Splicetoday

Politics & Media
Oct 28, 2017, 07:01AM

The Troubling Rise of the LGBTQ Right

Milo Yiannopoulos is just the most prominent example.

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Helen Pluckrose’s article, “The Problem with Intersectional Feminism,” brings up a common criticism, which is that not everyone within a marginalized group has the same political views. “In the US,” she writes, “the number of Americans identifying as liberal reached a record high of 24% in 2015 in comparison to the conservative 38%. Britons are almost evenly divided between left and right. Women are generally somewhat more likely to be left-leaning than men but very many are not. 47% of African Americans identify as liberal and 45% as conservative.”

While I understand that not everyone shares the same views due to personal experiences, I still can’t understand why some of my fellow LGBTQ people are conservative. I don’t think being conservative automatically makes them “less queer,” but given the Right’s history of homophobic and transphobic policies, being a conservative LGBTQ person sounds like being a vegetarian butcher to me. What’s even more confusing is the sudden rise of LGBTQ people among the Right.

Arwa Mahdawi writes about this in a recent Guardian article, especially among “gay, white, and financially well-off men.” The most notable example of this is Milo Yiannopoulos, who referred to President Trump on Twitter as “daddy,” publicly made fun of a trans girl at a college, and infamously defended his transphobia on Bill Maher’s show. Most recently, he told Australia to vote no on marriage equality, even though Yiannopoulos married his boyfriend just a few weeks ago. Yiannopoulos may be the most recognizable right-winged LGBTQ person, but he’s not the only one.

Mahdawi also mentions Chadwick Moore, a gay New York-based journalist who “came out” as conservative in the New York Post in February. Although he voted for Clinton in the 2016 election, he switched teams following the backlash against his interview with Yiannopoulos for Out. “It can seem like liberals are actually against free speech if it fails to conform with the way they think,” he writes. “And I don’t want to be a part of that club anymore.” In fairness, Moore doesn’t agree with all of Trump’s policies, like the Muslim ban and his cabinet picks.

Gay conservatives aren’t new. The most prominent gay conservative organization, the Log Cabin Republicans (named for Lincoln’s supposed homosexuality), have been around since the late 1970s. However, as Log Cabin Republicans president Gregory T Angelo told Mahdawi, “Over the course of 2016 and 2017 there has been a noticeable swell in grassroots support for LCR, a spike in membership, and a spike in social media followers.” It’s not just gay conservatives that are coming out, either.

Much has been said about the rise of right-winged YouTubers, a list that includes trans women Blaire White and Theryn Meyer. White, who has 352,851 subscribers, thinks Black Lives Matter is a hate group, feminism is cancer, being trans is a mental disorder, and that allowing trans kids to transition is child abuse. Meyer, who was born in South Africa but now lives in Canada, has over 42,000 subscribers and is an outspoken Men’s Rights Activist. She’s best known as testifying against Canada’s C-16 bill, which she claimed would get people fired for misgendering trans people (not true). Both women claim that transitioning made them aware of, according to Meyer, a “narrative that always puts women into a victim status and men into an oppressor status.”

As to why there’s a sudden rise of LGBTQ conservatives, I don’t know. It could be a reaction to the so-called Regressive Left, or maybe it’s another example of racism within the LGBTQ movement, or maybe neither. Still, I wonder why, given Trump’s support of “religious freedom bills,” any LGBTQ person would support him.

Discussion
  • Homonationalists tend to be well off and not particularly interested in participating in the victimhood competition on the intersectional left. They don’t feel oppressed by anything Trump has done, and like many of his ideas. Democrats can’t just assume people will will vote just along identity lines, because a good number of people are not sing!e issue voters.

  • But certainly one can opt out of “victimhood competition” without being a nationalist, right?

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  • Also, if I may as, what do you consider a “victimhood competition?” I talk about about my fears of getting the shit kicked out of me for being trans. Does that count?

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  • Yes, nationalism’s just one choice, but it’s the one that won in November, so many people seem to be attracted to it. Maybe because people just got sick of dealing the Democrat’s identity politics, which drives many potential allies away from it.

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  • Victimhood competition means that the one most victimized is seen as the one people must listen to the most. The listeners are the privileged who sit in the back of the room and try to be good allies. This is the rule of intersectionality. Certainly your situation about your fears would give you substantial political capital under these rules.

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  • Well I must be doing something wrong because I”m poor as fuck! I can send you screen shots of my checking account if you need proof. Also, I find it interesting that whenever someone criticizes the extreme right, your automatic response is always, “It’s all your fault, you fucking liberal piece of shit commie!!!!”

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  • You’ll notice I said political capital, not financial capital. Also, I don’t know what you’re talking about with my “automatic response,” because I don’t do that. I don’t even know where you came up with that language, but you never heard it from me.

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  • Trav, what exactly does “poor as fuck” mean? Is fuck poor? That’s like saying something is “cool as shit.” Makes no sense. Sorry to interrupt your dialogue with Chris.

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  • The dialogue seems to have gone off the rails, unless I’m missing something.

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  • Forgive me for losing my temper. It’s just that you have a way of speaking that, to be perfectly honest, sounds just like a teenage edgelord on 4chan. I don’t mean just your opinions, but your actual rhetoric. Except that you don’t think “You’re a cuck fag Jew” is an acceptable rebuttal, which I give you credit for.

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  • You have an odd way of debating political ideas.

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  • Well like I said, if you didn’t talk Sargon of Akkad, I might be able to actually listen to what you have to say.

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  • In fact, you did not say that before. This is your first mention of that person. I’ve looked at my comments and can’t find anything remotely offensive that would have triggered you so bad, so why don’t you just tell me what it was instead of saying I sound like various people?

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  • I apologize for losing my cool. Perhaps I’m reading too much into your comments. I do that sometimes. I just find it weird that whenever I criticize Milo Yiannopoulos, Dave Rubin, or Christina Hoff Sommers, you get extremely defensive. Let me give you a few examples from this thread. 1. “Yes, nationalism’s just one choice, but it’s the one that won in November, so many people seem to be attracted to it. Maybe because people just got sick of dealing the Democrat’s identity politics, which drives many potential allies away from it.” From this comment, it appears as if you’re oversimplifying all the complexities of the election result to the Alt-Right talking point, “Intersectional feminism turns people into white nationalists.” While I have my disagreements with the Neo-Classical Liberal movement, I can understand why people would become centrists. However, if the phrase “Check your privilege” makes you want to go to the opposite extreme and be a white nationalist, that says more about you than the SJWs! 2). “Certainly your situation about your fears would give you substantial political capital under these rules.” Okay, first you imply all this talk about social justice emboldened white nationalists, then with this comment you imply that I should have a lot more political influence among the Democratic party than I do.

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  • To clarify, I don’t think intersectionality turns people into nationalists, but it could easily make swing voters go with the GOP candidate, whatever ideas they might have. As for point two, I just answered the question you asked me accurately. That’s how intersectionality is structured, inversely according to privilege. I’m not implying that you would actually have significant influence within the Democratic party due to your identity alone. To gain influence requires actions.

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