http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/20/1403852/-Gay-Privileged-Section-of-Town
Gay communities, or gay ghettos grew and flourished all over America. Why? Well, If you think 1960s and 1970s, America wasn't exactly a friendly place for gay men and women. We were beaten, bloodied and killed all over America simply because of who we love.
We found safety and solace with others of our kind and that was the principle underlying catalyst for gay ghettos all over America. From the South End in Boston, The Village in NYC, Mount Vernon in Baltimore, Dupont Circle in DC, Boystown in Chicago, Castro in San Francisco, and countless others, gays from all over America migrated to these areas looking for hope and most importantly acceptance and love.
In those years, if you were out, chances are you didn't have a well paying job and any chance of getting on a serious career path to more well paying jobs were pretty much impossible if you were out. But, gay men and women found community in these areas which were all ghettos at one time. It was what they could afford.
You can search through the newspaper archives of any major city and find countless examples of gay bashings and even killings in those neighborhoods. Even though we found safety in numbers, it was still dangerous to walk even walk across the street from Grand Central Club in Mount Vernon to the Hippo in Mount Vernon, Baltimore. You didn't walk anywhere on your own, especially if you were beyond a few blocks of Mount Vernon. It was an irresponsible thing to do. Even today, we still here of gay bashings in these areas. Google it.
Fast forward 40 years and these areas are thriving, fairly well to do areas. So much so, that gays can no longer afford to live in the neighborhood they themselves created. For example, Dupont Circle is no longer affordable. Gays have moved to other parts of town like Logan Circle, Shaw and even NE into neighborhoods which were much like Dupont was so many years ago.
To call those neighborhoods privileged is ludicrous. Privilege for all the blood that was shed, all the beatings, all the heckling and taunting and yes, even the deaths. To call it privilege is wholly offensive to this gay man and I'm not letting it go by without my railing against it.
Would we call South Williamsburg and Borough Park in NYC Jewish priveleged? Or call Prince Georges County Maryland, Black privileged? Or Chinatown in San Fran Chinese privileged? The use of the term in any of those contexts, including the "gay sections" is absurd and offensive.
i need to take a moment to wipe the drippings of hypocrisy off my screen. hey bigots you can't assign privilege to a situation that bigotry created such as neighborhoods these referred to are in DC, i remember the demographics back in the day i lived 2 blks from Logan Circle on R st. it was not one way or the other,
i remember DuPont Circle and seeing Gays walking holding hands on R, Q and P streets coming and going i did a lot of appliance repairs in those areas but i had no idea they were victims of forced migration. we all know here that middle class Whites come in and we are moved to those areas mentioned above and we see that same dynamic today all over DC. i have lived here where am now for going on 16 years my building was recently sold to a White "GROUP" i am worried.
the need to categorize shows a sense of bigotry you don't get to put people in a box say it's a privilege for them while vehemently denying the life long reality of White privilege.
