gay southie (Boston, Cambridge, Newton: middle-class, appointed, condos)

[geeknpink]

my partner and i are moving to boston this summer. we are interested in southie boston because it is much cheaper than southend. we are curious if southie is still considered to be homophobic. the area we are looking at is west south boston....i guess you'd say near the "yuppie gentrified section" any input would help! thanks so much!

[goyguy]

The "Lower End" of Southie (NO ONE calls it "West South Boston," lol) has evolved from white-trash ghetto into a mixed bag of gentrifiers and shall-we-say established residents. Rarely if ever doth the twain meet. The longtime denizens stay in the projects, I mean housing developments, and the few buildings that haven't been made over. And the gentrifiers keep to themselves also, in the made-over buildings and new condo boxes. Now the natives have their watering holes and the newcomers theirs. Similarly to how people don't mingle in their living situations, the yuppies and guppies favor establishments with no dollar signs on the menus and windows that open - and the folks who resided in the area prior to ten years ago stick to their dark shot-and-beer joints.
Realize that by invoking the term "white trash" I'm referring to a state of mind and not passing a class-based value judgment. There are plenty of good-hearted poor folks out there, just as there are middle-class types who shout the N-word at "Tea Party" rallies. South Boston gained infamy during its violent opposition to cross-district school busing in the 1970's, and again in the '90s when the city dared to open the neighborhood "developments" to anyone who needed housing and not just people from the community. Some gay-bashing incidents have made the papers. Many more probably went unreported, let alone all the vandalism and name-calling that's undoubtedly gone on. Things got very ugly when an "out" group of Irish and Irish-American individuals participated openly in Southie's renowned St Patrick's Day parade in 1994. The state's Supreme Judicial Court dictated the novel concept of equal access to taking part in public events to the parade organizers (who'd tried to block the group), and in response the parade was cancelled in '95. Whereupon the issue was taken to the (Rehnquist) Supreme Court which, probably supported by the lack of BLGT equal-protection laws at the national level, ruled that since the event was "privately run" the group could discriminate freely. Not once in the ensuing fifteen years has any openly gay contingent been seen marching down Broadway on/near March 17th. That alone attests to the lingering intolerance in "the town," though open hostility has been toned down and there is considerable incident-free participation by AA and other "minority" persons.
Last year there was some media attention paid when a Facebook group of BGL people based in Southie started paying planned visits to neighborhood bars and word got out. The spin was that this was a sign of the community's shedding its reputation for bigotry, but I didn't buy it. For this was no "flash mob" scenario where the kweeyahs were descending en masse without warning. Plenty of advance notice was made (officially and then of course on the streets) and permission from the business's management was secured. No one was at the bar on the appointed night unless they wanted to be or couldn't care less. The only real social progress that can be measured from this is that no proprietor turned their proposal down - and the law would've been on the Facebook types' side if somebody had.
South Boston is one of a very small number of areas where I watch my back at all times despite being White and easily passing for Irish (lol) as well as being a non-stereotypical gay man. But in all fairness it's a roll of the dice. Gentrifiers are transient by nature, and are therefore apathetic about who or what the people next door or downstairs happen to be. And, just as in any community, there are warm and wonderful Southie natives who judge somebody based solely on how they are. If you're risk takers and/or don't stay around home much, you could fare just fine. Otherwise there are affordable "gayborhoods" in nearby Dorchester as well as Jamaica Plain within the city limits, and pretty much all of Cambridge + Newton + Brookline are accepting kinds of places.

[xS☺B☺s]

Well one can hardly expound upon to GG's thoroughly thorough answer to your question. Just to add my 1/2 cent and make a long answer short, I'd say it's doable but it won't be sweet. I'm straight and Irish and I wouldn't have my family there. And I lived in Lower Roxbury for 7 years. Lower Southie is gritty. And it's a long dirty walk under 93 over mounds of trash, broken glass, homeless and junkies to get from Lower Southie to the South End. The whole area around 93 is zombieland.

[holden125]

Originally Posted by Bostonian08

And it's a long dirty walk under 93 over mounds of trash, broken glass, homeless and junkies to get from Lower Southie to the South End. The whole area around 93 is zombieland.

I really wouldn't do that walk either. There are buses for that trip.

The funny thing is there are a lot of condos gone up closer to Broadway station, but I'll always consider City Point the "gentrified" part of Southie.

[bostonguy1960]

I've seen a couple of flyers securely taped to lightpoles near Broadway station in recent weeks.

It's for a southie gay social group to meet for dinners and other fun events. It includes a black and white photo of some members at a dinner table, with faces slightly blurred.

The flyers haven't been vandalized or torn down in two weeks posted there. They are somewhat hard to notice from afar, so maybe nobody's paid attention to them.

Despite some saying Southie is now a magnet for gay males, I don't see it at all! I use Broadway station all week and walk 10 min. in a part of that neighborhood, and not too many obvious gays or lesbians |trolling home at 5 pm. But I don't think it would be a problem for most residents, as the newer population is more educated and accepting, I would think.

[wheatenterrier]

ya, that area is okay...some cute coffeeshops...but why? it's not worth the cheap rent. I wouldn't hold my girlfriend's hand walking down the street, anytime of day there.