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Personally, I think the gay community is incredibly unwelcoming, pretentious, stratified and judgmental. The farther away I am from a gay mecca, the better. I'm 36, single, stuck in Jacksonville, and eating pizza and cookies for dinner and IDGAF anymore and it's liberating.
Whatever floats your boat. I love it, but I get why it isn't everyone's cup o' tea.
Personally, I think the gay community is incredibly unwelcoming, pretentious, stratified and judgmental. The farther away I am from a gay mecca, the better. I'm 36, single, stuck in Jacksonville, and eating pizza and cookies for dinner and IDGAF anymore and it's liberating.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mjtinmemphis
I generally agree with your statement. Especially in the big cities. I personally had never experienced racism in the gay community until I lived in Chicago. It was horrible. Very bad and entitled attitude.
I've also lived in Charlotte and currently live in St. Louis. The vibe is so much more inclusive and laid back.
Both of these statements are unfortunately very true. For a community that rallies together for equal rights, protections, marriage, etc. it is one of the most exclusive (in a bad way), judgmental, insecure, racist communities there is, and its sad.
Anyways, to make this on topic, that type of behavior is present in every major city, notably the obvious major ones. My experiences in cities like Indianapolis, Cincinnati and a few other places were among the most welcoming/refreshing from a gay standpoint, although they are looked down upon from gays in New York and LA (not making that up).
Anyways, not to s*** on the entire community, I still have a wonderful group of friends and met many LGBT professionals through work and various organizations and am super thankful to have that support system, but it took a long time to navigate through the mess of pretention and judgement, but some enjoy that environment, heck I live in New York City and see it firsthand...
Last edited by cpomp; 12-15-2020 at 07:43 AM..
Reason: edit
Both of these statements are unfortunately very true. For a community that rallies together for equal rights, protections, marriage, etc. it is one of the most exclusive (in a bad way), judgmental, insecure, racist communities there is, and its sad.
Anyways, to make this on topic, that type of behavior is present in every major city, notably the obvious major ones. My experiences in cities like Indianapolis, Cincinnati and a few other places were among the most welcoming/refreshing from a gay standpoint, although they are looked down upon from gays in New York and LA (not making that up).
Anyways, not to s*** on the entire community, I still have a wonderful group of friends and met many LGBT professionals through work and various organizations and am super thankful to have that support system, but it took a long time to navigate through the mess of pretention and judgement, but some enjoy that environment, heck I live in New York City and see it firsthand...
Agree with you but to be fair, straight people from New York and LA look down on people from cities like Indianapolis and Cincinnati. For the most part, I think we're just a personified microcosm of the straight community. Gay's in smaller cities are nicer and more inviting but you're less likely to be as well dressed or dare I say "fit" or financially as successful, same story for alot of the straight community i.e. straights in Manahattan vs. straights in Louisville.
Agree with you but to be fair, straight people from New York and LA look down on people from cities like Indianapolis and Cincinnati. For the most part, I think we're just a personified microcosm of the straight community. Gay's in smaller cities are nicer and more inviting but you're less likely to be as well dressed or dare I say "fit" or financially as successful, same story for alot of the straight community i.e. straights in Manahattan vs. straights in Louisville.
I think the difference is: As "out" gays are far less numerous than straight people, the pretension and condescension are far more evident and noticeable when in gay social settings.
I can find plenty of affluent, buff, good-looking straight people who don't display the character traits described here. You can find similar gay specimens, but it seems they're harder to find.
But I will grant that New Yorkers in general tend to look down their noses at people from anywhere else save maybe LA, SF, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Washington, but many of them are still surprised if/when residents of these cities do not regard the Big Apple with the slack-jawed awe they feel it deserves.
cpomp, perhaps because he originally hails from here, is one of the exceptions to this rule.
Around here, everyone I know does. This is a very out and proud place, nothing to laugh about at all.
Your circle of friends has nothing to do with regular society. The majority of homosexual people do not self disclose. It’s often a matter of privacy, as well as survival.
Your circle of friends has nothing to do with regular society. The majority of homosexual people do not self disclose. It’s often a matter of privacy, as well as survival.
I think that while that statement is true overall, it's less true among (a) the younger generation (b) residents of larger cities, no matter where in the country they are located.*
When you have people like Rachel Maddow hosting cable news programs and Ellen DeGeneres hosting popular talk shows; when male "Jeopardy!" contestants talk about their wonderful husbands in banter with Alex Trebek; when residents of a low-income Black neighborhood in North Philadelphia elect an openly gay Black man to the state legislature**, and said Black man becomes a liberal media darling for his outspokenness; and when an incoming President appoints an openly gay former mayor of a smaller city in Indiana to his Cabinet, all these things send pretty powerful cultural signals into the nation's closets — a fact that's not lost on the Judgmentalist Christians who continue to fight a rear-guard action to stuff us all back into the closet.
I suspect you might find that were you to survey younger gay men and women, you'd find that less than half of them decline to self-identify. And the same would apply to residents of most of our larger cities, many of which are blue dots in red seas.
*Cities that are themselves conservative, like Oklahoma City, are exceptions to this rule, of course.
**Somewhere on The Atlantic's website is a very good documentary that followed State Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta around on Election Day. One of the things he had to respond to rapidly were efforts by a local politician, Milton Street, to gaybait him by handing out flyers at polling stations in his district. (Milton Street, the brother of former Mayor John Street, is generally regarded as comic relief by most political observers here. His efforts failed, as Kenyatta won that day. And again, he made no secret of his sexual orientation.)
I haven’t seen anyone mention Palm Springs or Fort Lauderdale. Palm Springs and Wilton Manors are probably the two gayest cities on earth. Key West is another great gay travel destination with a large amount of gay locals too.
I think Orlando, Miami, New Orleans, and Dallas have been way underrated so far. All of those cities have huge gay events that drew thousands of visitors before covid. Southern Decadence alone should move New Orleans up on the list. TBRU in Dallas is huge it’s one of the bigger bear events in the country. Gay Days in Orlando is big as well as other events. Miami has a big circuit following but so do a lot of cities including Dallas.
I never really hear much about Boston aside from p-town or having a big college scene. Same with Seattle.
I agree with some others on San Francisco. It’s more of a legacy city now. I love the city and the history but the bars are kind of meh.
I need to visit Chicago. I hear so many great things
Dallas doesn’t have a P-town or a Fire Island nearby. I’d say most people who want a gay vacation end up going to Puerto Vallarta or somewhere in Florida.
I haven’t seen anyone mention Palm Springs or Fort Lauderdale. Palm Springs and Wilton Manors are probably the two gayest cities on earth. Key West is another great gay travel destination with a large amount of gay locals too.
I took the question to mean actual cities, which would disqualify Wilton Manors and Palm Springs (even though they are very gay). Wilton Manors is basically where the daddies go to retire (I absolutely loved the night I spent going to the bars there), and Palm Springs is basically the desert version of that. Palm Springs also hosts White Party Palm Springs, which is one of the most popular and long-running circuit parties.
Fort Lauderdale would definitely qualify as a very gay, actual city though.
I took the question to mean actual cities, which would disqualify Wilton Manors and Palm Springs (even though they are very gay). Wilton Manors is basically where the daddies go to retire (I absolutely loved the night I spent going to the bars there), and Palm Springs is basically the desert version of that. Palm Springs also hosts White Party Palm Springs, which is one of the most popular and long-running circuit parties.
Fort Lauderdale would definitely qualify as a very gay, actual city though.
I love Wilton Manors and Fort Lauderdale and South Florida in general too
I always have so much fun when I’m there. I love the guest house I stay at near the beach.
The bars there are fun too. I found some plastic drink tokens the other day from Georgie’s.
I haven’t seen anyone mention Palm Springs or Fort Lauderdale. Palm Springs and Wilton Manors are probably the two gayest cities on earth. Key West is another great gay travel destination with a large amount of gay locals too.
I think Orlando, Miami, New Orleans, and Dallas have been way underrated so far. All of those cities have huge gay events that drew thousands of visitors before covid. Southern Decadence alone should move New Orleans up on the list. TBRU in Dallas is huge it’s one of the bigger bear events in the country. Gay Days in Orlando is big as well as other events. Miami has a big circuit following but so do a lot of cities including Dallas.
I never really hear much about Boston aside from p-town or having a big college scene. Same with Seattle.
I agree with some others on San Francisco. It’s more of a legacy city now. I love the city and the history but the bars are kind of meh.
I need to visit Chicago. I hear so many great things
Dallas doesn’t have a P-town or a Fire Island nearby. I’d say most people who want a gay vacation end up going to Puerto Vallarta or somewhere in Florida.
Dallas was pretty gay in the 80's as well as the 90's, and it's still pretty gay. My first experience around a group of gay people out and about was as a teen at the Starck Club during a teen night in the 80's. That club was simply phenomenal. Houston also had a pretty large gay population during the early 90's. One thing I loved about Texas was that whether you were in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, or Austin, the clubs were filled with gays and straights mixing it up. Some people don't give the people and the state enough credit.
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