Yankee Response to October's Anti-Gay Mob

Last month, I posted a video of a group of Yankee fans who thought it would be amusing to yell anti-gay slurs to the tune of "YMCA" to fans of the opposing team. The offensive song played off the stereotype that all LGBT people are diseased.

The song lyrics? "Gay man, get up off of your knees / I said gay man, you will catch a disease / I said gay man, don't touch me please / because you have got a disease." And the homophobia only kicks it up another notch at the chorus.

As a reminder, here's October's video of the song.



What I have to say is that I'm somewhat heartened by the response. Community members and hundreds of fans responded to the video by emailing Yankees senior public relations personnel, especially after people began to realize that fans in a certain section of the stadium had been singing the tune for years.

Yankees spokesperson Alice McGillion stated: "the Yankees have zero tolerance for this and any kind of abuse." Security around that section of the bleachers will also be tightened, and people caught singing the song will be ejected from the game immediately.

Johnnyboyxo

*******Warning for Mature Language*******

This is a video posted by JohnnyBoyxo. Her YouTube bio states "My Name is Johnny Boy/Johnnyboyxo, I'm a gender-bending platinum blonde bombshell on a mission to make you laugh...or drive you completely insane" I was introduced to this channel by a friend and have been keeping up with it ever since. Some of the other videos Johnnyboy posts are light, funny, and strictly for comic effect. I feel that this video is just as funny as her others, but it also manages to get a wonderful message across.

WATCH: PSA from NOH8 Campaign To Stop Anti-Gay Bullying

Homophobia Lost? In UK, Straight Guys Kiss Each Other

Sociologist Eric Anderson is reporting that in Britain straight males are starting to engage in same-sex kisses with their peers.

Based on in-depth interviews of 145 British university and high-school students, Anderson and his colleagues discovered that 89 percent had kissed a male heterosexual friend on the lips at some point. A total of 37 percent had engaged in "sustained" kissing with another man, Anderson said. The men all identified as straight, and they didn't see the kisses as sexual.

"These men have lost their homophobia," Anderson said. "They're no longer afraid to be thought gay by their behaviors, and they enjoy intimacy with their friends, just the same as women."

[...]

The United Kingdom is less homophobic as a whole than the United States, Anderson said, but Americans should expect acceptance of men kissing on our shores soon enough. Research on American college soccer players suggests that 20 percent of those men have kissed another man, which is a harbinger of the trend, Anderson said.

It's not yet known how the trend of men kissing extends to non-University segments of the British population. Anderson plans to extend the research to minority men and low-income men who aren't in college.

Growing acceptance of same-sex kissing doesn't mean that homophobia is gone, just that masculine ideals are changing, Anderson said. His theory, put forth in his book, "Inclusive Masculinity: The Changing Nature of Masculinities" (Routledge, 2009), is that in times of homophobia, men police their behavior to avoid being seen as gay. When homophobia fades, men can relax and explore behaviors that don't jive with the traditional masculine ideal.

"Decrease in homophobia has positive effects for heterosexual men as well," Anderson said.

Thoughts? Does anyone think that such "enlightened" views about how heterosexual masculinity can be constructed will ever cross the pond and reach the United States?

No Homo: Hip Hop Homophobia or Hidden Homoeroticism?

This video is a rather humorous explanation on the phrase poplar in Hip-Hop known as "No Homo" coined by Cam'ron and popularized by rapper Lil Wayne.





It is rather fascinating how the term "no homo"is used in everyday slang. It spread like wildfire in my own community and even I said it a lot when I was in high school. The term is used to reaffirm one's heterosexuality after committing a seemingly homosexual act. When one says "suck my d**k" and follows up "no homo," then he is consciously aware of the seemingly homosexual connotations attached to that phrase. 
This brings me to question. If some is knowingly saying something that can be perceived as homosexual, then is s/he gay? Well, evidence may point to rappers engaged in possible homoeroticism, usually with them posing by themselves with their shirts off and chests glistening or with each other. Some critics point to these examples as possible homoeroticism and that using terms like "no homo" is to deny their hidden sexuality.
It is probably unlikely that the rapper that use "no homo" are gay but simply that they could be perceived as such through their lyrics. If rappers are perceived as homosexual, then they are not seen as masculine as noted in the video. In Hip-Hop culture, if anyone is seen to lack masculinity then they will lose respect because they are seen as weak. 

Gay Pride Parades: Freedom of Expression or Extreme Immorality?

As most of you are probably aware of, New York Gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is extremely homophobic as he hates the concepts of same-sex marriage and gay pride. He has gone on the record by saying,"I don’t want [my kids] brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and acceptable option- it isn't." I find this statement to be extremely intolerant and ignorant on the Tea Party supported candidate and I would be damned if he were elected governor. Yet, Paladino made comments about his opponent Andrew Cuomo appearing at a gay pride with his kids, an act he called "disgusting."While I am disturbed by most of Paladino's beliefs I agree with his questioning of the morality of gay pride parades.


You see, after seeing a baseball game, I went to a Gay Pride Parade with my cousin in San Francisco in the summer of 2009. I was appalled by what was demonstrated in the parade. This pride parade, among others, was nothing more than a campy, flamboyant, hypersexual, and sexist display of lewd conduct. It is completely non-representative of gays and lesbians because it continues to display the perception that they are hypersexual, flamboyant or effeminate human beings. It is also sexist in that it portrays a stereotypical satirical image of women. So in some ways, these Gay Pride parades poison youth's perceptions of gays and this can lead to homophobia. This is why there is a significant amount of gays who oppose these parades. 


If I were a parent I would not want my children to witness people publicly committing sexual acts with each other, heterosexual or homosexual. So, in some ways I agree with Paladino in that Andrew Cuomo bringing his kids to an inappropriate demonstration is irresponsible. Yet, I differ from Paladino in that I have another reason; I would not want my children to develop stereotypes LGBT persons as immoral or flamboyant people.


Now, there are plenty of pride parades that are not sexualized and follow a code of conduct. I would willingly attend and support those types of parades. However, the largest parades, the same kind that get the most media exposure, are the ones that perpetuate the perceptions of gays in a misrepresentative way. The government should censor these hypersexualized and sexist acts from being displayed to the youth, who could associate those characteristics with all gays and thus lead to homophobia. 

Analyze This: NOM's Ad In Minnesota Against Marriage Equality

The above ad will be more on point when we get to the third Section of the class which deals with marriage equality, Gender & Sexuality, Marriage & Law, but I couldn't resist adding it hear as an example of how the people who are opposed to LGBT equality frame their arguments in order to appeal to the most number of people.

Note that the ad begins with images and sounds of Martin Luther King, Jr., our country's most respected civil rights leader talking about the right to vote. The right to vote to eliminate the civil right of another minority (i.e. the majority should get to vote to decide what rights the minority gets to exercise, for example whether that minority has the right to marry someone of the same sex) is what the argument is.

In addition, harkening back to our current study of LGBT rights in the 1970s and Anita Bryant's Save Our Children campaign, there is the argument that allowing gay marriage will have "consequences," one of which will be that boys will be taught that they can grow up and marry boys. (The horrors!) But, of course, regardless of whether Minnesota enacts marriage equality, that will always be the case somewhere in the world since marriage equality is an established fact in multiple areas around the country and the world. Other consequences are examples of "movement backlash," in which allowing marriage equality will place people who oppose it to be victims of frivolous lawsuits by activists who will sue them for  expressing viewpoints opposing gay marriage.

Who wouldn't want to vote to give THEMSELVES more power? Shouldn't you have the right to decide how other people live their lives? That's one of the implicit messages of NOM's ad.

Discuss.

Homophobia Literally Kills.

In light of the recent LGBT suicides, I find this video particularly disgusting. How is this kind of thing considered remotely funny or even kind of okay? Join us in wearing purple on October 20th in memory of recent youth tragedies and to show that this kind of behavior is not okay.

Blaming The Victim For Gay Teen Suicide

Rob Tsinai over at Box Turtle Bulletin has created the above graphic to explain how heterosexual supremacists respond to reports of gay teen suicide.

Roommates, Web Cams, Homophobia, Twitter and Another Gay Suicide

The story of an 18-year-old Rutgers University college student named Tyler Clementi who is missing and presumed dead after his roommate streamed a sexual encounter Clementi had with another man live on the Internet is related to all the things we are talking about in this class: gay identity, technological devices and Web 2.0.

The New York Times reports today:

It started with a Twitter message on Sept. 19: “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay.”

That night, the authorities say, the Rutgers University student who sent the message used a camera in his dormitory room to stream the roommate’s intimate encounter live on the Internet.

And three days later, the roommate who had been surreptitiously broadcast — Tyler Clementi, an 18-year-old freshman and an accomplished violinist — jumped from the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River in an apparent suicide.

The Sept. 22 death, details of which the authorities disclosed on Wednesday, was the latest by a young American that followed the online posting of hurtful material. The news came on the same day that Rutgers kicked off a two-year, campuswide project to teach the importance of civility, with special attention to the use and abuse of new technology.

Read the whole article and other stories about Tyler Clementi online, then feel free to provide your thoughts about the issues this news brings up in the comments.