Visibility, Here and Now

Is gay-bashing on the rise again or does it just feel like it here in the DC metro area?  In the past month, we’ve learned about two hate crimes in our area. The first, in DC, resulted in the death of the victim.

The second, in Baltimore, sent the victim to a local hospital. And those are just two of what are likely many such attacks across the country (I’ve seen multiple headlines about other attacks in just the past few weeks). As I blogged earlier this week on the Out Front Blog, I’m not sure what is causing these heinous attacks, but I am sure that we should not react to these crimes by becoming less visible or less out. 

We need to keep talking about our lives, openly and honestly. We need to keep working to pass hate crimes legislation and defeat anti-gay marriage initiatives like those in California and Arizona and Florida. We need to keep looking for those straight allies – corporations, individuals and others – who value our lives and our contributions to society. We need to keep living our lives, despite the challenges that brings to many of us. 

We often hear about how difficult it is to be out in small towns and how “easy” it is to be out in big cities. I think that’s wrong. It can be easy in small towns and difficult in big cities. That’s not the point. The reality is that despite all of our progress, it can still be hard out here – everywhere – for an LGBT person (apologies to Hollywood for paraphrasing a song from a much different movie). Life for LGBT people is, for the most part, better in 2008 than it was in 1998 or 1988.  But, we’ve still got a long way to go. 

I’m a professional communicator, so of course I’m going to say that more conversation is going to help. But I really believe that it will. And more engagement by straight allies – from all walks of life – will continue to make a real difference. To paraphrase Mother Jones, let’s pray for the dead and work like hell for the living. And let’s remember that we have a lot of allies (see the post below about Pepsi, for example) to help us.

So, that’s my first post here. What do YOU think? How difficult (or easy) is it for you to be out (if you are) where you live?  Let’s get the conversation started here and now. 

Ben Finzel is a Senior Vice President at Fleishman-Hillard and Global Co-Chair, FH Out Front.  You can visit their blog at www.outfrontblog.com.

Image courtesy Microsoft

Comments

[bj]

I moved from a big town to a VERY small town. I had to go back in the closet. No one gave a darn in the big city, but here I was told by close friends to keep my mouth shut, or I would be killed. Not only that, but locals have said they wouldn't vote for Obama just because he's black, period, only they used the n-word. While there are hate crimes in big cities, I'm ready to move back and will when I can afford to. Losing my identity isn't worth a little peace and quiet.

[Jonathan]

I've found the best scenario is a balance between big city and rural towns. Funny as it sounds, my experience is that there is more hate crimes in big cities because we are actually visible, and often the most stereotypical people stand out the most - creating even more disgust and intolerance. I find that to be the same with race. In smaller cities, people aren't as familiar with who we are, and often that can be to our advantage since they don't have a lot of real life experiences to set in their prejudices.

In any event we have to remember that our quest for civil rights is still very, very early in the game...even more so for gay men, because no matter how 'progressive' a place is, there is something about young heterosexual males that is so against gay people. Visit any middle school in this country to see the proof of that. What's missing the most is support among gay men! How the hell can we sit here and talk about being discriminated against when we do it to each other the most? I've read of many anti-gay attacks where, rather than helping the guy out, the other gay men in the area ran as quickly as possible away from the scene and did nothing. Over the last ten years or so the gay male community has become even more anonymous (mostly because the internet has become the new closet) and we have found ways to never have to put real human emotions on the faces of the gay men we see at whatever events we attend. Until we see other gay people as humans with feelings, rather than being so in love with ourselves, nobody's ever going to grow up!