Where Are Queer Men in Fabulis' 2010 Survey of Gay Men's Online Habits?

  
I love my community of queers, freaks, youth workers, and artists. I love the non-conformity, questioning of authority, and out of the box thinking of these folks. They are my brethren and comrades. They are the people I am proud to be among.

Today, a friend posted through Facebook the following Fabulis online survey about gay male online habits.

There was a problem at the outset for me. It came on slide 3 with the statement "The results that follow only include responses from the 94.5% of survey participants who described themselves as gay or bisexual men. All other responses were discarded."

I'm not gay or bisexual. I am queer. I am proud to be queer, and I identify this way partly because I don't believe in a binary gender construct and partly because I want to stand in solidarity with people not of the same gender as me. It is a nuanced identity that doesn't fit neatly into boxes.

I knew by seeing the title of the survey that I would probably not find myself among the respondents. I am used to that. I am used to the a large segment of the LGBT community not understanding the nuance of queer. I am used to being somewhat invisible.

There is no other note as to what the orientations of the 5.5% of the discarded respondents were. There is no mention of why those responses were discarded. They just vanished from the data set leaving me to question where do I fall within the gay and bisexual male community.

I posted this comment on the Fabulis blog "What were the sexual orientations of the 5.5% of the discarded respondents?" bradfordshellhammer, someone I assume to be from Fabulis, responded that those rejected were either straight identified or lesbian. I then asked if queer male was an option. There was a moment of confusion, and bradfordshellhammer posted the categories available during the survey. Queer was not an option.

As mentioned above, this questioning and lack of visibility is nothing new for me. It is why the meta-blog that JW Reports is a part of is called Queerly Complex. Life doesn't fall within black or white or binary codes. It is dynamic, intricate, multi-faceted and -dimensional, and messy. It holds many truths.

I don't derive self-worth from these types of reports, surveys, or news. I don't need it to justify my existence. I am happy doing that myself. What I do need from these types of surveys is an understanding that we live in a much more complicated and interconnected world. We need to stop the reductivism of one versus the other. We need to find ways to build broader based coalitions.

And this can be done simply. It doesn't need to taint a potential data pool. If the survey is concerned only with the opinions from gay men, fine. I don't need to be counted among them because I am not one. But I do need an acknowledgement from that community of my existence. This can include acknowledging queer as a category, writing "we are not including queers in this survey because...",  teasing out queers from the rest of the data pool and showing differences between gay male identified respondents and queer respondents, being completely clear that one only cares about gay men. Any of these solutions at least acknowledge that there is a community out there that is not gay identified and not straight identified.

I appreciate greatly what Fabulis is trying to build: "a social network that connects gay men with amazing experiences down the block and around the world." I also appreciate their openness to the conversation. In that effort for connection and conversation, it is important to not forget those of us who don't fit neatly into the "gay male" label. For we may be married to (or partnered to or dating or having sex with) someone who does.

Share |

Promoting Dialogue about Gender and Queerness

I am privileged to be connected to so many different people, organizations, companies, news feeds, and ideas that I sometimes find myself overwhelmed and overstimulated. But these connections provide a unique opportunity to find intersections among diverse and independent movements happening the world over.

Take for example LYRIC's new campaign Gender Dialogue.

LYRIC worked with Intersection for the Arts to create posters that open up the dialogue around gender. The posters were the culmination of a multi-week workshop that "explored gender-based oppression, identity, and expression". These posters are now displayed in enclosed cases at the 16th Street BART Plaza in San Francisco to encourage others to think critically about what gender is and how it is expressed. It is a call to action for exploration and challenging assumptions and bias. And they are visually arresting thanks to support from a professional graphic designer.

I received notice of this new campaign in my email inbox from the Transitional Age Youth Task Force, and I immediately started thinking about my own assumptions. Sure, I identify as a queer so that does mean I am more predisposed to actually look at and reflect on the images. It is also not a given that I would. The reason I took pause and reflected was because I saw pieces of myself reflected within the graphics. I may be male identified but too often that gets conflated with masculinity and manliness. I am not manly. Nor am I particularly masculine. And it was wonderful to see something that acknowledges this complexity. Especially something that looks like pop culture. 

Then, while perusing Twitter, I came across this gem of a video Queerer Than Thou.

And I fell in love. This video brings the conversation of gender, sparked in me by the ad campaign, to a whole new level. It uses humor to delve into the constructed identities we build around ourselves. Who is queerer: The fembot dyke MTF who throws aside all gender conformity or the polyamorous lisping queen who loves boxes (albeit nontraditional ones)? Neither and both is the answer I found.

We all have unique characteristics that make us who we are and those characteristics are interpreted by others using their own cultural, familial, historical lenses. Often those lenses see us not as we see ourselves. And this is where conflict comes in.

What is important is that we have this dialogue; that we open up a conversation between our friends, family, loved ones, colleagues, co-workers, and those we pass by. We must be willing to be uncomfortable and take risks. And those of us that "look" stereotypically "gender normative" (I use quotes here because what really is gender normative?) need to support our brothers and sisters that are defy gender boxes. We have a burden to be their allies and support their struggle by being proactive.

I truly believe that we as queers will not be free until all people are free. Because after all what makes a queer? Nothing and everything.

Share |