Another (!) brilliant article in the New York Times - How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized, and Lost Its Way

[ProfesoraLou]

How the Gay Rights Movement Radicalized, and Lost Its Way

If the New York Times was captured (and I really thought it was), it has broken free.

This is rational, balanced and personal. Really important writing.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/gay-lesbian-trans-rights.html

I think it's a fascinating insight into how they think.

I have never thought there was an agreement to leave kids alone.

One of the things we've seen with gender is all of these teachers and educators convinced it's their role to "save" these kids from their bigot parents. That didn't come out of nowhere, they felt the same way about gay and lesbian kids, set up school clubs which students joined with no awareness on the part of parents and guardians.

The consequences were much less serious but the sense of entitlement, I would argue, is the same.

I always thought the main thrust of Sullivan's argument was very much what you are saying, that marriage would bring a push toward healthier relationships in the gay male community, and therefore more stability for society.

AT the time the debate was really happening in society I agreed with him and with what you are saying pretty wholeheartedly, and while I never took the view that those who argued it would undermine the nature of the institution were necessarily bigoted, I didn't see it as a serious risk.

I am much more inclined now to think they may not have been wrong, because what I see around me now is an awful lot of people who seem to think that because that kind of approach to marriage is ok and "normal" for gay men, it is also just fine for straight couples. And indeed, making the claim that it is bigoted to say otherwise.

It's easy to dismiss if looking at it from the POV of individuals, who cares what other individuals do - we all know people who are cheaters, men and women.

But I don't think marriage is mainly about legal benefits to individuals, I think it's about the power of the idea as a social institution to shape male behaviour. In a way it's aspirational, and also about creating a sense of failure when people miss the mark, and about creating social expectations that help people do the right thing. If that can exist within the gay community in a stable way it could work, but I can't get away from the fact that it doesn't seem to be what we see within the politically active element of the gay community. Including Andrew Sullivan.

It’s the classic saviour triangle (I’m not convinced that’s the term, but it’ll do) - well-documented in psychiatry, where people take on (or see others in) the role of victim, persecutor or rescuer.

I would imagine, though I don’t have numbers on it, that the teaching profession would appeal to people who prefer to situate themselves as rescuers, which, because the child is by default the victim, makes the parent by default the persecutor. It’s not a healthy or productive dynamic, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Also, can I just say how much I have been enjoying this thread - so many erudite, thoughtful and cogent comments on here.

I think there's a big difference between an era when people were killed for being lesbian or gay - which they still are in parts of the world, let it not be forgotten, and lesbians subjected to 'corrective rape - and children were punished and disowned by their families because they were 'that way'.

Many lesbian and gay people had an idea from a very early age that they were not seeing the opposite sex in the same way as their peers - I was never, ever even vaguely interested in boys in any way apart from good pals to play with, and later to drive around with in old cars we had worked on.
I never did any teenage mooning over boys, any going to dances to get off with boys, any dressing up and going to the debs dance with boys..

There's a difference between telling children like I was that it's OK to think like you think and feel like you feel - self-acceptance and body positivity are good lessons for all children - and telling children that they were born in the wrong body and offering them damaging pharmaceutical and surgical ways of 'correcting' what is wrong with them.

There is a difference between telling children that a percentage of human beings have a different sexual orientation, which is a verifiable fact, and telling them that humans can change sex, which is factually inaccurate.

'The' gay movement was always more diverse, amorphous (am I part of it, for instance?)and less powerful than the very targeted trans rights movement, which has 'captured' the media, education, the law etc in a dizzyingly short space of time, unlike either the women's movement or the lesbian and gay movement which had to hack their way through centuries of discrimination and hatred to get something approaching equality.

I think that's true in some sense, there was sometimes exaggeration of stuff like suicide risk, hate crimes & parental abuse in a v unhelpful way. But in my experience, online, irl & via reading, a lot of LGB teens in the US DID face disownment and chucking out by parents. Not just, 'I don't agree' or ',I won't support this' but actual disavowal. This risk would be higher in some immigrant & the black community, but existed in all. I agree w MarieDeGournay that it also existed here.

The club thing is always a tricky issue. We had one at my school (2010s)& it didn't do anyone any harm imo sexuality-wise (trans was a different matter ☹️). Sexuality is a tough topic & some might argue that there should be no organisations that address teen sexuality in any way. But I think it can be done, as long as the people running it are careful to not go from 'this is ok' to 'you must try this out'.

Yes, this is definitely accurate I think. I've heard some gay men comment on stuff like Substack. The rise of poly etc is worrying.

What frustrates me also is that gay men like Sullivan & others are often v prominent in the media on marriage etc & it really tarnishes it if they are the image people have of it. (Let alone the effects of the behaviour they advocate). I would argue gay marriage benefited the lesbian community a lot more : though there are still issues to work on like moving in too soon & high splitting rates, most of the issues gay men experience are absent.

This is really why I have an ambivalent attitude to gay men, bc while many individuals are great obvs, it's the awkward fact that the main obstacles & things that homophobes & people w genuine concerns would critique the gay rights movement for stem from stem from uncontrolled male sexuality. NAMBLA & their toleration. Fetish behaviour at Pride marches. Rampant STDs. Open relationships. Violent & promiscuous sex. Sex w underage teens.

I sometimes think that if L/B women were the only same-sex attracted group, rights might have been slower due to women having less societal power, but many of the opposing arguments (whose concerns if not conclusions I agree w) would just not have existed. I think that can apply to other groups : it's generally not black women who participate in street crime, or Muslim women who set bombs (tho ofc women can do these things & also facilitate). This isn't to say women don't have issues, but they tend to be less overtly disruptive.

If Sullivan doesn't believe in marital fidelity etc, why didn't he just advocate for an expansion of civil partnerships to the UK model where it conferred equal benefits? It doesn't make sense how he advocated for marriage v movingly in Virtually Normal, but then doesn't seem to properly respect it. The whole point of the campaign was supposed to be, as you say, about being subject to obligations & striving for an ideal of commitment. If it's aboit being immune to criticism it misses the meaning of equality & imo is quite patronising, a bit like people acting like black people had no choice but to riot after George Floyd's murder.

As an aside., I hate the name 'civil partnership' it sounds coldly businesslike to me. An alternative name considered was 'life covenant' which sounds much more solemn & meaningful imo.

That's good there's changes. I'm sorry my reply was rather harsh. I've read quite a lot into current gay male culture recently and I feel torn between extremely sad for the harmful rut many seem to still be stuck in & frustrated, as I said upthread, w the effects this attitude has. So I responded too strongly, and I'm sorry.

On chemsex, I really hope that stops. V dangerous.

I know lesbians who half-heartedly which our culture could be a bit more sexually free-and-easy, but I think most of us wouldn't trade the good friendship/relationships which can be established much more easily for us (despite smaller numbers, lack of spaces & being spread out) for the glittering but ultimately soul-destroying world of Grindr etc

https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/gay-loneliness/

This article is v good on the effects of predatory companies like Grindr on gay men (Tinder is bad but this is maginified. Another case of life being ruled by algotithms). It seeks like in some ways many are still stuck in the world of The Boys In The Band, where Michael famously laments, ' If we could just not hate each other so much.' 😢

What ot shows v well is that while many gay men do enjoy the sexual freedom, a lot are catapulted into a sex-focused scene when they were hoping for a LTR. While gay men are a bit more able to withstand it than women would be, ultimately it's not good for anyone.

Some people reclaimed queer. The rest of us didn’t want to call ourselves a slur that implies something is inherently wrong with us. But you refer to yourself as you see fit, and refer to me as you see fit - that’s your ideology right there. We are not the same.

Yes, I do actually find it frustrating that people on here often say queer was never used until recently, or only in academic circles. There was the Queercore movement in music, w good punk-style bands like Team Dresch (lots of overlap w Riot Grrl) and groups like Queer Nation & others were using the term. Some novels I've read from the 80s-90s use queer in a reclaimed way. But I agree that it was mainly US & more say, books & music, probs, than in everyday life. Abd ofc it's always been a difficult issue bc many who had it used as a slur esp in violent contexts, do NOT want it to be reclaimed & rightly feel they were left out of consideration.

I thought they were a transwoman, not gay.

Maybe both.

That was a really interesting read.

The one thing it doesn't cover is the move towards parenthood among gay men.

This is supposed to be the next big issue for the gay community. They see access to surrogacy in particular as a human right

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/oct/01/how-gay-parenthood-through-surrogacy-became-a-battleground

‘But I don't think marriage is mainly about legal benefits to individuals, I think it's about the power of the idea as a social institution to shape male behaviour. In a way it's aspirational, and also about creating a sense of failure when people miss the mark, and about creating social expectations that help people do the right thing.’

This is a rather Eurocentric ( Christian) view of marriage , though. The Church for all its un feminist ( not a word but it expresses what I mean) did attempt to make marriage a protection for women ; it tried to enforce the idea of consent at the ceremony, it established the indissoluble bond which meant that a wife could not just be cast off or replaced, that women had financial as well as social rights within marriage (‘with my worldly goods I thee endow’) . I don’t think that other religions’ or cultures’ marriages were or are as favourable to women.

Hmm..I def think gay men can be good parents but this not the way to go about it. I actually had a nice convo w a German gay man on Reddit last year. He didn't approve of surrogacy (which is anyway banned in Germany) so he befriended a lesbian couple via a German website which facilitates this kind of 'rainbow family'. They coparented together.

He says this kind of arrangement is encouraged in Germany. It seems so much better than these awful surrogacy arrangements: easier then for lesbians to find good male coparents too. It would also save all the money that fertile lesbians spend on IVF due to using donor sperm & gay men use on surrogates.

However, for this to work, gay men need to come down to earth. No more orgies, drugs, etc Obvs plenty of gay men are not doing this. But the ones who are need to realise that parenting & being a husband requires giving up hedonism, flashiness & narcissism & working on their mental health so they are in a good position to raise a kid. The gay men I know w kids all seem great & I feel the commitment has had a v positive effect.

Hmm...isn't that what TempestTost meant, though? That it controlled men's behaviour & encouraged commitment & beneficial treatment of the woman? Do your views conflict? I think they complement.

I know someone gay adopters. When adoption was extended to gay people, it was seen as a breakthrough in that they could be parents too. They often make excellent parents for children who have been removed from birth mum a there is no mother figure.

But adoption can be very hard (I'm an adopter btw) and surrogacy means getting a new born baby that is biologically yours. And affluent gay couples can afford it. They often have 2 surrogates at once, so they can each have a bio child (i think this is what Adam Kay and partner did - their surrogate children are a few months apart in age), or they get a surrogate to have twins, with one embryo from each man .

But there are no checks. Adoption approval process is strictly and it would be hard to hide a hedonistic lifestyle. But with surrogacy, no one needs to change at all. There is no requirement to reflect, to open up about your vulnerabilities etc. You just pay the money and bring your child home.

We will see how this pans out.

V worrying...
I agree w this totally.

Thank you for this thought provoking conversation. 🙂

Yes, I think that's fair. But also I would say it reflects the vices human beings are prone to.

Marriage is in some sense a "natural" institution, it's based on the fact that we are sexually reproductive and raise our kids for many years, and parents tend to form a kind of bond which facilitates the success as that. It's probably the most basic human activity.

We accrue customs that support that natural triad in a way that ensures the health of the culture. In an ideal world, these customs should create supportive social environments.

But like all social customs and institutions, they can also be used to give power to those who are already powerful.

I hope we are not any longer in a place where people getting killed, or anything else horrible, is part of the picture.

However, I am really uncomfortable with the assumption we find among a lot of teachers that their ideas about sexuality are self evidently correct and even neutral, and therefor they should be allowed to inform the values of other people's children.

It's certainly true there are people whose sexual attraction is directed toward the same sex, though we don't really know why, but there is still imo a fair bit of room around what people believe are the consequences of that, or the right thing to do about it. I think Catholic families for example should be free as to teach that sexual ethics are meant to be bound by procreative intent and purpose, just like another family can teach that free love is the right approach.

I just can't see how schools can play both sides.

Yes, that's horrible to hear.

I think schools should be able to teach facts : some people are gay, & where applicable to history of laws including gay marriage if applicable. They don't need to & shouldn't praise either hetero or homosexuality, stick to pure factual info, but also stress the universal value of commitment in relationships: unless you thunk RSE should be scrapped altogether?

Whether or not you're GC, that's fair x

I have sometimes thought that maybe it should be. I've become sceptical about how well the things they teach are actually taken up by the kids, but more than that, I just don't feel that the content is great. Some teachers are great, but a fair number are kind of idiots, and I don't think idiots can teach topics like that well no matter what kind of resources they have.

It would be interesting to see measurable outcomes from RSE, but I don't know how anyone would get really accurate ones.