming
To be honest the Gay White Community need BLM more than BLM need the gay white community. With 4 more years of Trump they Gays might be spending the night in the Gas Cambers.
LumpyPillows
I couldn’t agree more. BLM is the right thing, but dictating to people is one way to undermine the effort.
LumpyPillows
@candylaine there is one person who needs to be a grown up and implement critical thinking, it is you.
phoenix69
Yes finally a smart person. I will never support black ppl. Black ppl hate gays. Full stop. The only sissy queen’s that think otherwise. Are loose bttms who love BBC. Trump forever. Thanks to BLM trump is a shoo in lol. Whites are at the end.
Chrisk
First off this is article is racist in itself. I didn’t steal a damn thing from black culture. I don’t use ghetto language like yass queen and I’m not racist racist for refusing to sleep with someone. If you’ve internalized beauty with being white well,,, that’s on you.
The black community is by and large still pretty damn homophobic and racist themselves. The only thing I’ve seen them support is things like Prop 8.
Like Polaro said I still totally support BLM and what they’re fighting for. It’s a great cause and I’ve been to at least two protests now. However, I don’t owe them or anyone else anything.
Kangol2
More WHITE people supported Prop 8 than any other group, so stop promoting this lie and slander! Had all the Black voters in California NOT voted at all during the Prop 8 referendum, it still would have passed! It was WHITE CHURCHES (the Mormon Church, the Roman Catholic Church, the White evangelicals!) who pushed Prop 8 and who keep pushing anti-LGBTQ legislation. You know this, so why won’t you admit it! It is a White president in office now, like the last White president, who actively pushed anti-gay policies and anti-gay legislation.
On top of which, it was a Black president, not any of the White ones, elected by overwhelming Black majorities (a majority of White voters did not vote for Obama in 2008 or 2012), who ushered in the most far-reaching gay and trans rights decisions and policies in US history. To keep slandering the “black community” (45-50+ million people) like you do, which also completely erases Black LGBTQ people, is disgusting and reprehensible. Please, cut the crap out!
LumpyPillows
@Kangol2 Without enough white support Obama would not have been president twice. Obama, who I hold in ultimate esteem, like his predecessor Clinton, supported LGBT rights to a point, but was too timid to stand up fully for us until Joe Biden forced his hand. We owe Joe for gay marriage, not that I will ever turn my back on Obama.
frapachino
Typical Marxists trying to demand others follow their group think! So no this white queer won’t support an organization that demands abolishing the police! I see lots of ground dust coming from the pear clutches here!
Cam
Translation: The right wing troll account that always supports anti-LGBT bigots also supports rac-ism.
It’s not as if you’re surprising anybody Bubu
Cam
Does Queerty have fact checkers?
The author said “Marsha P. Johnson, a trans black women, threw the first brick in what has now become a continuing fight for queer liberation”.
Actually Johnson in an interview said she didn’t get there until later and the majority of witnesses said that Storme Levantre a black lesbian was the one who encouraged the crowd to fight back. How dare you write an article telling LGBT people to do something and yet you don’t even know our history.
As for the tone of your article, here’s a thought. How about writing from the point of view that the Black Lives Matter movement should be supported because nobody should be treated like cops treat black people, black people have waited too damn long to be treated equally, and it’s the right thing to do. Rather than trying to invent a claim from LGBT history and make it transactional saying “Well, this one back person did this, so the community now needs to do that”.
I worry about Queer history being lost when articles like this go up making mistatements about our own history, and then using them to push a movement rather than just writing an article about why the movement is good and of course it should be supported by all of us.
If the author needs to be bribed to do the right thing, then maybe they should explore that bout themselves.
Wolfie
I tried to fact check it for them and provided links for the fact that Johnson herself states that she was not there. But my comment has been “awaiting moderation” for 5 hours now.
UlfRaynor
You are so right Cam, not to mention that Johnson repeatedly stated he wasn’t trans that he was a gay man who liked dressing up in drag and was in fact a drag performer, what is it with this site and it’s lack of knowledge and revisionist history about the gay community, trans people did NOT start the gay rights movement, were there trans people who participated after Stonewall? Yes, but they didn’t start it.
Constantly trying to diminish the roll those gay men and women who were brave enough to make a stand for themselves and the entire LGBT community borders on homophobic!
LumpyPillows
Its the new nutty left pushing their agenda about trans people. Marsha was an interesting character, but she wasn’t an effective leader and did very little of what was attributed to her. Still, she was a ground breaker none the less. Now I fully support trans rights, but I really can’t stomach their anti white gay male nonsense or their laying claim to being far more important than they really were.
DarkZephyr
I’m with you here, Cam. I don’t go along with those who try to diminish the fact that trans women were involved, but I also hate how the role of the gay hustlers who had a massive role gets pushed away more and more in favor of “it was all about trans women and nobody else”. Even to the point that revisionist believers defaced the statues of the gay hustlers that stand outside of Stonewall. If you look at the photos of the riots, you see rather a majority gay male faces of various races (including white), but we’re supposed to pretend this isn’t the actual case.
jennifer.white530
Think about this movement for what it is and what it lacks. Black Lives Matter is focused on white cops killing unarmed black people. 94% of African Americans killed in the USA are at the hands of other black people. Why are these lives not important? Why are they not marching for the end of black on black crime in America? If you were to go back to the 1980’s would you focus on stopping the spread of HIV or stopping cops killing gay people? Which one would have the largest impact on saving lives? In 2019 there were 370 white people killed by police compared to 235 black people. So far in 2020 there have been 172 white peopled shot and killed by police compared to 88 black people. These numbers include both armed and unarmed people. We have some bad cops but 95% of them are good people.
okiloki
Nice deflection. People who bring up Black on Black violence don’t care about solving it or helping those communities. They use it as a Dog whistle to paint Blacks as inherently violent and deserving of being mistreated/killed and to shut down discussion on the demands of those communities. If they are complaining about police mistreatment (with video evidence) then there IS a problem. Police should treat everyone the same and communities need to be able to trust their police and also hold them accountable.
LumpyPillows
BLM addresses very specific problems with cops out of control. The response to the protests by the cops has made this all the clearer to me, it is obscene. To your point, the issues with black people in the US is a much more complicated story with many other problems and concerns, some of which, if we are honest, point back at the behavior of some black people. However, this in no way reduces the issue raised by BLM. We need a real, comprehensive response to the issues of racism, poverty, hunger, and education to truly fix the problem. We sure won’t get it if we try and dumb everything down, which the left is trying to do with everything by making nonsensical statements like De-fund Police. But it is a heck better than what the right wants.
Cam
Oh look, a troll account trying to deflect from the topic.
The fact that the entire group of cops in Buffalo resigned from the task force in support of the cops who assaulted a 75 year old man and the fact that the police union in Henipen county MN was supporting the murderers of George Floyd pretty much kills that “95% of cops are good”.
But we get your real point, your real point here is to protect rac-ist cops who murder by insinuating none of it matters because “Black people are killing each other”. Well guess what, the majority of white people are killed by white people too. Because the majority of people killed are killed by someone they know.
But it’s cute you trolls keep trying.
radiooutmike
Well, there are 4x whites in this country as black people.
So, in 2019 that 370 white deaths from cops is very low compared to the black community. 4 x 235 = 940 expected white deaths.
Now in 2020, 88 black have been shot dead versus 172 whites? Oh, let’s normalize versus population. 4 x 88 = 352 expected white deaths. So that 172 is lower what it “should” be.
Jeepo1
This article is bad because it gets basic gay history wrong.
That said we should show solidarity because it’s the right thing to do. All this other stuff is just noise. Standing up against racism and supporting other humans to be treated the same way is just the right thing to do.
Seth
I see the #whitefragiliymatters crowd showed up here in the comments to devolve the conversation, per usual. You’re certainly, um, consistent.
Rock-N-RollHS
Oh, Qwaeen, pleeeze
FunInTheSack
The only fragile one here is the writer of this trash piece.
As other said. Supporting BLM is the right thing to do. But the attacks to submit are uncalled for.
Mark my words, blacks are far more homophobic than whites.
For the record, there’s closed off hook up groups to specifically ‘POC’. So what’s your theory with white people refusing to sleep with people of color?
F off with the ‘culture’ stealing. Who gives a shit about the phrase, “yassss qween”. Life has more meaning than that. Sadly the writer sounds like a broken record.
Cam
Please point out specifics.
People have pointed out that the author got LGBT history wrong, and said we should support a movement as a transaction instead of the real reason, because it’s the right thing to do.
But it’s cute you tried to play victim and deflect from that. Now again. You’re welcome to point out specifics.
Brian
So once again, “white people suck” and white guilt are queerty’s logic for why something should be done. Did you ever think that this is part of the reason why so many people are against the movement?
Like so many others have already said, we should do it because it’s the right thing to do. Browbeating and stereotyping us is only going to push people away, not convince them.
radiooutmike
If you are angry about people “browbeating” you, you might be part of the problem,
You are of course, entitled to your feelings and opinions, and while I think they may be valid they certainly aren’t helpful.
Complaining about how people in crisis are not being nice to you, by demanding– not politely asking for your support is immature. Perhaps black people (if they are homophobic/transphobic), might have an easier time of accepting all of us if:
1)They aren’t being murdered
2) They aren’t being given a fair share by all of our society’s institutions
Our fellow citizens are being killed and exploited in our name. Until, we realize that this could easily happen to us, we’re doomed to repeat this over and over.
Heywood Jablowme
I’ve read a lot of interesting and serious essays about BLM but unfortunately this isn’t one of them.
“yass queen”, “tea”, and “c*nt”
Personally I’ve never used the first two (except tea for the boring British and Asian beverage). But I was totally unaware that c*nt is a Black word! Chaucer would probably be surprised to hear that. Seriously, white queers shouldn’t use the word c*nt because that’s “stealing” from Black culture? Good to know!
“and refusing to sleep with people of color.”
This is a perennial dispute here on Queerty. If whites “refuse” to have sex with PoC we’re racist but if we like sex with PoC a lot we’re “fetishizing.” Can we nail this down? And even the way the issue is always framed implies a certain amount of… um… sluttiness. Suppose a typical white Grindr slut has sex with, say, 100 guys in a year. Ideally, how many of them should be PoC in order to avoid either racism or fetishizing? Ten? Twenty? Ten Blacks, ten Latincks and ten Asians? (Somebody would need to make an app for this to make the record-keeping easier.)
Kenny C
I am bewildered by some of the comments on this page. Namely, push back against queer people of color because of the black communities homophobic propensities. That’s the struggle for queer people of color. The black community, at large, doesn’t love and embrace us. Neither does the mainstream queer community. It feels like I’m too gay for the black community to love unconditionally and I’m too black for the queer community to love me unconditionally. It’s unfair but its made worse when people don’t even believe me when I describe my experience.
Heywood Jablowme
Part of the reaction here is to the author being white, and being quite a know-it-all about everything, while getting certain facts in gay history wrong. (Since he’s still in high school, I suppose we could have been a little less gruff.)
If you assume that all white queers feel loved “unconditionally” by the queer community, you don’t need to worry about that because it’s definitely NOT true! 🙂
DarkZephyr
I’m sorry that this is your experience Kenny. You do not deserve that. *hugs* I’m mostly white (I’m part Asian but I look 100% white) so I have never had to face racial discrimination as you have. But I have definitely not found an entirely welcoming community either. I think we have to find our tribes. Create our families because as much as I would love for the LGBT community to be perfect and filled with unconditional love and tolerance, it just isn’t. Queerty’s comment section as a small example of that. My God the bitchy queens around here.
Cam
I’m sorry you had to go through that. I think this goes to show that there is a lot of work that still needs to be done in multiple areas.
At many of the protests I’ve seen people with LGBT flags and it was wonderful to see the mutual support. Hopefully we’re going to get there sooner rather than later.
LumpyPillows
Every person who has commented has support BLM, so there is that silver lining I think you may have missed. Pretty much everyone has stories of rejection. We all deserve to be treated better.
Mister P
Civil rights are for everyone. If we want our rights we need to support the rights of others.
We absolutely need to be allies of the Black Lives Matters movement.
Cam
Nobody here is disputing that. The problem is, the article not only got basic LGBT history wrong, it then stated we should support Black Lives Matter because a black queer person did something in history.
So instead of making the correct (in my opinion) argument of “We should support BLM because they’re on the right side”, we got a hollier than thou article about somebody who couldn’t be bothered to learn LGBTQ history, and telling us our support for causes should be transactional.
I get that the author has gotten some positive attention in the LGBTQ press, and that is great, and has a very noble goal in pushing to end converstion therapy, but they shouldn’t let that make them think they can write a half a** un-researched posting and nobody is going to call them out on it’s problems.
LumpyPillows
I hope the young person who wrote this continues to be involved, but learns about balance. It is sorely missing in the youth of today. To be fair youth always miss balance in favor of zeal, I did too. Yes, there are some fierce black queens who have created a lot of cool gay vibes – love it. But they too stole, like their fashion from the white designers that preceded them. A lot of what they have come up with is built on the gay culture that was already there. Seriously queen was already in the vernacular – mispronouncing it isn’t really new, but it is funny. I don’t chose to think of any of this as stealing. Anyone who thinks they came up with something entirely new is probably a clueless moron who never opened a book or watched an old movie. Just saying.
ZackTaylor
This article is problematic but some of the comments are equally frustrating.
I’m Black. 32. Male. Gay. Those intersections have defined my life so far due to the nature of people like some of the users here claiming to understand an experience they have not lived or ideals they have chosen to share that have not been fact checked, let alone history they refuse to digest because of their “it wasn’t me” defense.
To those that wish to toss up numbers and baseless statistics to contort a narrow view of a narrative that makes you most comfortable, shame on you. George Floyd wasn’t killed by a bullet. Eric Garner was not killed by a bullet. Trayvon was not killed by a police officer, etc. Tossing out police shootings of black men vs white men to diminish the BLM movement is highly ignorant. I’ve been surrounded by police, cuffed, pushed up against my car, and searched because “I fit the description of a burglar” and when I asked for the reasons as to why I was being detained, I was told “because you don’t belong in the neighborhood.”
I DID NOT DIE.
But I was terrified. I cried for weeks. I was traumatized. Now for the rest of my life, I will be triggered by police.
THAT is what racism does to young people. It diminishes our confidence, self efficacy, and self worth. Not to mention the PTSD we experience from simply witnessing OR hearing stories of violence against black people. That’s our experience and if not ours, our parents, and their parents. We are FORCED to revisit our history everyday. Why don’t you revisit yours?
#Blacklivesmatter isn’t just about death from police. Actually, if people take a break from their busy lives and just go to their website and READ their mission statement you’ll discover it’s an org against black racism, including the black trans community, and patriarchal agendas. . .and so much more!
#DefundThePolice is meant to divert funds NOT to abolish Police. #AbolishPolice is not BLM, but a separate leaderless campaign by others.
So please people, READ, RESEARCH, and stop pretending you understand for a second, the Black experience if you are not black.
Of course white people don’t “suck” and calling this a guilt trip is highly immature. But your ancestors benefited from free labor on the backs of African Americans who STILL have not achieved equality in this country.
The black on black crime deflection is a disgrace. Read a book.
I welcome ALL allies. I see you.
Thank you.
LumpyPillows
I hear you, but you do realize only one person made those comments and no one agreed. Sometimes its better to take the win.
Heywood Jablowme
Thank you for your great comment, which explains it all very well. Please stick around!
Charlotte Hollis
To Hell and Back with that crazy idea ! When the BLM movement begins to settle and act like civilized human beings, then maybe the Queer community might take a stance in support of their struggles. The Queer community message does not endorse looting, the destruction of property, the assault of other human beings and the list goes on. I for one am embarrassed by their careless and wanton directives to gain attention. Maybe if they would clean-up their house, then middle America might be a little more supportive of their cause.
LumpyPillows
Sorry, but I don’t think you can dismiss the importance of the BLM message because some people, a wildly small minority of people, have acted badly. I hate the looting and burning. I wish it had not happened because there is no excuse for it – none. But the looting, burning and isolated violence is a different issue. Just like you can’t say all cops are racists and killers because some clearly are. It takes some introspection, but I think you can see the point.
Cam
You can always tell when a new right wing troll account comes on here. They try that old attempt of saying something like…
“Maybe if they would clean-up their house, then middle America might be a little more supportive of their cause.”
Sweetie, in case you missed the memo, millions of people protesting around the country, are representing the majority. Polls have the majority of Americans support the goals of the protesters. So here’s a thought, when racists in small out of the way towns finally start thinking like fully functional adults and end their racism, the rest of the country will welcome them back. Until then, they can go F themselves.
lord.krath
Wow. Many of these responses are spot on. It’s always seemed to me based on the experience of friends of mine, and testimonials of strangers, that the black community at large is fairly homophobic. The further into the Bible Belt the worse it is. Now, this isn’t a protest against the idea of opening dialog and making this a growth moment for both communities, but it is a comment on the reality. One minority group owes nothing to another if they haven’t worked to foster fellowship; and certainly not in the midst of open or thinly veiled hostilities.
andrew.agee
Just a couple points.
I dont “owe” any other group that hasn’t supported me in the past my support now.
I didn’t feel very connected to the lesbian community…till they moved heaven and earth to support the gay male community during the AIDS crisis when even other gay men wouldn’t.
A notable LACK of support came from, and continues to come from the streets and pulpits of Black community. To this day Black preachers ride the BLM movement to get on TV, while they continue to denounce HIV/AIDS as a “white disease” and ignore their own queer youth. Youth ostracized by their own families, aided and abetted by the Black leadership. Who offers shelter to many of them? White religious & social justice charities.
Pretending that white male gay culture somehow doesn’t deserve to benifit from the benifits of the battles they fought is a classic far left construct. Need I remind readers here that Black Americans enjoy the constitutional protection that gay people (still) dont?
Murder a Black American, because of their race, federal hate crime protection kicks in.
Kill a gay, bi, lesbian, trans person, based on their orientation, you’re out of luck in over a third of the states, where orientation is excluded. Gay Panic defense only recently has been disavowed by the courts.
As for the white gay male culture, yes, it’s skewed, but not sleeping with someone you aren’t attracted to doesn’t make you a racist. It just makes you human. I’m not attracted to muscle heads or short guys
And kid? The vast majority of white gay male culture does *not* call each other “grrrrl” or “she/her” or other terms that feminize other gay men. I sleep with men, not “bois” not “gurrls” not trans folks or bi boys. I’ll defend them, but I’ve no interest in bedding them.
phoenix69
The only good thing about this whole terrorist group BLM is trump is a shoo in I’ve already voted republican. Trump 2020. Trump jr 2024. #WalkAway baby lol.