#queer bashing

Some of us were asked about what the '80's were like with specific reference to the queer experience in a context I don't want to get into.  I think some of the stuff I wrote might be of interest to some of you who are too young to really remember or who weren't alive yet.  This shit is pretty dark and there are references to slurs and violent queer bashing, so skate at your own risk.  Since this was part of a long conversation with more than one person, in some spots I'm responding to comments from someone who's comments you can't see.  I'm often answering questions that are specific, so certain bits are narrower than they might have been if I hadn't been answering a specific redacted question.  We are talking about what people specifically in 1989 might have lived through, so there are some references that circle that date, but the commentary goes into the '90's because culture doesn't draw hard lines at decade's end  (Anything Second College is the first half of the ‘90′s).  I am shaving off some of the identifiers and making similar small edits for privacy and clarity.  If you quote me, credit me.  No other permission required.  

I think it's important we talk about this stuff because otherwise the history gets lost.  

People literally died to get us here.  WE DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK!

I can't speak to west coast high school and college experience in the '80's and my East Coast College didn't have frats, though it did had a dorm that everyone joked was one. East Coast style, you sort of had this big split between the guys who were here and queer get used to it, and this large body of people out quietly to friends but not loud about it. Things were more open in a few years, but the '80's gay yuppie mindset was people were literally getting fired if the wrong people knew about it, so the guys I went to school with were publicly downlow, but had political consciousness and friends who knew.  (A particular lawyer)'s fear of his practice collapsing is entirely rational. Most judges are older white guys. Clients flee, courts discriminate. He's DONE if the wrong person finds out.

Bi guys were super stigmatized generally because they tended to get blamed unfairly for the Plague. The guys I knew open about it were very brave in a way never openly acknowledged.

Cops used to hunt and group beat gay men and trans women in Philly. Down in Conchy friends of friends got beaten or disappeared, likely into the river. I new a butch lesbian disappeared out of Germantown. Police were way not safe. The obvious gay man I knew down in the Neighborhoods who was safe was safe because he had a bunch of tough hetero friends who sort of body guarded him and because he had this woman he could pretend to date. Everyone knew nothing was happening there, but it saved face. Like they could all pretend they didn't know.

(Here follows a pasage I can't figure out how to anonymize with some examples of people in west Coast situations that were similar but with different details). There sometimes was a "no one beats up my little brother" or a "he's on our team sort" of mentality. It's sort of a mascot situation. (That one exceptional person is protected, but anyone else who looks not cis/straight is in danger.)

(Regarding ACT UP and Queer Nation) Being out was activism and activism was still punk.

From a 1989 perspective, things really did start to get noticeably better a few years later, and when the protease inhibitors came onto the market, things changed dramatically because people could focus on things besides triage.

A lot of stuff was word of mouth in the 80's. There was a sort of queer whisper network that would let someone find the safest places or services and where was less safe to go.

I think the thing that's really hard to convey to people who aren't our agish is how fundamentally unsafe everything was. We pretty much assumed that if the Plague didn't get us, the bombs would right up until the soviet Union collapsed. There was this fundamental background sense that we wouldn't make it to thirty. People reacted to this in different ways, but it's the Generational subtext.

Xers are like that for a reason. Cops were dangerous unpredictable people who might help but also might beat and murder us. I think this is why my sympathy for things like the Black Lives matter movement is so visceral. Of course I have a fundamental sympathy for people still living that reality.

I loved the hair, clothes, and music, but it was fucking terrifying to live through it. You lived your whole life under constant threat of sudden violent death in a culture where your safety from toddlerhood was considered entirely a matter of your personal responsibility. People could pretty much do anything to you at any time and victim blaming said it was your fault. If you were not a rich straight able bodied cis male, there was no guarantee at all that authorities would care if something terrible happened to you. What safety you had, you had to make usually through organizing or safety in numbers.  There was this sort of huddling together of queer folk and allies.

I think the generation lines are in the wrong place. Divider for Boomer/Gen X should be whether or not you or your high school friends were in danger of being drafted or not. Divider for X/Millenial should be whether or not you grew up assuming you'd die from bomb and/or plague before you were 40.

The first person came who out to be explicitly when I was 15 literally didn't have non-pejorative language for herself until I gave it to her. (Early '90's) My only friend on my floor in my first dorm at my first West Coast College was the out bi RA. I was their only friend on the floor too. Everyone else was pledging Greek and they were so alien to us and vica versa we had no common ground at all.

(This is in response to someone else's story about the violent gay bashing of a straight student for being to pretty)  A guy in my first dorm at Second College was metrosexual a little before it was cool. Alternative style. Gorgeous, mixed race. Straight. He got beaten up by a frat coming home to the dorm at night and we had to organize protection for him walking him to and from things like the library at night because he was terrified it would happen again. I was tough and knew martial arts, so I used to be one of his guards. They called him "Faggot" when they beat him. Campus cops would do nothing. Project Safe Ride wouldn't take him because he was a man.  And this was the '90's.  It was the bi RA recruited the unofficial guards BTW. Queer folk taking care of their own. Even though the guy was straight he counted as our own.

‘[…] Ironically, many Harry Potter fans learned how to critique, challenge, and reject outworn and dated storytelling narratives because of this series that they themselves are now critiquing and challenging. But the real message fans are sending through their criticisms is that when the wizarding world won’t change to reflect the increasingly diverse world we live in, they feel increasingly disconnected from a world they once passionately loved. Their rebuttals of Rowling don’t bear the signatures of entitled fans thinking they know better than the creator, but rather the hopes of fans trying hard not to outgrow their first, best love.

Still, the one good thing about Rowling’s continued interest in the Harry Potter universe is that more canonical updates mean more chances to inject some nuance into her literary world. At the very least, the love that keeps Rowling perpetually returning to her magical world is the same love that keeps fans pressuring her to make it better. […]’

Go to http://www.vox.com/2016/9/4/12534818/harry-potter-cursed-child-rowling-queerbaiting to read the full article

I’ve read this article a few weeks ago as I was researching about ‘Cursed Child’ and all the rage it fueled. I haven’t read the book yet and so as to not end up disappointed - because I knew if I didn’t read any reviews and critques on it beforehand I’d just hype the book up and that probabely wouldn’t have been healthy - I spent a good few hours reading such articles as the one mentioned above.