A Year of Living Gay

[Magus]

Originally Posted by Krylo

Ugh, I saw an episode of that where the CEO of a fast food joint after dealing with the manager and mismanagement just closes the whole place down--which isn't the issue, the issue is that he dealt with the employees asking him not to with just a complete inability to understand why they'd want to work there under the guy who had owned the place.

Like when they told him they needed money to survive it's just right over his head just completely incapable of understanding.

Not to go incredibly off topic or anything, just ugh.

Also, I guess it pretty much does lead back into this guy being completely unable to actually 'get' what was going on by pretending.

What, there was an episode of that show with a CEO who was just an asshole? I thought it was all fluffy bullshit. This just makes it sound better than it is. Curse you, Krylo!

EDIT: Bah, I looked up that episode, that was just the first half, the second was like I imagined it would be. I'm quite relieved.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Well techincally not all CEOs are bad.It's just that as far as the media is concerned, people responded to the asshats.

Resulting in things being flanderized. Made worse then they actually are.

[Sithdarth]

All that said: I'm a bit torn on this as a whole. The things Pochy said are certainly true earlier, but if this book getting all this press does happen to help some people stop being such bigoted assholes, even just a little, maybe it's worth it?

A thought occurs to me. People who are oppressed and not in positions of privilege don't generally have the power to start a dialogue about an issue. Intuitively I don't think any great civil rights movement got much traction before people in positions of privilege started the discussion which then opened the way for the truly great leaders of the movements to truly get things done. We're talking Martin Luther King and Susan B Anthony type of people. The ones that truly deserve to be recognized.

I could be wrong here but I think we should encourage people in privileged positions to talk about these things (while making sure they don't dominate the dialogue) because it opens a path by which people without the benefit of that privileged position can take over the dialog and create real change. Theoretically if someone reads his book and their mind is even slightly changed about the issue they will not stop reading. They will most likely seek out related books and these related books (and perhaps other media) will be produced by the people really impacted by this bigotry. To give an anecdote we probably all know a frog placed in boiling water will hop out but a frog placed in cold water that is slowly heated will stay and die. It isn't precisely true but it does teach a good lesson. Change is best accepted gradually and this person does provide a more gradual introduction to the issue and there is something to be said for that.

Is there a still chance that more bad than good will come from it? Of course. Should we be wary of the potential of this to over shadow the stories of those more deserving of having their story told? Of course. Should we attack the guy for trying to do something good even if he did it in a morally grey way? Eh, not so sure at the moment. Depends on what happens in the future. The guy seems to be pretty clear on the point that he doesn't feel like he actually understands what it is to be gay and he is giving at least some of the proceeds to a charity devoted to the issues at hand.

[pochercoaster]

Well the "conundrum" is oppressed groups wouldn't need the voices of the privileged to speak for them in the first place if they (privileged) just stopped talking for 5 minutes.

This just looks like an exercise in privilege flaunting. It's condescending as hell too.

There *is* a lot that allies can too. There's all kinds of things to be done! But you do that by asking LGBT people *what* to do.

And even if he insists that he doesn't understand what it is to be gay, that doesn't make what he did any less wrong.

I've have a bunch of jumbled thoughts on this that I can't really write in a clear manner but I found this post that pretty much says everything I was thinking:

honestly, I held off doing anything about this because I didn’t think he’d be very successfull with his project. I figured he’d be shot down for being a manipulative privileged prick and that would be the end of it but, in latest news, he’s being published and appearing on the view. and I cannot be silent about how fucking disgusting and wrong his actions are, anymore, even if it’s a task that’s gonna take way more energy than I have to offer. we don’t need straight cis dudes speaking for us because they’ll be ~taken more seriously~ why do you think we’re not taken seriously in the first place?! because queerness in viewed as inherently vile and unrespectable and that’s going to continue as long as “allies” implement themselves as our unwanted mouthpieces.

I feel this was a book that didn’t need to be written. there are plenty of texts by people much more qualified and personally invested in the subject than timothy kurek and it was a smug exercise in privilege-flaunting to insert his voice into the discussion. you wanna elevate the voices of the most marginalized in communities of faith? how about trying to achieve that without dressing up in the identities of others and speaking for them? how about seeking those voices out and asking them how you can help get them heard? those voices aren’t straight, white, cis, abled dudes. they aren’t even gay, white, cis, abled dudes. how would this experiment have looked if he’d had visible disabilities? if he weren’t allistic? if he weren’t white? helping (and that’s a dubious claim) the most privileged queers does nothing.

if you wanna go on a ~personal journey of growth~ to break down your own fear and hatred of queer people, don’t write a book about it and profit from the struggles of those whose lives you appropriated before getting tired of the burden and casting them off. we don’t get to do that. send him a facebook message and let him know his actions are unacceptable. better yet, demand he stop production of his book, publicly apologize to those he’s harmed by publishing it, and give the money back to queer people.

Yes, I'm citing tumblr and IDGAF. I want to link the post but the background image for the tumblr is extremely NSFW although the text is fine, so IDK if it'd be breaking the rules to link it as long as there was a warning?

Here's another post (from a different tumblr) that also makes a good point:

It irks me on some deep level, these allies pretending to be queer to ‘prove a point.’ On one level, it’s condescending to us because it says ‘I’m just trying to understand you, by pretending to be you!' And on another level it comes across as them saying to heterosexist nasties ‘Look! I, a straight, able-bodied, cis, Christian white guy rubbed shoulders with the icky queers and it wasn’t bad at all. C’mon, just give them a chance and try to see their humanity.’

Here is a response from someone who's actually gay and christian. Particular emphasis on paragraph 6:

As a gay Christian who grew up internalizing anti-gay theology, I can do without Timothy Kurek attempting to describe any aspect of what I endured. It's unacceptable for him and his book to appropriate and distort gay identity, even for the sake of reaching out to homophobic audiences. Despite attempts to position the book as a story of triumph over homophobia, The Cross and the Closet creates an illusory interpretation of how many gays experience Christian communities and everyday life.

The most troubling aspect of this project is that it's being hailed by various media outlets and reviewers as an intriguing and even revolutionary social experiment -- one that will earn Kurek a profit from book sales. Per his statements, a percentage of the proceeds are going to charities that help homeless LGBT youth. For many, this is a redeeming aspect of Kurek's experiment and subsequent book deal.

Kurek claims that after witnessing the anguish of a friend who tearfully revealed her lesbian identity and told him that she'd just been disowned by her parents, he felt troubled by his desire to "convert" her with scriptures typically used to admonish gays. And so he embarked on a yearlong quest to walk a mile in a gay person's shoes. While Kurek may have been earnest in his efforts to understand and even help, the implications matter as much as, if not more than, the deed itself. First and foremost, any experiment or intervention should be operated according to the principle of "do no harm." Amid all the praise and acclaim, what's not being examined is how actions like these have potentially large consequences, both for LGBT communities and potential allies.

It's problematic to enter into this type of experimental undertaking without full awareness or consideration of the tensions between groups that are often at odds. Not only is Christianity a privileged religion in American society, but it has enshrined its institutionalized homophobia and transphobia in our legal system via political leaders who legislate with botched interpretations of scripture. And more often than not, those leaders are straight men. So for one such man to conduct spiritual espionage under a "gay" disguise means that he operated with the privilege of sexual and religious identifications often implicated in committing injustices against LGBT people. And that very privilege is the lens through which he examines the experiences of gay people and then publishes his thoughts for the world to consume.

After his participation in anti-gay church communities and his brief attendance at Liberty University, he should have already known what to expect after "coming out" to family and friends. While he experienced social isolation and a number of other marginalizing experiences, these were attacks on the false label he wore, not on who Kurek really is. Plenty of gay people yearn for the day when they can share a story that's five, 10 or 20 years in the making, but they can't, because they fear losing their families, friends and even their homes and livelihoods -- for more than just one year. Kurek also bypassed the years of mental anguish and internalized homophobia that many gays suffer through. He was exempt from nights spent crying about a God who doesn't love him for who he is. Instead, he could sleep assured of the "rightness" of his sexual identity, without praying a single prayer that God would change him to be straight and save him from eternal damnation. He didn't face the prospect, let alone the detrimental effects, of reparative therapy. Gay identity cannot and should not be reduced to a mere label that one can wear and take off at one's own convenience, yet this is afforded to Kurek in his privileged status as a straight, Christian man.

This book may encourage homophobic readers to reconsider their prejudices, which I truly hope may happen. For many, it will be the first encounter with a narrative of gay experiences, but that narrative is told from the perspective of a straight man's yearlong experiment, not from a firsthand account. Not only does this oversimplify gay identity, but it may perpetuate stereotypes that community outsiders may otherwise not examine because the storyteller is straight. Conservative Christian readers, without an alternate frame of reference (other than their own homophobic beliefs), may take Kurek's observations and conclusions at face value, thus validating them, because his voice is perceived as one of their own, not one of the many gay voices already offering constructive commentary and firsthand experiences. After reading this book, people who otherwise might have been helpful new allies could emerge viewing LGBT people as helpless victims who lack the agency and empowerment for self-advocacy and change from within. To do so would be to ignore the rich legacy and impact of the LGBT movement, especially within faith communities.

Kurek may have exercised a degree of caution by having gay people with whom he could process his field observations, but many voices were already available to Kurek in books written by LGBT Christians and others who have become allies, people who penned their stories without needing to appropriate assumptions and stereotypes about gay life in order to draw poignant conclusions. But rather than defer to voices of expertise in the subject matter he was approaching, Kurek apparently felt that this experiment was his best recourse to understanding what gays experience. I'm heartened that he emerged as an ally, but I feel that it is arrogant for him or any other straight person to somehow believe that all it takes is living under a label to understand gay experiences.

Probably not coincidentally, the book's release coincided with National Coming Out Day. On an occasion when many LGBT people reflect on their own journeys and others share who they are with loved ones, Kurek offered his story of "coming out" only to return to his comfortable position of privilege. In the end, The Cross and The Closet is a botched social experiment that operates on myths about gay identity in order to sort through the prejudices of an unlikely straight protagonist. One can only hope that, in some way, Kurek's story changes minds. But will it have all been a waste if readers come away with distorted ideas about gay experiences, or even if they have their privilege validated?

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[Bells]

Except that so far he didn't claim to be a voice for the Gay community, nor did he claim to speak for the gay community. Only for himself... It's HIS first hand account of his unique experience, it's suppose to mirror HIS side, not show him what is it like to be a gay man, but to show himself what the people around him saw gay people like. He just put himself on the front line of the bigoted hatred, which helped him step away from his own prejudicial views.

Was it a poor way of doing it? Perhaps so, i still think he could probably get the same idea via other ways, since from the start he never seemed to have a real personal issue with gay people to begin with.

He admits that what triggered it all was when he saw himself being indifferent to a gay friend problems. And then he had another gay friend pretending to be his boyfriend through the whole thing... so, from the start, clearly this dude wasn't as repulsed by the LGBT community as some of his peers revealed themselves to be in the end...

[Sithdarth]

Well the "conundrum" is oppressed groups wouldn't need the voices of the privileged to speak for them in the first place if they (privileged) just stopped talking for 5 minutes.

At the moment this is how the world works. If one wishes to have any sort of realistic chance of causing real change one has to begin by working within the confines of the current system. Misanthropic rantings about how terrible the situation currently is and how we should change it aren't exactly productive. You work with what you are given and try your hardest to make sure that changes so that other people can take advantage of a more fair system later.

This just looks like an exercise in privilege flaunting. It's condescending as hell too.

This right here is a problem. Negative reinforcement doesn't work in terms of behavioral modification. Sure you might get the superficial changes you were looking for (and usually quite quickly) but in the end it pretty much always does more harm than good. When you have a person that is genuinely making the attempt to do something good but in a morally grey (or just plain bad) way being negative towards them isn't really going to help the situation. It certainly hasn't helped foster productive discussions around here.

I understand (in a very limited way) the latent anger and hostility that can come from victims of bigotry. I was quite literally shunned by essentially everyone in my school K-12 because my family was from a different place and I "spazzed out" when I got angry or frustrated. (I even got a group beating once in elementary school because I tried to join choir with the cool kids to get out of doing extra class work. There are other examples like my name getting erased from signup sheets for things and the list goes on.) These relatively mild experiences have left me more than a little bitter towards people in general and basically everyone I went to school with. Whenever I see an ad about stopping bullying I just get angry because no one was there to help me. These reactions are counterproductive and we should seek to control them in order to make productive dialog possible. Your feelings are valid and you should have and share them but perhaps not to the point where they impede the overall dialog.

And even if he insists that he doesn't understand what it is to be gay, that doesn't make what he did any less wrong.

If you can't see any grey area at all then perhaps we just shouldn't have this conversation in the first place as it is just going to turn into a train wreck that will do far more harm than good. And by we shouldn't have this conversation I mean I will try my best to step away from this thread entirely and leave you to it. Not that I expect you to stop voicing your opinions.

The other points are to greater and lesser degrees valid concerns (although some are perhaps a bit out of proportion). The first one in particular seems to be a knee jerk reaction that completely missed the part about the guy giving some portion of the proceeds to support relevant charities. I've yet to find a percentage placed on that and depending on how high(low) that percentage is it could be a good(bad) thing. But in general the concerns posted are valid and should be expressed but they could be expressed in a better way that fosters a more positive dialog. But in some cases that old saying "There is no such thing as bad publicity" does apply. Now I'm not saying the community should just sit back and be grateful someone in a place of privilege decided to "slum it" and attempt to help them. I'm saying this is an opportunity to start a meaningful dialog and if we concentrate too much on the negative side of his actions we lose some (perhaps all) of that opportunity.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

Originally Posted by Sithdarth

At the moment this is how the world works. If one wishes to have any sort of realistic chance of causing real change one has to begin by working within the confines of the current system. Misanthropic rantings about how terrible the situation currently is and how we should change it aren't exactly productive. You work with what you are given and try your hardest to make sure that changes so that other people can take advantage of a more fair system later.

We've tried this one for the last 200 years or so. It hasn't exactly worked out.

[Sithdarth]

We've tried this one for the last 200 years or so. It hasn't exactly worked out.

There has been significantly more change then people generally realize. Things are moving in the general direction of improving (although backsliding does happen occasionally). Perhaps it isn't happening fast enough for everyone's taste but it is happening and that cannot be denied. We have perhaps not reached the goals set out 200 years ago but perhaps those goals were a bit unrealistic to begin with.

Edit: To give an example. Alan Turing the man that basically invented computers and was one of the most important people in the British fight against Germany was chemically castrated by his own government for being gay. He had made the mistake of going to the police when someone he had a relationship with had told a third friend who then robbed Turing. At which point they convicted him of what literally was nothing more than being gay and gave him the choice of prison or chemical castration. The effects of the chemical castration eventually leading to his apparent suicide (There is still some debate about if it was a suicide or just an accident). At least in most parts of the world this doesn't happen anymore which is something of an improvement. Life still isn't perfect but one can't ignore the improvements that have occurred simply because they wish more improvement had been made.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

And yet we have greater wealth disparity than at any other point in human history. We are the most wasteful society in terms of our potential productive capacity in history- we spectaculaly waste our resources and our labour for the sole purpose of maintaining discrimination to a degree unfathomable to our ancestors. We have immense widespread crippling poverty, we still have institutional discrimination, we still accept these as standard practice. And this is not even counting the poorer countries.
This isn't progress- this is token gestures so that everybody can justify their terrible existence and not rise up to kill their lord and masters.
The "improvements" are ephemeral at best and I can ignore them because they aren't designed to improve anyone- they are designed to give the facade of a dream that you too can become an overlord- even if you are a black or gay or a woman- though we can't give them too much hope in this front through actual tackling of discriminatory issues because then they might realise that hey, they actually have power to fix the greater problems.

The exact reason we havne't made any change is because people accepted these small changes- because the liberals and the labours and the unions said that this was change- that this was acceptable- that this was progress and then sold it to us as that. These token toppings of our poop with whipped cream became the dialogue of change- that was what was meant by change- the revolutionary mantra was removed from the conversation because we were making progress, we didn't need such things did we. Accepting such things as progress is selling out to the forces of reaction, it is accepting their definition of progress which is precisely one of antiprogress.

[Bells]

And i have the feeling we are now talking about something slightly "else"