[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by guest

I mean in accessorising his homosexuality but also hewing close to almost every tenet of heteronormativity, will qualify that it’s a reach/based on assumption as to the image he’s presenting (as I said) but I find it disconcerting for someone to piggyback off their minority status (“I’m the gay mayor!”) yet totally eschew that perspective in formulating policy. a notional ‘gay candidate’ to me would Ideally entail someone upending traditional political leadership just in actually embodying an intersectional position rather than simply maintaining the status quo.

what I’m saying is he uses queerness as an identity demarcation when in actuality he’s the ‘straightest’ candidate of all

i know what you said the first time, this is just the same problematic judgment recoded in theoryspeak.

“if gay therefore intersectional, else not real gay, per me”

how about

“if black therefore good dancer, else not black” per you?

[eta: black girl who can’t dance: https://www.bustle.com/articles/7149...ite-girls-with ]

i mean, the guy is a child of two academics, high school valedictorian, harvard graduate, rhodes scholar, management consultant, navy intelligence officer, precocious politician, episcopalian convert...

...and you get to decide that because he’s gay he must think and behave in a stereotypical way that you’ve predetermined?

ETA: i should add an explanation of my perspective, having lived in dc, which is a government town and also a bit of a gay mecca, where one gets to meet a lot of socially conservative, traditionalist gay people. a lot of suits and ties and serious business.

a myriad gay professionals work in the federal bureaucracy, all branches of the armed forces, congress, the white house, the courts, nonprofits, lobbies, law firms, city government, etc. it’s a “boring” town—the city population is very liberal, but not a radical one. government workers are concerned with running the government well, not overthrowing it. in fact i had a gay neighbor who worked in the state department, very patriotic guy, who once gave me a talking-to about the dangers of radicalism.

i also had this gay coworker, young, catholic, was heavily into social policy (we worked in an advocacy group), looked very clean-cut, always in a suit, was an athlete, sang in a choir, lived with an older man from the political aristocracy, and was very much a democrat, who came to my office and heard the sonic youth tape i was playing and asked me why i was “listening to that garbage”

anyway, yeah, pete is gay and a presidential candidate and fucking brilliant and a practical guy. he also plays guitar with bands and the piano with the symphony—just nothing very avant-garde. get used to it.