Make repression backfire

I finished the book Gay Bar by Jeremy Atherton Lin. Me intrigued by gay bars? I’ve been in a gay bar definitely once, I doubt more than that. That once was the /aut/ bar in Ann Arbor I think when the gay owners announced they were retiring. I thought I should go there before it closes. So I went when it was still daylight, ate my supper, and left. Before or after that I visited the LGBTQ bookstore next door owned by the same couple, also about to close. Before then I think the only time I went into any type of bar for drinking (as opposed for a meal at a “bar and grill”) was when I was in college and I went with my girlfriend (before I realized I’m gay) and her parents. They had booze. I didn’t. During my life I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve consumed alcohol and have fingers left over. I don’t like the taste and see no need to be under the influence. So why would I buy a book about gay bars? I’m not sure I have an answer for that. I did hear or read a review of the book that said it was quite good. So when I was in an LGBTQ bookstore (this one in Royal Oak) and saw it, I bought it. Then I let it sit on the shelf for a few years. The subtitle “Why We Went Out” isn’t quite right. Atherton Lin does cover that – briefly – and hits the usual reasons: A safe place to be ourselves. A place to be a part of our community. A place to cruise. A place to develop resistance and activism. The book really is about the gay bars he and his partner frequented (or merely visited) in California (where he’s from) and England (where his partner is from). I understand he needed to give his partner an alias to protect privacy, but that alias is Famous Blue Raincoat, usually shortened to Famous. Only in the acknowledgments did he say the name came from a Leonard Cohen song, whose lyrics are weird enough I’m not sure what they’re saying. For each of the bars they visit the author describes the place, the clientele, some of the interesting things that happened to him there, and some of the history of the place. He also tries to describe what it all means, and I don’t think that was so successful. As for some of the history, one of the bars was on Villiers St. in London. George Villiers was a favorite of King James I – yeah, the sponsor of the translation of the Bible many conservatives insist is the only correct one was gay. So the king bestowed this chunk of real estate along the Strand. Having gay pubs in the area around Villiers St. is quite appropriate. He discusses a skinhead attack and followed that up with gay men adopting the skinhead look. Did they do it because they wanted to beat up people who attacked their kind? Perhaps. Or maybe when one looks that tough people don’t mess with them. In the last decade he noticed a lot of pubs on London’s South Bank showing the pride flag. Were they welcoming LGBTQ people? Or was that a way to keep another type of customer out? I didn’t read the second half of the first chapter because what I read seemed to be one excuse for sex after another. If the second chapter wasn’t any better I was going to drop the book. Thankfully, it was better and I can say overall I enjoyed the book. Atherton Lin has a second book out. This one is about the difficulties of gay relationships, like his, where the partners are from different countries. He is a good enough writer that I should put it on my to-buy list. Astead Henderson of the show Today, Explained from Vox and heard on NPR talked to Chanté Joseph about an article she wrote for Vogue titled “Is Having a Boyfriend Embarrassing Now?” I worked from the transcript. There is a growing trend to hide the face of the boyfriend, sometimes even the groom, on social media. Why? Some of it is privacy. Some of it is because when they guy cheats on her she doesn’t want to edit her social media account. Some of it is because the woman has created a brand around herself and announcing a boyfriend would interrupt that brand. And some of it... Scoring a boyfriend used to give a sense of achievement. But with conservatives touting tradwives, a straight romantic relationship seems archaic, co-opted by the right. Joseph had to clarify to readers she wasn’t attacking women or their relationships. She was not shaming them for finding love. Love is wonderful.

But I'm saying that there is a way that men have been allowed to behave and act in society for so long that has only gotten worse.

Then she discussed men’s reaction to her article.

And but then obviously there was a lot of hateful abuse, a lot of racist abuse. Men talking about the way that they'd want to see me abused and die. And it was really awful. And I think I definitely struck a nerve, particularly with men.

Women are now more educated than men. They have their jobs and are running households. They are seeing they don’t need men. So men are feeling the dating space is the last place they can have true domination. They used to have power over a great many spaces and they are losing that. Joseph mentioned the book The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Professor Jane Ward. A chapter is about the things queer people say about their straight friends when those friends aren’t around. The conclusion seems to be “straight culture is very embarrassing.” Joseph said that when boys message her saying how worried they are she tells them to be aware of what media is teaching them about what to believe about women. Social media tries to reach boys when they are young. As for young women they are delighted to learn that having a boyfriend does not have to be the most important thing. They can be a good and fascinating person by themselves. In the second half of the program Henderson spoke to Jane Ward, professor of feminist and queer studies at UC Santa Barbara. They discussed the book mentioned above. What got her writing the book is hearing from lesbians wondering if straight people were okay, hearing straight women wish they were lesbian. Ward laid out the contradiction at the heart of modern straight identity that started in the early 20th century. The idea of companionate marriage develops, in contrast to how marriage was seen for centuries. Men are supposed to care about women and their wellbeing. There is supposed to be mutual respect. Men are supposed to actually like and love their woman. But these men “are still raised in a misogynistic culture, one that normalizes boys and men's hatred of girls and women.” We’ve developed a new type of marriage without undoing the “centuries of patriarchy and misogyny that are pretty foundational to the human experience.” Mainstream culture hasn’t been able to cross that gap. There is hope. Recognizing that contradiction and discussing it is a start. So is recognizing the current norm isn’t working. But we haven’t figured out the replacement yet, so there is a lot of uncertainty and anxiety. This seems to contribute to women becoming more liberal while men are becoming more conservative. Ward says the solution is feminism, that men embrace feminism. Men can

demonstrate that they actually like women so much, they're sooooo heterosexual that they actually like women. They want to listen to women talk. They care about women's ideas. They want to follow women's leadership. ... They're friends with women. They watch movies about women. They read books written by women. I mean, it's just kind of amazing how narrowly we have defined heterosexual masculinity.

The news today has been full of the story of a white woman in Minneapolis, Renee Good, who didn’t act in the way ICE agents wanted, so they shot through the windshield of her car, killing her. The mayor of Minneapolis used foul language to tell ICE to leave. Kristi Noem of Homeland Security almost immediately began to vilify Good. Minnesota police discovered the FBI wouldn’t share findings, preventing the state team from being able to conduct an independent investigation, so we know whatever the FBI gives us for their report will be filled with lies. Gaslit Nation released an episode featuring Annie, a listener from Minneapolis. There’s 15 minutes of audio, though I’ll stick to the lengthy description, which includes references. Annie is pleased Minnesota politicians are taking the ICE occupation more seriously. That’s good, but their response should be so much more. It should be real resistance.

Actual resistance could look like tracking ICE apprehensions and accounting for all victims, running a support hotline for impacted families, providing legal aid to immigrants, tracking ICE locations and sharing this information with immigrants at risk, maintaining a list of ICE license plates, serving as constitutional observers during ICE stops, or even just lifting up the work of rapid response networks and encouraging residents to participate. None of this has been happening, and that probably won’t change, but I now have a tiny bit of hope that it might. ... Today, [Mayor] Jacob Frey told ICE to “get the f*ck out of Minneapolis,” but he didn’t say what he will do if they don’t. We need to be thinking about resistance dynamics. When ICE does not get out of Minneapolis, what action will the City take? What actions are we taking to back up our demands?

Annie linked to a recent video by Tad Stoermer, a historian of resistance movements, talking about the “loyal opposition.” That’s when the opposition party treats dictators as a normal political opponent, they are loyal to the system the dictator is operating in. But that teaches people the wrong lesson about resistance. It says this is the only response, this is how serious people handle it. A loyal opposition that talks about affordability while the dictator is invading other nations and threatening the stability of NATO and the world is saying it’s not that bad. Real resistance develops organizing infrastructure and networks, build parallel institutions. See: Underground Railroad. The loyal opposition sucks up energy that could be used to build resistance infrastructure. I see Congressional Democrats are complaining about both affordability and the Venezuela invasion. But there is a difference between complaining and real resistance.

The phrase that keeps repeating in my head today is “Make repression backfire.” Collectively, let’s channel our grief and rage into making state repression backfire and building a real resistance movement that will allow us to protect people, take back power, and build the world we need.