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  • Blog

Gay Conservatives Deserve a Seat at the Table

17/10/2019

 
Issue 11, Semester 2, 2019

ANONYMOUS

The queer movement and the LGBT+ community is an undeniable paradox. A movement that calls for intersectionality, diversity, and inclusiveness is awfully hostile towards anyone who doesn’t think like them, anyone who doesn’t hold the ‘right’ view. Which is anyone that doesn’t subscribe completely to their ideology by the way.
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Image: ryanhsuh31 on Flickr https://flic.kr/p/dR66f1
Being a left-leaning progressive is the only acceptable stance, and anyone who disagrees is morally wrong on every level. If you disagree, there’s a list of names to call you. If you so much as question (in good faith may I add) some of their beliefs or core tenets of their philosophies, then suddenly you’re a raging white nationalist on par with One Nation.

‘Empathy!’ they’ll scream, whilst they make fun of straight people, white people, and men — anyone they deem to be an ‘oppressor’ is fair game. Anyone who is deemed to be ‘privileged’ should check their privilege. That also means you don’t have a voice on any of the billion issues with society. That means men don’t have a say in women’s issues, that straight people should never dare speak on queer issues, that you can’t say this and they can’t say that because you’re silencing those who need a voice. Completely ignoring the ironic fact that they’re the one doing the silencing.

The horse they cling to is mighty high.

As someone who identifies more as a libertarian (who also happens to be very gay) — my live-and-let-live attitude would definitely raise some eyebrows within my community. Scroll through any queer social media pages, attend any queer events, talk to any openly queer students at Uni and you’ll be bombarded with buzzwords and slogans taken straight out of a Tumblr page. But there is never any nuance to their discussion. It’s nod-and-agree or get out. All it boils down to is a cookie-cutter description of anything deemed ‘bad’ and pasted haphazardly over anyone who disagrees.

Perhaps that’s my biggest problem and what lead to my slow departure from the left side of the political spectrum. Queer spaces on campuses are echo chambers where people pat themselves on the back and comment on how ‘woke’ their views are, but not once do we ever think critically. Not once do we ever engage with the other side, instead of shutting them down and coddling ourselves with constant reassurance that ‘we’re the right ones’.

“Straight people are the problem!” “White gays are racist!” “Capitalists are ruining the queer community!” God forbid you ask and question further why or how — you’ll be met with a steely glare and a holier-than-thou attitude. “Google is free,” they’ll sneer at you. Unless you agree with their constant stream of buzzwords and applaud their echoes of righteousness, you better educate yourself and be better, because a queer who disagrees is a queer they do not need.

Conversations are shut down forcefully, with people justifying their attack on free speech by claiming they have a moralistic duty to prevent ‘hate speech’ lest we hurt someone’s feelings. Pray tell, when are we as a community going to properly recognise that respectful disagreement with your opinion is not automatically hateful?

I understand that there are those who are impossible to have a proper conversation with. Those who believe we are unnatural or an abomination or that we don’t deserve the same rights as our heterosexual counterpart deserve no sympathy. Those who would gleefully call for our deaths and would not hesitate to harass and hurt us do not deserve to be heard. Yes, I know trans people are at a higher rate of homicide across the world. Yes, I am aware that forty percent of homelessness are LGBT+ folks. Yes, I agree, we as a community have been hurt and marginalised and persecuted up to this day. We can do better. We need to do better. I am right there with you. But part of that is recognising the diverse array of opinions and thoughts within our own community. We are a community, but we are not a monolith.

We need to stop conflating dissenting opinions about the best way to approach queer issues with actual Nazi rhetoric. We need to stop shutting down other voices because of some arbitrary notion of being ‘problematic’. You can disagree with me. You can hate everything I stand for. But what you can’t do is deny me a voice at your table while claiming to be ‘inclusive’.

​​Anonymous is a First Year JD Student.
Hmmm
17/10/2019 05:56:44 pm

For someone who doesn't like being placed into a homogenous group with all right wing thinkers you sure do use a lot of absolutes.
- “Being a left-leaning progressive is the only acceptable stance"
- “There is never any nuance to their discussion"
- “Not once do we ever think critically"

Sounds to me like you’re the one conflating an entire political leaning into a “cookie-cutter description”. I think you might have a point buried deep in there, but it’s hard to get past the hypocrisy.

Lizz
17/10/2019 06:04:43 pm

Hey friend,

This article comes across as a bit antagonistic and seems like you're using a lot of the broad brush strokes to paint leftie queers that you lament being used to paint conservatives.

The jibes about tumblr to the hyperbole / very dramatic tone used in this article (‘Empathy!’ they’ll scream, whilst they make fun of straight people) makes me think you may not, in fact, be approaching these people in "good faith".

I reckon we could all do a lot more listening to one another but this article seems a bit pot calling the kettle ignorant to me! I've often found people are a lot more willing to engage when they don't feel like they're being lambasted (as I'm sure a lot of exhausted queer folk may feel after reading this article). Just my two cents.

Left-leaning, high-horse riding leftie
17/10/2019 06:24:16 pm



It’s ironic that this article is entitled ‘Gay Conservatives deserve a seat at the table’, given that the author is (presumably, given his pointed indignation about the left’s attacks on, inter alia, white people and men) a white man — because white cis men are the only segment of the LGBTQI+ community that have been given any semblance of a ‘seat at the table’ of mainstream political, social, and cultural life.

The reason most members of the gay/queer/LGBTQI+ community are unable to subscribe to, or endorse, conservative ideology is because they’re conscious that many (but not all, I admit) adherents to conservative ideology are steadfastly committed to systemically stomping on every facet of the community that isn’t a cis gay man, and that everything isn’t ‘sunshine and rainbows’ just because we have same-sex marriage. For transgender people, for instance, being the subject of concerted conservative campaign to undercut or delegitimise their existence isn’t a historical footnote, but a present lived reality. The Trump administration presently bans transgender people from enrolling in the military is a well-known example. If you were banned from participating in public life to such an extent purely on the basis of your sexuality, would you be so forgiving — let alone advocating for — political ideology that engenders and enables such an administration?

It takes a staggering amount of privilege — or at least wilful ignorance — to not acknowledge that the gains for LGBTQI+ people have been forcefully wrested, that the hard-gotten gains have not been evenly spread across the community (having disproportionately benefitted white, cis gay men), and that the common denominator in this wresting has been conservative administrations. And that LGBTQI+ are perfectly entitled to look down on you for your willingness to pull the ladder up after you (or, rather, the chairs ever-away from the table) while your less circumstantially fortunate. LGBTQI+ mates languish on the ground.

P.s I’m a white cis gay man :)

Discursive
17/10/2019 08:57:37 pm

I’m a bit tired of having arguments about arguments in politics. It seems like we no longer talk about why xyz political position is good or bad, but rather why abc people are very unfair, or why xyz is being oppressed in a culture war.

The Gay Agenda
18/10/2019 12:09:32 am

As a member of the venerable LGBTI+ community here at MLS I gotta say I that while the author does definitely raise some valid points about feelings of exclusion as the result of being a conservative, I think the author’s criticism of (what they believe to be) the problem misses the mark.

I think the author over-inflates and overemphasises the received reaction of the LGBTI+ community to queer conservatives. I think the author fails to recognise WHY the mainstream and left-leaning LGBTI+ community may be hostile to conservative members within its ranks.

Conservative politics has been hostile towards LGBTI+ advancement and liberation even since before we were politically active. Anonymous, don’t act surprised that you don’t get a seat at the table. Conservative politics and governments have held us back as a community and continue to do so.

This article would be more convincing if the author actually discussed and vindicated the merits of being queer and conservative instead of going after an issue that really isn’t there.

PS: “Nazi rhetoric”? Are you for real?

Nazi
19/10/2019 01:35:56 am

Wassup my brother! Hail Hitlee! Hail Milo!

Free speech achievement unlocked pls don't shut me down in the name of advancing discourse


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