Polls are stupid. Did the people who took the poll last year change their mind or did they just get another random group of people who happened to be 4% different.
Also, as a gay man, I’d love to click on an article about LGBT issues and not see a drag queen. The only Queen I’m interested in plays rock music.
GLAAD’s Accelerating Acceptance is the most comprehensive survey we have to determine changes in public sentiment about LGBTQ+ acceptance. It’s literally what I cite when writing research papers about queer issues. The difference is absolutely believable, and they validated the results with sampling bias in mind. There is no reason for you to cast doubt on the result like this, and it reads as disengenuine for you to do so.
Also, you don’t get to decide what queer lives deserve to be in articles about LGBTQ+ people. Thankfully.
He was a dick about it, but it does get tiring to see mostly femmes and drag queens representing gay men in mainstream media. There are so many of us that aren’t femme or catty or flamboyant. Those things are fine but it starts to feel like a stereotype instead of true representation.
I’m cishet but it is so refreshing to see the occasional gay male characters on TV that are not stereotypical in any way.
I didn’t love Star Trek: Discovery, but I did love that the gay couple were just a couple of guys who loved each other and were married.
Those things are fine but it starts to feel like a stereotype instead of true representation.
Popular media doesn’t care about ‘true representation’. It cares about getting clicks, readers and subscribers. Of course the media tends to sell stereotypes and fads.
Drag queens represent a general idea of ‘gay’ because they’re flamboyant, and that sells, and the media doesn’t have to care that this skews the idea of who gay people are. Furthermore, bigots won’t learn that gay men can represent majority gender norms easily if they don’t want to, because bigotry is not based on reality. I can imagine bigots generally reacting to pictures of gay dudes who look much like they do with “but they’re not gay, they don’t have nail polish”.
Also, you don’t get to decide what queer lives deserve to be in articles about LGBTQ+ people.
I think it’s that the media wants a picture that ‘looks gay’. It’s pretty unpleasant stereotyping, but it’s not the fault of drag queens as individuals or as a group that the media latches onto their flamboyant femininity in order to show a picture of ‘gay’.
It also helps that drag queens are very popular right now, and the media is all about chasing fads.
It also helps that drag queens are very popular right now, and the media is all about chasing fads.
Couldn’t possibly be because drag queens have very specifically been targeted and harassed over the last couple of years…
“Fad”… smfh…
I agree! As a lifelong member of the community, being de facto represented by drag queens has been a cringeworthy experience. They’re character actors who do not represent even close to a majority of the larger group. The loudest, most obnoxious members of any group should not be allowed to hog the spotlight. It ruins the ability of the larger group to form political alliances. Gangster rap doesn’t represent black people. Jihadists don’t represent Muslims. Karens don’t represent white women.
Years ago my Bible-thumpy step mother was showing decent progress on accepting us when she was invited to a birthday party at a drag club. She went, trying to be hip, and a drag queen on stage came down and literally grabbed her hair and humped her face for the lolz, causing her whole project of acceptance to come crashing down. I guess the queen was roasting her verbally, painful enough I’m sure - probably she was dressed like Nancy Reagan, which is going to stand out - but then the queen physically accosted and humiliated her. She stopped giving a shit about our tribe after that. Can you blame her? Centering obnoxious outliers as representatives is bad strategy.
This take is so damn toxic man, drag queens have been fighting for rights for people like us for a long time - the reason they’re so visible is because they’re on the front lines of this regressive culture war.
Be more inclusive, not less. Excluding people in our community because you think using their voice is them being “obnoxious” only fuels division. It doesn’t even sound like you were there to confirm your step-mother’s version of the drag story.
You’re part of the problem too.
Also, as a gay man, I’d love to click on an article about LGBT issues and not see a drag queen.
“I’d really love to stop seeing reminders of the people in my community who have a much bigger target on their back than I do, it makes me uncomfortable” 🙄
I think they’re complaining that none of the other groups in the queer umbrella get represented visually. Always representing one marginalised group is indeed bad if it’s always taking a place that could be representing a lot of different groups.
Also big assumption that they aren’t a bigger target than drag queens.
