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Remaining out and proud is the single most important contribution any queer can make, both to our history and our future.
From Lex in the above string.
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I think what I get from a lot of the younger generation of gays and lesbians is that, far different from the let's say pre 1980's generation when being out and militant as well as exercizing solidarity with other social groups was part of the continuing social revolution of the '60's, today the youth have a consciousness of being the fought over and about generation that has both more open and greater opportunities socially and economically as well as having to at the same time endure a more rabid, more intensely organized and conservatively politcally villifying assault. The social environment for young gays today is more contradictory, rewards may come easier and more openly for a few but so do sanctions and the threat of real violence.
So in a way it is not surprising at all that along with the suburbanization of much of Manhattan comes some element of backward slide to the social environment that was going in the opposite direction. But I easily recall that even ten years or more ago I could not get a cab on Houston St. to stop when I wanted to go to Jackie and happened to be turned out with very little on in the way of clothes.
And lets be clear about gays represented in the media and showbiz, they aren't comprehended by the general public as being real on the sidewalk people at all but are among the supposedly very rare and exotic celebrities who are straight, all elevated and standing in the phoney spell of stardom. In a sense it is the old 'model minority' problem blacks and asians have dealt with forever.
I identify with Bobby's open dismay at the readiness with which so many young people seem ready to dismiss their elders, since it is so disappointing to not be appreciated by 'one's own'. But I think one has to nevertheless still be unconditionally open and willing to communicate with these distracted, preoccupied youths. A great deal of how they have been socialized and what they have internalized is not the result of choices they were offered but of ideas and attitudes imposed -and yes, often by their own peers.
At this point in my life I get bad attitude and public social dismissals because of my age, because I am perceived by some as being hispanic, by others as being gay, and recently someone went off on me in a bodega because to them I was a communist! (Of course, but rarely, I also meet with offers of assistance, help and affirmation in public for all the same reasons).
So it would appear to me there IS a permeating backslide in the society to some degree. But I am not all so certain it is because the majority of the population has been affected by the virulent negativity of certain political moralizing organs or because those hostile factions - a social minority themselves- have simply organized, financed, indoctrinated and lobbied their believers and cadres to a degree far greater than anytime in the past. What Act Up did for gay issues fifteen years ago is what the moralizing minority is doing for themselves now. Whatever the answer it is certain to me the society is in a hieghtened state of conflict in many areas. Of course without a doubt a vast amount of this moralizing hostility is the effect of the cheerleaders in national governement offices. And being left on the curb late at night by passing cabs is one of those litmus tests that is not easy to ignore.