Disclaimer: I'm not really going to discuss celebrity straight allies in this post. I'll mainly be focusing on actual LGBT people. Just so you know.
So yesterday a new article was linked by LGBTQ Nation's facebook page:
http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/12/parents-say-anti-gay-bullying-is-to-blame-for-sons-suicide/And my first thought, as most peoples' would be, was "How many gay kids need to kill themselves before people wake the hell up?" And then I started to think that, wow, we sure hear a lot about white gay males killing themselves.
Then I was reminded of a conversation I had earlier had with one of my other queer friends about the modern faces of the LGBT movement: Mostly gay white attractive males. You have your Ellen DeGeneres and your Rachel Maddow, but the overwhelming majority of activists or supporters that most people can think about are dudes who happen to be both white and attractive; Dan Savage, Tyler Oakley, DaveyWavey (every time I type his name I vomit a little), Chris Colfer. And then you have other people who may be black but well-known, like RuPaul, but they are much less common and usually have to fit into mainstream perceptions of what gay guys are to get people to listen. I am by no means the kind of person to complain about flamboyancy in guys, as I'm not exactly the pinnacle of masculinity, but I rarely see anyone care about a gay guy who they can't "totes go shopping and talk about bois wif".
Not to mention the severe lack of help for transgender people in the movement. Sometimes I almost wonder why the "T" is even included, seeing as the first 7 pages of the "suicide" tag on LGBTQ Nation's website yields...all gay men. they do report on trans* issues, of course, but with much less frequency, despite trans* people having a higher rate of suicide and harassment than gay people. And going back to the activists, who the fuck do we even have to communicate about transgender issues to the media? Chaz Bono, even though I've heard most transmen don't even like the guy? I get that the trans* equality movement has a long way to go before it gets on the level of the gay rights movement, but it bothers me how magazines and activists that claim to be for LGBT issues to not give the assistance to the transgender equality movement that it desperately needs.
I've always had this problem with the LGBT movement seemingly prioritizing the needs of attractive gay men first, then helping out the rest, and maybe throwing a few scraps of food to the trans* community. Has anyone else on here noticed this, or am I just going crazy and should be paying even more attention to the movement? I admit, I'm not a definitive expert, but I like to believe that I pay enough attention to it. So yeah, thoughts?