It used to mean honest. Trustworthy. Loyal. Reliable. We had terms like "straightforward" and "straight shooter". Remember in A Streetcar Named Desire when Blanche's beau tells her "I knew you were no 16, but I thought you were straight"? Meaning he could forgive her little fibs about her age, when he still thought she was fundamentally honest. Now? How can I say I'm straight? I can say I'm honest and loyal and true and reliable but heterosexuals have hijacked and usurped the word straight. Sad. My only consolation is I still know how to spell. And the difference between "proposing" and "purposing".
Crand I have a couple questions for you. Why does there seem to be a difference between "gay" and "lesbian"? Why is it LGBT? I understood "gay" to encompass both male and female homosexuals. Why do lesbians need their own offshoot? When did the marriage equality symbol go from blue/yellow to pink?
Gay was all-encompassing. But what happened was that for much of the public, and media, image of gay was a male. Usually young and white. Not because they were the totality or even majority of the community, more the bias, sometimes unconscious, that if you want to show something important, it's got to be a white dude. And also there was a time in Pride Parade, at least in SF, when it was so male dominated that women felt left out, and I recall some real hostility that women faced from some gay men. So we started insisting on saying "gay and lesbian" or "gay men and lesbians" to underline that we were THERE. Many bi folks have no trouble self-identifying as gay, in fact just about every bi male or female I know does so, but again, they felt that "gay" was understood to mean just "homosexual" so we became gay, lesbian and bisexual. Trans people are not necessarily gay, but are gender nonconforming and face the same bigotry. They have always been a part of our community. So we are now LGBT. The marriage equality symbol went red just before the Supreme Court hearings on marriage equality. Red has always been a color of love; it's associated with Valentine's Day in the West and is the color of wedding garments in much of Asia. The blue and gold was not specifically marriage equality but a general equality symbol. Hope that answers your questions.
Yes that answered my questions. Thanks. Interesting you mentioned the discrimination in SF because there was a woman who was in one of my classes winter term who said she felt very discriminated against as a lesbian in SF. She said she moved there thinking that it would be the most accepting city in the US, but she said they would be met with hostility and sometimes even outright refusal of service in some gay bars. Pretty shocking. I had no idea there was that kind of tension within the LGBT community. Kind of sad really.
When I was about 6 years old, I got this tape for my birthday. On the song Walk Straight, there's a line where they say "You've got to be straight." And even when I was that young, I was like "Wait, are they telling kids not to be gay? They can't do that." I later figured out they were most likely using the term how it was once used... or at least using it how we use "straight-edge" today. But it's interesting that something made in the late 80's/early 90's could still use the term when it has clearly shifted meaning.
It's like whether the Boy Scout pledge to be "morally straight" means what it was always taken to be, that is, act in an ethical fashion, or what bigots now claim, an obligation to be hetero. Tensions have eased somewhat. But I remember, I think it was around 1973, at a pre-Parade fund raiser, there was a band that was just hideously misogyinist. The lyrics, the whole behavior. The women were FURIOUS. Their set ended up cut short due to booing but before they left the lead singer declared they were playing at the parade whether the LESBIANS (uttered in tone of contempt) liked it or not. We damn near had a real life battle of the sexes right there. In fairness, a few of the men thought it was outrageous but too many thought insulting women was funny or was just no big deal. Sadly, it incited a backlash; there were some women who thought we should not get involved in AIDS because "the gay boys didn't do shit for us all this time". Another sad irony was that the rise of many women as community leaders, not just lesbian leaders, began in the mid-1980s because many of the male leaders were dying off. I don't think you see this feuding any more. The political organizations are pretty mixed these days. But organized social lives still tend to be separate in that men and women have their own bars, clubs, music, etc. Just as African-American and Hispanic gays and lesbians often have their own spaces because yes, racism does exist in the larger LGBT community. In smaller communities there is more mixing because there are just not enough of us to be separate. P.S. Tell your friend to try Oakland. That's where the women are. The Castro is still pretty male.
Ha! Funny but not quite on target. I don't think the word was taken, more like reapplied by those that needed a counter meaning to Gay. I have never said I was straight, in the sense you use the word now, in my life. Most of us just assume you have normal social detection skills. Neither do I ask so people do not say they are "straight". Much of the world is not like San Francisco.
Didn't the gay community start using the term "straight" to describe the non-gay population? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosexuality#Slang What's the point of this nonsensical thread?
I did. So, starting one thread of nonsense with another thread of nonsense leaves us twice as dumb, I guess. I will say that the point of this thread takes a hit when you consider the origins of the 'slang' use of straight and gay, as both originated in the gay community, which is cool with me. It just seems to blow apart crandc's point, IMO, how words have been co-opted. If she has a problem with not being able to be "straight" in the historical sense, she should probably point the finger at the same advocacy groups which she associates with in her life.
No no you're missing the point. She's not being serious. She's reacting to MarAzul's (actually serious) thread. Just look at it. It'll make your head spin. http://sportstwo.com/threads/239433-There-was-a-day-when-I-could-be-Gay.
Frankly, I don't want to really read that thread at all. I was just having fun with crandc on this one, since she loves me so, and considers me a bigot without ever reading past the first sentence of any of my posts regarding gay equality. I'm in favor of it. I just think the states should decide it, since I'm a libertarian at heart, as well as a federalist. I feel the same negativity toward the people who call themselves "small government", yet pushed DOMA down our throats under Clinton, who signed the bill.
Sad that people have such low self-esteem that they actually give a shit what other people think of their vocabulary.
Props to hoojack for having enough brains to recognize satire. Sigh. Now, speaking of words going wrong - not related to thread but may get a giggle. I was watching the replay of the parade on local TV Sunday (since I really only see my own contingent while the parade is going on). There were two folks in a broadcast booth and another on the street doing interviews. Someone draped a lei around the street reporter's neck and he told the two in the broadcast booth that he had just been "lei'd". Oops.
Gay people may become free legally, but they will never be free culturally as long as most American religions oppose them. And the same goes for abortion. I don't know how it will play out in the cultural system, over the rest of this century, as opposed to the legal system.
People say that all the time, I remember thinking it was hilarious when I was 13, but the million times after that.. not so many giggles.
