Cisgenderism and Classism in LGBT Community Papers

I pretty frequently end up picking up and reading the regional LGBT papers and news magazines. There are several, as we tend to get ones that focus not only on New England, but also the NYC metro area. And I'm pretty sure at this point, as they only serve to make me feel alienated from the LGBT community, that I read them to get pissed off and frustrated.

Generally, that's just because they're very much focused on white, upper middle class, gendernormative, assimilationist LGB folk, with a token and stereotyped trans* representation thrown in every once in a while in an attempt to be inclusive. And, of course, when dealing with trans* issues, there's never any recognition of how much LGB and T folk overlap, or the fact that many are both lesbian, gay, or bisexual and trans, or that many lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have gender expressions that are sufficiently non-normative that their struggles are intimately connected to people that the community more traditionally labels as trans*. And, of course, that focus means that gay men get the most space, then lesbians, and bisexuality is rendered invisible. And never mind the vast number of queers whom none of those labels accurately reflect their experiences.

The class issues are pretty much par for the course at this point - all readers are just assumed to be upper middle class and intensely consumption focused, so we all have our highest priorities as remote vacation destinations, luxury goods, and the political focus being nearly entirely on marriage - because that is the form of oppression that privileged, white, upper-middle class gender normative LGB folk feel. I was pleasantly surprised, however, that ENDA was so strongly covered, and that all the regional publications were strongly for only gender-inclusive ENDA. Which I want to believe is more than lip service. Race issues are always covered in a very separate way, as if it is not the responsibility of white queers to work on their racism and white privilege. Generally, as a white queer, when I am around groups exclusively made up of other white queers, I am struck by how blind white queers are to our community's racism, how eager they are to view the African-American religious community as a monolithic entity that advocates homophobia (totally ignoring the variety of views, and the fact that it's the homophobia advocated by the white religious community that has the power to oppress white queers), and how much they think that by not doing things they perceive as overtly racist, they perceive themselves as being good on race issues.

Occasionally, however, there is something that is just so blatantly from a place of privilege that I am taken aback and left feeling smacked in the face. I was reading the early November issue of Metroline - which purports itself to be "New England's Oldest Gay and Lesbian Publication" and is published out of Hartford, CT, and focuses primarily on Connecticut, with some focus also on New York City and the rest of New England. And I get to a column, The Sweet Life, by Lauren Incognito, the editor of Metroline, entitled "Women, Wine and Chocolate...Now That's Amore". Now, I'm figuring from the title that this probably about some very upper middle class targeted social gathering - you get good at reading these things - but having nothing better to do at the moment, I go ahead and read the article, even though it's probably going to make me feel shitty about class and income divisions in the queer community.

And then, right in the first paragraph, I get smacked right in the face.

Ms. Incognito writes:

I love when the gay community debunks negative stereotypes. As unconscionable as it may seem, there are plenty of people who still think lesbians are flannel-wearing butches who drive pick-up trucks with their mullets blowing in the wind. A lesbian in heels carrying a handbag? Don't be ridiculous. But again, I love when the gay community debunks negative stereotypes.

And I love when the gay community reinforces the systematic oppression of gender variant people while turning on and eating their own. As the editor of a publication distributed regionally, I would hope Ms. Incognito is well aware of how using the word "negative" frames the stereotype, in that she is flat out saying it is bad to be a butch, bad for a lesbian to be masculine. This is a flat out blatant example of cisgenderism being exhibited by a gender normative lesbian. A removal of just the two instances of the word "negative" would eliminate the blatant, overt cisgenderism, which would just leave us with how she codes butches. This, just on gender issues, could just be commentary on a stereotype (mullets and flannel are generally seen as unfashionable, as well as masculine), and not necessarily an implication that masculine lesbians are unfashionable. And yes, it's important to point out that not all lesbians are masculine, and feminine lesbians and femmes often struggle for visibility (though I think this is more becoming an issue of them being visible as queer, rather than people believing that feminine women can be queer - given that the vast majority of media representations of lesbians range from a very soft andro through various feminine presentations, and generally focus on lesbians that can easily pass as straight) However, her cisgenderism neatly intersects with her classism, as her next paragraph makes clear:

The invitation said to park anywhere around the cul-de-sac, which, by the time I had arrived, was filled to capacity. Sheer happenstance granted me the last visible spot. As I tucked my car keys into my coat pocket I couldn't help but survey the outline of the cars, which had spilled onto the interior lawn. One Mercedes, Two Mercedes. Here a Lexus, there a Lexus, everywhere a SAAB, SAAB.

and later in the column:

It was a continuous deluge of women - professional, powerful women who, every day of their life, shatter stereotypes.

Comparing this to the stereotype she calls on in her first paragraph, we can see how she encodes her classism in that stereotype. Flannel, mullets, and pick up trucks are all coded as belonging to working class, blue collar folk. Folk whose appearance choices are seen as unfashionable and ugly, and whose clothing, by virtue of being to stand up to physical work, is considered ugly. Pickup trucks, by virtue of being a multipurpose vehicle that can haul lots of stuff and easily carry a variety of tools, are particularly suited to many blue collar jobs, most of which don't pay nearly well enough for the worker to have a vehicle for their job, and one for their personal use - and implying that they should have a second vehicle is glorifying consumption (of course, she doesn't even consider the possibility that any of them women there are blue collar/working class and passing as middle class). By seeing a sea of luxury cars parked around her, cars that require vast amounts of economic privilege to attain and maintain, she is assured that she will be surrounded by women who share her class background and class values.

The whole world is a man's world, and yes, women who work jobs that are upper middle class and white collar shatter stereotypes, just as do women who do blue collar, physical work, whether it be construction, working in a factory, or any other physical job. Valuing upper middle class women over working class women, and holding up women whose appearance is coded as working class as an object of ridicule is blatant classism. And it's a double insult when it is tied in with a demeaning portrayal of butches. The gendering in white collar jobs and the gender expectations on middle class people viewed as women makes it even harder for those people who grew up poor and working class who are masculine and perceived as women to break into jobs that give access to middle class economic status, and the gender variance of masculine people perceived as women who grew up in the middle class often serves as another impediment to their access to white collar work, above and beyond the impediments they suffer for being women or being perceived as women, and being queer. This often precipitates a drastic fall in economic access and class status. In addition, the butches she maligns don't have the option of whether to remain closeted at work, and only come out when they think it is safe enough to do so - their queerness is readily visible.

It's bad enough dealing with the sexism, cisgenderism, and heterosexism of the straight world, and as Ms. Incognito's ridicule shows, the latter two are intimately linked - people singled out for oppression for being queer are often singled out and visible because they don't perform gender correctly. It's worse to be subject to the cisgenderism and classism of the queer community, which should be a safe and comfortable environment for all queers. It seems that as queers have gained more and more social acceptance, we have remained divided by racism, and have grown increasingly divided by classism and cisgenderism. Lesbian feminism certainly pushed butches and femmes out of the community in the 70s and 80s, but, now, as lesbians that can meet the expectations of upper middle class society increasingly gain economic privilege and acceptance, they turn on those who can't - creating a community that divides its gender expectations on class lines. Those with economic access gained by their ability to be just like the straights with the exception of their object choice now ridicule those who deviate from the norms of straight society and view them as lessers based on both their gender deviance and lack of economic privilege.