🏳️‍🌈 My Pride. And My Prejudices? 🙈

A long, winding road to gay activism; and my interview with the author of The First Homosexuals

Howdy, everyone! Happy hump day!

I hope you had a fabulous solstice, which we now know to be an astrological fact— not an astronomical phenomenon—thanks to last week’s newsletter. I spent most of mine finishing my kids’ lobster rolls (my friend Kristina says the best are from Bostwicks Chowder House) and taking spin classes to attempt a caloric break-even. Laurie Cole, the OG Soul Cycle instructor, is still my go-to girl on a bike, and I was happy to sweat with her again at The Barn in Bridgehampton.

Thanks for coming back for AND ANOTHER THING, which is going to be gay, gay, gay today. Yep, it’s still Pride Month. And I’m still thinking about my prejudices about it.

My relationship with this holiday—is that even the right word?—has been complicated. I first heard about Pride as a closeted teenager in the 1990s in St. Louis, Missouri. (Pride officially began in 1970, the year after the Stonewall Riots, according to the Library of Congress.) Back then, I was most definitely not proud. I was ashamed, scared, all that stuff. I didn’t meet a single gay person until I was 18 years old. Well, I’m sure I met some—they just weren’t out.

Where I grew up was not the most open-minded. I heard the F word a lot. (The one that rhymes with bag.) I knew I wouldn’t be kicked out or ostracized, and I was fortunate to have a wonderful family, even if they didn’t clock the Titanic movie posters and stacks of Vogue as obvious giveaways. But the idea of marching with rainbow flags in public was terrifying. I have a vivid memory of watching the news with my parents and seeing a segment on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the US military’s official policy on gays in the military, enacted in 1994. It sent a clear message: Shut up about it.

In 2000, I arrived in New York, and my frosted highlights began to peek out of the closet. At NYU summer orientation, someone asked me, “Are you gay?” I thought I was being clever and retorted, “No, I’m Derek.” Smoooooth.

At the end of orientation, my leader told me that coming out and being loud and proud was a rite of passage. (To be fair, almost every other dude at NYU orientation was coming out.) At the time, we had a Republican president, and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was still the law of the land. Visibility matters! It’s the right thing to do! Speak up! After a few years of living here, I quit being dismissive of Pride and leaned into it—I even got on one of the parade floats.

At that time, it made sense. It felt good. Going out on Pride weekend and waking up demolished as a public service: I’m here, I’m queer, get used to it.

By the time Obama became president… well, we got used to it. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed in 2011. The Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in 2015. We’d won! Congratulations, we cured homophobia, guys! Good job! (We also thought we cured racism. Remember the bliss of the 2010s?) Now, let’s get on to other things.

In a way, I was becoming too smug for Pride. March? Me? Sorry, I’m going to Europe for fashion week, sweetie. By the mid-2010s, I had started skipping parades and parties, rolling my eyes at friends who went out in tight baby T-shirts and came home in body glitter. I was living as an out gay man, but had gone back into the Pride closet. I was older (read: less hot), so it all felt less fun, not to mention a lot less urgent. I resented the hedonism of Pride; it felt like the gays were staying at the party too long. I said they were self-indulgent, and they should put down the weights and pick up more books. Talk about a read.

Vrrrrrp. [According to Google, that’s the sound of a record skipping.] Turns out I was wrong. The battle wasn’t over.

There are countless hot-button issues in this country—women’s rights, voting access, immigration, racism, to name a few. But I’m doubling down on my gay, lesbian, queer, nonbinary and trans friends this month. I’m reminding myself (and you?) that taking Pride seriously—and being proud—isn’t just symbolic.

Lately, I've felt the need to be loud and proud more and more. Please don’t skim, even if you’ve heard some of this already:

• The current administration plans to end the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s specialized services for LGBTQ+ youth.

• This was announced on the same day the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors. Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the decision “incredibly dangerous,” citing studies of gender-affirming care that conclude it is safe, effective, and in many cases life-saving. Additionally, every major medical group in the US, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, endorses gender-affirming healthcare.

• The New York Times reported that 25 percent of corporate sponsors were withdrawing from Pride activations. (Fuck you, MasterCard!) The paper’s Vanessa Friedman cited a poll from Gravity Research that stated 39 percent of companies reported scaling back their public Pride-related engagement, and none planned to increase it.

• The Business of Fashion reported an influx of Pride merch going beige. Nothing sounds more un-gay to me than beige.

• And BarkBox, of all companies, had a memo leak that explained why they were dialing down Pride initiatives. After all the gays have done for the adorable itty bitty doggy industry? How dare you.

• I mentioned this in my inaugural newsletter: I’m reluctant to wade into politics because nearly every conversation about our current president and his associates devolves into hostile echo chambers that are well-covered in other corners of the internet. That said, the fact that Pete Hesgereth, renowned dumb fuck, is suggesting that Harvey Milk, who, by the way, served in the navy and was brutally murdered while serving a public office, is no longer deserving of having his name on a ship is insulting. It’s absurd! Can you believe this shit?

To many people’s dismay, we’re here again.

Get back on those floats, boys. These parties and parades and campaign stops and selfies and rainbow-colored tequila cocktails and body glitter—we’re back! At the very least, it creates a sense of community, and, at its best, it contributes to the chorus of effective activism.

Last night, for the first time, I spoke on a Pride panel. A friend who works at a big finance firm asked if I’d speak at the LGBTQ+ activation, and I said sure. (Before it started, I asked the moderator what our goals were: Should I try to convert some of these finance bros into finance homos? Nah, they just wanted to amplify gay stories.)

I never felt the need to do panels like that before because—I realize this now—we’ve been spoiled by our gay forebearers who paved our rainbow path. Now, I’m not so sure. Bank accounts may be full, but our moral stock has tanked. (Look at me, that’s a finance metaphor!)

My friend asked how to be a good ally; I encouraged him to support public officials with inspired track records and to identify programs that prioritize LGBTQ+ benefits. As a thank you for doing the Pride panel, his fund donated to Citymeals on Wheels, where I serve on the board, and helps feed vulnerable New Yorkers, many of whom are from the LGBTQ+ community. There’s God’s Love We Deliver, whose mission statement is based on supporting individuals in crisis, including those in the LGBTQ+ community. There’s the Trevor Project, which plans to continue to offer the suicide hotlines that the government pulls funding. The Brooklyn Brewery reallocated its Pride budget into trans grants, which I thought was awesome.

What I realized this month is that, as I’ve gotten older, many of my judgments and emotions have mellowed. (See, therapy works!) For Pride, my vibe is: Party if you want. Don’t if you don’t. But the one thing that we have to agree on is that people with different sexualities have the right to exist and the right to be proud about the way they spend their lives.

With all of this gay talk on my mind, I picked up a book called The First Homosexuals: The Birth of a New Identity, 1869-1939, by Jonathan D Katz, Associate Professor of Practice in Art History and Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

The book’s premise: The word “homosexual” was not invented until 1869, when Karl Maria Kertbeny coined it as he attempted to identify his same-sex urgings. So, what did the world look like—as seen through the lens of contemporary art—before the term became standard nomenclature and othered same-sex activity?

Katz spent more than seven years developing the concept for the exhibition, currently on view in Chicago until August 4th. The book is a more comprehensive, fully developed version. It aggregates incredible works of art that showcase intimate, blissful, inspired, and proud versions of homosexuality in a world before being gay was a thing. The book ends in 1939, when the Nazis began burning books on sexuality in Germany.

ArtNet pulled together some of the incredible images from the show HERE. These are my favorites:

The notion of a “pre gay” era is fascinating. Of course, there wasn’t a time when same-sex marriage was legal. But did you know that under Napoleonic Law, it wasn’t even a crime? And yes, gay people have existed throughout history, even without the specific terminology. (Hello, I’ve seen Gore Vidal’s Caligula!) But if we didn’t have a name for this, would we be fighting for homosexual rights?

I asked Jonathan to meet on Zoom and enlighten me. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

• DEREK: In high school, I was allergic to the word ‘homosexual.’ But when I moved to New York in the early ’00s, I thought it was fabulous. Let's discuss visibility now and the historical context of Pride.

  • JONATHAN: The way to think about this is in terms of puritanization. We became homosexual at a time when homosexuality proved both the dominant culture's means of containing us and our means of resisting that. We were homosexuals when they insisted on it and then used those terms.

• DEREK: Would life be better without a term?

  • JONATHAN: I’m always with one foot in the importance of a world of homosexuality. But, I also have my eye on a post-homosexual era when we are no longer invested in the categorizing of sexuality, when, in fact, we’re going back to a previous moment when sexuality has no labels and it moves between its variants.

• DEREK: “Post gay!” Are we going that way now?

  • JONATHAN: No, not under Trump, of course. He’d like to take us back to the Inquisition.

• DEREK: So, visibility is good, at the moment.

  • JONATHAN: No question. However, at the same time, my undergraduates are embracing a world in which the distinction is made invisible, not because it’s being refused or denied, but because they see it as symbolic of an oppressive system. I'll give you a personal example. My nephew had been dating women for a long time and recently told me he was dating a guy. I said to him, ‘What!? Your uncle is a gay activist, and you never told him you’re gay?’ He looked at me with disdain, and he said, ‘I’m not gay, what are you talking about? I’m the same person; nothing has changed. You’re so old-fashioned. This is all about the dominant culture’s imposition on me, and I’m rejecting it.’ I get where he’s coming from.

• DEREK: Wow, you’re not a cool gay uncle anymore.

  • JONATHAN: I look forward to a post-gay world. Where we no longer need those categories.

• DEREK: Are you optimistic that things will improve soon?

  • JONATHAN: Sure. I see Trump and what’s going on as the last gasp of dinosaurs, which tend to squawk before they become extinct.

• DEREK: Where is the meteor when you need it?

  • JONATHAN: There’s no doubt that this is a horrible moment. The book ends in 1939; I specifically conclude it with the rise of Nazism. I show the Nazis destroying the cultural posiblity that blooms in the proceeding decades, the book burnings at the first queer political organzation in the world, Dr. Magnus Hirschfiled’s Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. There are pictures of students carrying out books to be loaded onto a truck for burning. Look, I can only be optimistic. One of the things I’ve come to realize as a historian is that the field is constantly evolving.

• DEREK: Have you seen Carl Nissab’s coming out video? It’s incredible. When he came out in 2021, he became the first openly gay active player in the NFL. In the video, he said he hoped that one day we wouldn’t need to make coming-out videos.

  • JONATHAN: This is a much more diverse culture than it’s ever been. There will be setbacks, of course. But the kids will be different. And better.

THANK YOU FOR READING TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS NEWSLETTER, friends and allies! See you next week.

Please like, comment, and subscribe if you haven’t already—and tell all your friends to follow my Substack and support their local gays.

Proudly,

Derek C. Blasberg

PS. I will never not love this video of Oprah defending gay people on her TV show. Now, that’s an ally.

And PPS. This is Nick and me at a Pride party in the early 2010s. Ah, youth!