The Decline of LGBT Culture?

Rainbow FlagFamous LGBT enclaves like the Castro District in San Francisco, Key West, Florida, and West Hollywood “struggle to maintain cultural relevance in the face of gentrification,” claims the New York Times. “In the Castro, the influx of baby strollers—some being pushed by straight parents, some by gay parents—is perhaps the most blatant sign of change,” they say.

Oh, great. Not only are same-sex parents being blamed for the downfall of traditional American culture, now we’re blamed for the downfall of our own culture as well.

No, I’ll put a more positive spin on that: We’re responsible for the creation of a new sub-culture (or is that a sub-sub-culture?) of LGBT families. We take a little from LGBT culture, a little from traditional family culture, some legal and/or biological machinations to hold it all together, and stir well.

Where you live, do you feel more tied to the general parenting community or the LGBT one? Are you happy with the balance?

5 thoughts on “The Decline of LGBT Culture?”

  1. Unfortunately, due to our living circumstances and our circle of friends (a mix of LG couples without children and ‘straight’ couples with children) we find ourselves being integrated in the general parenting community.
    We seem to blend in effortlessly, I guess.

    Also, when I was making queries for a holiday house/apartment with LGBT-owned places last summer, I was politely but firmly refused once I mentioned that we had a child.

    So, the outcome is that we have become neither fish nor meat… an oddity in both communities. A little strange sometimes.

  2. That’s why we’ve got Melissa Etheridge going around with Al Gore–she’s trying to make up for the rest of us. :-)

  3. It’s kinda sad. I remember reading a blog post by a gay dad in SF who had some guys hiss “breeder” at him. Maybe their gaydar wasn’t working or maybe they just disapproved of his choice to have children with his partner. It made him feel rejected by both “sides” gay and straight.

  4. Well, as a gay mom (dad?) on the other side of the bay from SF, I can say that there are tons of hecka supportive gay dads in that self-same community. Our Family Coalition, the Bay Area’s LGBT Family group, was founded by a group of gay dads looking to create community. So while I’m sure that dad’s experience was quite real, and he knows what it’s like to be a dad (as vs. a daddy!) in the Castro, I do feel like we LGBT families are nonetheless a mega-force — and appreciated for what we represent, in terms of the future of gay civil rights — in the larger LGBT community here (outside of the youngster, cruise-y bar culture, say). My most favorite proof? The massive ovations the family groups get as we walk the Pride parade route.

    In a post earlier today, I posted a press release about a just-released study of Bay Area LGBT families which notes that 31% of LGBT families in San Francisco are headed by male couples (the same % pertains in the county where I live, but the total number of LGBT families is higher over here, as I expect is the total number of families in general, given the greater family-easiness outside The Big City).

    Otherwise, to Dana’s question, I feel equally immersed in both hetero and queer family communities. We are richly entangled in our siblings’ families, which are heterosexual, and take part in family-ish activities in our community, which is progressive, but of course mostly straight. At the same time, for mental health purposes we are also adamant about staying in touch with the lesbian parent group that formed from our (lesbian) childbirth education class, and religiously attend the activities of Our Family Coalition.

    Like us, I think our kids need and rely upon both communities the way they need and rely upon both eyes.

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