Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures concern the behaviors, beliefs, knowledge, and references shared by members of sexual minorities or transgendered people by virtue of their membership in those minorities.
Among the first to argue that members of sexual minorities can constitute cultural minorities as well as being just individuals were Adolf Brand, Magnus Hirschfeld and Leontine Sagan in Germany. These pioneers were followed later, in the USA, by the Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis.
Not all members of a particular sexual minority participate in, or are aware of, the subculture that may be associated with that minority. In addition to simply not knowing that the culture exists, non-participants may be geographically or socially isolated, they may feel stigmatized by the subculture, they may simply dislike it (feeling it is outdated, corrupted, or does not align with their personal taste or style), or they may prefer to affiliate with some other culture or subculture.
See also: separatism, discrimination.
LGBT cultureHistorically, and specifically in the last century, American culture as a whole (but also Europe and Latin America) has focused much more heavily on gay men than on other members of the LGBT community. This may be due to larger numbers of men than women or transgender people (insofar as one would call it that) coming out, it may be due to gay men typically being more brash in their coming out (and having more resources available to them to justify, explore and perform their sexuality), or it may be due to Western culture as a whole still seeing men and male experience as the central experience in culture, even if the men in question are transgressing established gender norms. Research into lesbian histories and cultures is fledgling by comparison. Indeed it may be argued that gay men have, in certain circles, enjoyed a peculiarly privileged relationship to cultural production, by comparison with lesbians, trans people and some might argue women in general. The subject is open to debate, but gay male culture is often better known to lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people than those groups' particular cultures may be known to gay men.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, gay culture was highly covert and relied upon secret symbols and codes woven into an overall straight context. Gay influence in early America was mostly limited to high culture. The association of gay men with opera, ballet, professional sports, couture, fine cuisine, musical theater, the Golden Age of Hollywood, and interior design began with wealthy homosexual men using the straight themes of these media to send their own signals. In the very heterocentric Marilyn Monroe film vehicle Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, a musical number features a woman singing while muscled men in revealing costumes dance around her. The men's costumes were designed by a man, the dance was choreographed by a man, and the dancers seem more interested in each other than in the female star, but her reassuring presence gets the sequence past the censors and fits it into an overall heterocentric theme.
After the Stonewall riots in the United States in 1969, gay male culture began to be publicly acknowledged for the first time. Some gay men formed the Violet Quill society, which focused on writing about gay experience as something central and normal in a story for the first time, rather than as a "naughty" sideline to a mostly straight story. A good example is the short story A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White. In this first volume of a trilogy, White writes as a young homophilic narrator growing up under the shadow of a corrupt and remote father. The young man learns bad habits from his straight father and applies them to a gay existence.
Throughout the 1970s, gay male culture was a growing influence on American pop culture as a whole. Celebrities such as Liza Minnelli spent a significant amount of their social time with urban gay men, who were now popularly viewed as sophisticated and stylish by the jet set. And more celebrities themselves, such as Andy Warhol, were open about their relationships. Such openness was still limited to the largest urban areas such as New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Miami, however, until AIDS forced several popular celebrities out of the closet due to their contraction of what was known at first as a "gay cancer".
Some elements that may be identified more closely with gay men than with other groups include:
There are a number of subcultures within gay male culture, such as bears, chubbies, and gay skinheads. There are also subcultures that have historically had a large gay male population, such as the leather and SM subcultures.
There are also many gay men who do not follow any of these subcultures or so-called gay fashions, and who do not worship gay icons. Gay men are individuals, and cannot be identified by appearance or personal taste. There are gay men in every field imaginable, and enjoy many types of fashions and music. The trendy gays who frequent certain gay clubs/discos and Gay Pride festivals are not necessarily typical of the average gay man in the country, many of whom are to some extent still in the closet. Not least because the commercial gay scene with its very limited range of music/fashions/gay icons etc. excludes everyone who does not fit in with this image. This could be described as 'gay fascism' - if a gay man prefers long hair, a 1950s quiff, a mohawk, dreadlocks or liberty spikes to a shaved head or a #1 cut he may feel unwelcome in many gay venues. A gay man into Rockabilly, 1950s Rock'n'Roll or Blues, hot rods and the Teddy-boy/Rockabilly look, for instance, might find little appeal on the commercial gay scene. The Queercore movement as well as the group Gay shame critiques the commercialization of gay society.
Groups critical of the sex-orientated part of contemporary gay male culture also exists, most recently in gay activist Larry Kramer's 2005 book The Tragedy of Today's Gays.
pop-culture gay icons who have had a traditionally gay male following (for example, in Euro-American gay culture, disco, Madonna, Judy Garland, Cher, and so forth);
familiarity with certain aspects of romantic, sexual, and social life that have been common among gay men (for example, in Euro-American gay culture, Polari, poppers, camp, and the fag hag; in Indian gay culture, evening people). Gay male culture
From the mid-1990s, gay IRC channels emerged, with their content ranging the full spectrum from social networking to immediate arrangements for sexual contact.
More recently, a number of on-line social interaction websites for gay men have been established. Initially, these concentrated on sexual contact or titillation. Typically, users were afforded a profile page as well as access to other members' pages, member-to-member messaging and instant-message chat.
Smaller, more densely-connected websites concentrating on social networking without a focus on sexual contact have been established. Some forbid all explicit sexual content; others do not.
On-line sexual contact sites for gay men have already altered dramatically the sexual behaviour of a large proportion of the gay population of regions where these sites are strongly patronised. There are signs that on-line social networking communities for gay men are also having a more profound impact on gay culture than their 'straight' equivalent sites.
On-Line Culture and Communities
As with gay men, lesbian culture includes elements both from the larger LGBT culture and elements that are more closely specific to the lesbian community.
Often thought of in this regard are elements of counterculture that have been primarily associated with lesbians in Europe and North America. The history of lesbian culture over the last half-century has also been tightly entwined with the evolution of feminism.
Older stereotypes of lesbian women stressed a dichotomy between women who adhered to stereotypical male gender stereotypes ("butch") and stereotypical female gender stereotypes ("femme"), and that typical lesbian couples consisted of a butch/femme pairing. Today, some lesbian women adhere to being either "butch" or "femme," but these categories are much less rigid and there is no express expectation that a lesbian couple be butch/femme. There is a sub-culture within the lesbian community called Aristasia, where lesbians in the community adhere to exaggerated levels of femininity. In this culture, there are two genders, blonde and brunette, although they are unrelated to actual hair color. Brunettes are femme, yet blondes are even more so. Also notable are diesel dykes, extremely butch women who use male forms of dress and behavior, and who often work as truck drivers. Lipstick lesbian refers to feminine women who are attracted only to other feminine women. Lesbian culture also has its own icons such as Melissa Etheridge. Others include k.d. lang (butch), Ellen DeGeneres (androgynous), and Portia de Rossi (femme).
See labrys, Black triangle.
Lesbian culture
In modern western culture Bisexual people are in the peculiar situation of receiving hatred and/or distrust (aka biphobia) or even outright denial of their existence (aka bisexual erasure) from some elements of both the straight and lesbian and gay populations. There is of course some element of general anti-LGBT feeling, but some people insist that bisexual people are unsure of their true feelings, that they are "experimenting" or going through a "phase", and that they eventually will or should "decide" or "discover" which (singular) sex they are sexually attracted to, (also see Monosexism).
One popular misconception is that bisexuals find all humans sexually attractive. That is no more true than the idea that, say, all straight men would find all women sexually attractive. More people of all kinds are becoming aware that there are some people who find attractive sexual partners among both men and women - sometimes equally, sometimes favoring one sex in particular, (also see Kinsey scale, Klein Sexual Orientation Grid).
Distinctions exist between sexual orientation (attraction, inclination, preference, or desire), gender identity (self-identification or self-concept) and sexual behavior (the sex of one's actual sexual partners). For example, someone who may find people of either sex attractive might in practice have relationships only with people of one particular sex.[1]
Many bisexual people consider themselves to be part of the LGBT or Queer community.
In an effort to create both more visibility, and a symbol for the bisexual community to gather behind, Michael Page created the bisexual pride flag. The bisexual flag, which has a pink or red stripe at the top for homosexuality, a blue one on the bottom for heterosexuality and a purple one in the middle to represent bisexuality, as purple is from the combination of red and blue.
Additionally Celebrate Bisexuality Day has been observed on September 23 by members of the bisexual community and their allies since 1999 .
Bisexual culture
See also: Bisexual community
Bi Flag
Bi Writers Association
Bilines a forum for Bi writers Transgender culture
Other groups of sexual minorities which have formed significant communities and possibly cultures include the Deaf Queer community.
External link: [2]
Other groups within the LGBT community
The polyamorous community is another sexual minority with an associated culture.
Polyamory
In the media
Biography
Function
The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), also known as the Ukrainian Catholic Church, is one of the successor 