What's your take on the gay men/lesbian divide?

[Dookus]

How is it where you live? Is it getting better or worse?

When I first came out, lo these many years ago, there seemed to be a fundamental divide between gay men and lesbians. They just didn't seem to like each other very much, and in my experience, it was the men who were the worst offenders.

Then came the AIDS crisis. To this day, it still draws a few tears from me when I remember how much lesbians contributed to the cause. They cared for the sick and dying, they helped organize the fundraisers and the marches, they changed diapers and cleaned bedpans... ALL for a cause that was decidedly not their own. AIDS wasn't and still isn't a lesbian issue. But their response was the most generous and magnanimous act I've ever seen in my life. They knew the scorn many gay men held for them, and they did it anyway.

I think things are better now, but I still react strongly when I hear a younger gay man disparage lesbians, and I end up giving them a lecture.

Of course, now I live in Santa Cruz where everybody seems to get along just fine. But how's the divide where you live? Are things better or worse than, say, 20 years ago?

[brainshrub]

1. Okay, why should there be any divide between lesbians and gay men?

I'm straight, and the concept of gays and lesbians not getting along has mystified me. One would think that they would get along better among each others company than with straight people.

What is the source of this friction?

[Dookus]

2. I don't know....

but it seems to have always been there.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. Aesthetics and sensibilities, I'd say.

Many gay men... especially subculture-oriented guys... suprememly value what many lesbians would regard as relative superficial: EG. youth, physical attributes, instant gratification, sexual variety, appearances.

There's also a political/intellectual divide; lesbians, in my experience, tend to be more politically sophisticated and more intellectually inclined overall.

Speaking in generalities, here, folks. Many exceptions to the rule.

[brainshrub]

4. Now that you mention it...

I see your point.

But of course we are talking about generalities here.

[Boomer]

17. I've seen this divide all my (gay) life

There has been a distinct divide between gay men and lesbians in all the communities in which I've lived, with cross-over occuring mainly in the political arena, although not always even there. Mostly it's just a matter of benign avoidance, but it can be more acrimonious at times or among some individuals.

>> What is the source of this friction? <<

My take on this is that it's actually a fracture stemming from the male/female divide. Men and women live in separate cultures, but are forced to make bridges when they have sex, fall in love, and decide to create a family together.

Obviously, gay men and women have far less incentive to overcome their differences of taste and sensibilities, their very different approach to relationships and other gender-related values.

Many men -- regardless of sexual preference -- don't LIKE women. Straight men who don't like women may use them sexually, and abuse them physically, and gay men just make fun of them.

[Misunderestimator]

33. There's also a fundamental difference between men and women...

it's magnified in some ways between gay men and women. (Now that I said that, I just read Boomer's post, which I agree with.)

[xchrom]

5. it went in both directions

and in my circle -- it was strictly gay men caring for gay men when the epidemic was in full bore.

earlier on both groups sought seperate identities -- it's easy to say it was this part of the gay male culture and that part -- but it all went full circle.

complete with lesbian seperatism -- and gay male seperatism.

[Brian_Expat]

6. Argh

More crap. The "black/gay divide." The "lesbian/gay male divide." The "religious 'superstitious'/non-religious divide."

I wish people would spend more time uniting us than promoting silly ideas about how separated we are. It's crap.

</rant>

[Dookus]

7. Thank you for your insightful discussion on the issue

you'll notice I wasn't CALLING for a fucking divide! I acknowledged there had been one where I was a long time ago, and I was wondering what people's perception of it was today. Or should we close our eyes and pretend it never existed for the sake of fluffy harmony? Crap indeed.

[Brian_Expat]

8. You're always sowing seeds of division

in a movement that needs to be united.

There is no "gay/lesbian divide."

[Dookus]

9. You clearly didn't even read my original post

and the idea that I'm "sowing seeds of division" is laughable on its face.

It's like saying a discussion of Brown vs. Board of Education is a call for segregation.

[mitchtv]

10. didn't your mothers ever tell you not to fight?

behave you two

[Dookus]

12. thanks for the advice

I'll give it all the consideration it deserves.

[Duncan Grant]

14. Please read the original post.

Your disruptive and hostile posts are getting tiresome.

edit: your

[Brian_Expat]

28. I'm not being disruptive or "hostile."

I am tired of the divisiveness in the gay community.

I see lots of posts on "the black/gay divide" and the "lesbian/gay divide." They don't exist for most of us and I'm tired of the premise that those of us who don't agree with them are "disruptive."

Last time I checked, there's not a universal "gay opinion" that we "all" should have. And I will vigorously challenge fallacious assumptions that are advanced as facts.

[Misunderestimator]

35. If you're tired of the divisiveness, then why not talk about it?

These do exist for some... they have existed in my past, and right now I'm so isolated among straight people that I don't know if they still exist, except for what I see here... and I certainly do see some of it still. So, since it is the experience of some... it should be discussed. I don't understand what you feel would be accomplished by not discussing it.

[Boomer]

18. Oh really?

So I guess my observations of nearly 30 years is a hallucination? There may not have been a gay divide in YOUR community, but I've seen on in variety of locations from Texas to New York, and in all the gay political organizations that I've worked with since I was in college.

[ronnykmarshall]

21. Wake up and smell the coffee

When I was just a young little 'mo, I used to hang out with mostly women. One of my best friend is a lesbian and we basically came out together. In our small city there was such a divide within the men and the women. One guy I knew was always mouthing off about the "lezzzzbians. Pissed me off like crazy.

I got the same treatment in San Francisco. When Diane and I would got out a lot of the women would treat me like shit because I was hanging out with a group of women. One time Diane and I were at this one club one weekend and this girl was hittin' on Diane. She was "polite" to simply because I was Diane's friend. The next weekend I ran into her again and said hello to her. You would have thought I just took a poop in her backseat. But when I reminded her Who my best friend was ........ she all but offered to pay off my VISA Card!

[Brian_Expat]

29. Seems like a limited experience. . .

. . . I've lived in big cities and small towns around the world and have never witnessed any sort of "divide."

[Misunderestimator]

36. I have lived in big cities and small towns around the world as well...

and I HAVE seen this divide. I for one am happy that Dookus brought up this subject, and pleased to see that many of the gay male friends I've made here want to discuss the issue as well.

[arwalden]

11. Brian, how old are you?

[Brian_Expat]

30. Why does my age have relevance to my opinion? n/t

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

34. It doesn't have relevance to your opinion..just the manner in which you

express it..and respond to what you think you read.

[Duncan Grant]

13. wtf?

And this relates to the OP in what way? Did you even bother to read it? :freak:

[Dookus]

15. of course he didn't

knowledge might get in the way of his flame-war.

[Dookus]

26. and notice

he never came back to defend his ridiculous assertion.

[Brian_Expat]

31. Hee hee hee

I love it when you get personal.

I'm just challenging your premise. That you've got a moderator supporting it is a point in your favour, but I'm not too afraid of being censored for daring to disagree.

I continue to reject the premise. I think it's a result of your personal experience rather than any real "divide" in the community.

Those of us who work actively in gay issues, including gay and lesbian chambers of commerce and gay politics, have no "divides."

I regularly hang out with and work with gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and other people and we're all close, share common ground, and help each other out on our most crucial issues. To argue there's some default of "separateness" is just plain WRONG. And regionalised mostly to the SF Bay Area from the posts I've seen defending the notion so far.

There's a whole country and world beyond the SF Bay and your personal experiences. You should post them as your personal experiences, rather than truisms.

[Dookus]

37. Then why not simply say

that in your experience, you haven't seen it? Why insult me and call me divisive for mentioning what the clear majority of gay people here experienced themselves?

Your silly attack on me for raising the issue was childish and unprovoked. I was relating my personal experiences, and they are far from unique, as evidenced by everybody else's responses in this thread.

[Duncan Grant]

16. I think the 'divide' has diminished but this is SF.

I came out in a small town with only 1 'gay' bar. We all got along beautifully, lesbians played pool in the front and we all cha-cha'd in the back. Imagine my surprise when I got to SF and I couldn't find a single place where people mixed. It stayed that way for years.

Regarding the earliest years of the pandemic, I have the same experience as you Dookus. Lesbians were leading the way in establishing 'social service' networks and care for the dying. That's one of the unacknowledged chapters of gay history, imho. Generous and magnanimous is an accurate way to describe it. :thumbsup:

Today? More than half of my co-workers are lesbian and they seem to like me just fine. :D

Historically, I think that a distinct separatist movement existed - one that grew out of feminism (and I understand the cultural/political forces that brought that about). Women only spaces make perfect sense to me, even now (but that's another thread). :hi:

[ronnykmarshall]

22. That's great to hear about SF.

When I lived there, I was so disgusted with the divide between men and women.

I don't get out much, but from what I've seen here in LA, there seems to be a more united community.

[libnnc]

19. I wrote a paper a while back

on lesbians in the Women's Movement in the late '60s-70s and what I've learned (and from what I've seen at the grassroots level in my own community) is that many lesbians couldn't find their voice in the early Gay rights movement, which tended to be male centered.

Lesbians found more political avenues and felt more at home in the Women's movement. Although the relationship in the feminist movement was far from comfortable at times (Betty Friedan was horribly homophobic and used underhanded tactics in trying to maintain the helm of what she felt was "HER" movement...strictly straight, white and educated in profile--after a while, she gave up and moved on).

So, in a nutshell, lesbians did a lot of the grunt work in the early feminist movement and found, at times, a better fit politically and socially. Hope that's helpful info.

[Dookus]

20. that is helpful

I think it makes a lot of sense. thanks.

Did your research find any improvement in recent years?

[libnnc]

24. sorry I haven't replied

...been crazy busy lately and I'm lousy keeping up with posts.

I haven't really done research on "overall" recent relationships. I can speak from personal experiences as far as grassroots organizations go.

For a VERY short period of time (one of those "hey we need a lesbian on this board of directors...you'll do"--situations) I was on the board for a local LGBT issues group that sort of served as a larger umbrella for support groups for both gay and lesbian folk. We also ran a crisis phone line and did some community education/outreach.

Anywho...I witnessed a lot of drama--lesbians doing all the envelope stuffing and the gay guys doing all the decision making. It was a pretty typical divide and I didn't feel comfortable being on that board so I quit not long after I was voted on.

[readmoreoften]

23. I'm really glad you brought this up!

I've actually been chafing against this problem lately. I'm a femme dyke who was fairly ostracized from the community in the early 90s until it became fashionable to be femme again. As a result, most of my homo friends have always been men.

Since I've been involved more heavily in the lesbian community, and particularly the butch-femme community, I've really felt let down by my gays. They're incredibly negative towards butches in general. I've actually had more gay men than straight men say "if you want a real man baby, you should come to me" (?) Many of my gay pals have seemed oddly threatened by butches. I realize now that my value to many of my gay male friends was that I was young and fashionable. They were valuable to me because they were my gay community. I was just a girl in fabulous clothes, straight or gay, it wouldn't've mattered to them.

For the most part I feel invisible. Oddly enough I am more visible to heterosexual people who despise me then to many gay men, who just seem to find my life irrelevant.

But even the gay men who ignore or avoid dykes will be seeing plenty of dykes soon, because we're going to be ones standing right beside you in the upcoming battle.

hugs.

[Dookus]

25. Thanks Readmore...

sorry to hear about your bad experiences. I'm curious if you feel the divide is stronger between femme/dykes or between gaymen/lesbians?

I've seen both, and both have bewildered me.

[Boomer]

27. It's all about insecurities

Instead of just accepting the ways in which we, as gays, differ from more conventional gender roles, too many of us are carrying the emotional scars of growing up in a straight culture.

Gay men have been devalued in this society because of their supposed lack of masculinity, so it's no wonder they're so defensive about women who are more masculine than they are. It's a red hot poker in the eye -- a reminder of how far they fall short of the male ideal or how hard they have to try to prove they are masculine despite their homosexuality.

Gay women, on the other hand, have often spent their entire lives battling against the gender restrictions imposed on women or feeling inadequate because they can't be feminine enough to earn the approval of their parents, their family, their friends and society in general. So when faced with a gay woman who embraces these problematic feminine qualities, there is a high level of cognitive dissonance to sort through. Or even just a strong sense of disconnect.

In my case, although I'm not overtly butch, I've never been particulary feminine either and any attempts to model that behavior have been a resounding failure. I gave up even trying years ago. So my life has been framed by my perception of myself as a "third gender" -- an unconventional woman who stands out like sore thumb among men and women who fit comfortably into society's version of gender.

I simply don't have anything in common with a femme woman -- gay or straight. I don't care about fashion, I don't wear make-up, babies bore me, I don't cook, I don't sew...the list goes on and on. So it's hardly surprising that I'm more comfortable with women who are androgynous, regardless of sexual orientation, than I am with women who are femme. No malice involved, just an absence of interest.

[Misunderestimator]

39. Really good perspective....

[readmoreoften]

44. um, I'm a femme not a christian housewife.

Just to set the record straight:

It sounds like you're thinking of a straight woman, not a femme. Femmes vary and most often have zero in common with straight women. I'm certain that there are some femmes out there who are similar to straight women, but I'm not one of them and I know precious few who are. In fact, I don't have a single interest that you mentioned:

1) I have my own particular style, but I never talk about fashion and rarely go shopping.

2) Babies more than bore me, they freak me out. (And why would a femme like babies? We don't have babies any more often then andro dykes do.)

3) I don't cook. I buy food at restaurants.

4) Sew? Are you kidding? Who the fuck has time for that? And even if I did, I wouldn't talk about it.


That's like me saying that I don't like butches because I don't want to talk about football and cigars all day while their womenfolk cook meals and hand them their beer.

Let's see. I'm a professional writer and a screenwriter. I work in film production and I also teach college. My life is pretty much consumed with international travel, film openings, literary readings, queer politics, and business deals.

What makes me a femme is that I love to seduce butches and trannyboys. And that I accomplish everything I've accomplished in life while wearing platform heels and make up with long hair and a cigar hanging out of my mouth. The only person in the world who gets my softness is my butch. And I am attracted to her because she is shy and strong and the handsomest thing on wheels or off.

No offense to christian housewives. I just don't have a damn thing in common with them.

[Boomer]

49. What an interesting definition of femme

>> What makes me a femme is that I love to seduce butches and trannyboys. <<

I must admit that I've never defined "femme" with that narrow and specific a dynamic. Perhaps because I was rarely in a position to know who was seducing who or for what reason.

My own association with the femme label was formed in a less nuanced scenario, namely Texas bar culture of the 60's. Femme's looked and acted much like straight girls, just as the butches were pretty good facsimiles of Texas good ole boys. I, a gormless nerd, really didn't fit in with either "side" of the divide and pretty quickly drifted out of that scene. It wasn't until I moved to New York City that I discovered a much more diverse gay community and far less pressure to fit any gender mold at all.

In fact, this entire thread is a testament to just how personal and idiosyncratic are our views of the gay community. A shift from one city to another, one decade to another, one class to another, can radically change the dimensions of our experience. I suspect that our virtual absence from mass media fiction -- TV, radio, movies -- has allowed a large variety of very different communities to grow and develop in diametrically opposite directions. There's also the fluidity of the communities that makes them very volatile.

Attempts to communicate using gay culture terms like "femme" and "butch" probably is somewhat analogous to chatting at the base of the Tower of Babel. These are such loaded terms, so fraught with meaning derived from intensely personal experiences, that it's a mistake to assume they have a commonly understood meaning.

[readmoreoften]

50. Wow, you had experience of dyke bar culture in the 60s!

I'd love to talk to you about that. It's funny that you say that butches are much like Texas good ol' boys. My butch is from Texas and used to rodeo.

I know that the B/F codes of yesteryear were insanely rigid. I hear that's why we threw them out as oppressive in the 70s-80s. The problem is that the baby got thrown out with all that bath water and by the time that I came out in 89' everyone was very androgenous or it was all about feminine girls w/ feminine girls and all that lipstick smearing against lipstick seemed gross to me. I wanted a girl in a suit or some biologically female james dean on a motorbike.

What makes it more confusing for us is that we have to meander through love and dating by trial and error because there are no representations of us. I mean, it's confusing enough being gay. It was really confusing not being interested in other femmes. I thought if I was really gay, why didn't I like all those pretty girls.

I agree about femme and butch being loaded terms. I don't think it translates between men and women well either (femme guy, femme girl).

[readmoreoften]

45. I agree it's about insecurities, but also diversity

We are such a diverse group of people and we're so seldom validated for who we are in our totality that it's no wonder that we feel insecure.

But it's not a zero sum game. Androgenous dykes have a right to be loved and appreciated for their self-expression just as butches and femmes do, just as queens and leatherdaddies, and bears and circuit boys and everyone else in the community.

I think we're often shocked at our own diversity even though we pay a lot of lip service to it. While heterosexuals can just say, 'he's kinky' or 'she's kind of weird', we don't really claim to have a norm to live up to. But the effect of that is, in order to understand people in our community we have to listen to a whole lot of people's experiences. I think the anxiety comes in two parts, first there's the fear that if we're too different then we won't be able to fight for each other (or that the others won't fight for us) so there's an abandonment thing going on. The second part of it is simple validation. People don't validate us in the first place so it's hard to give validation to others. We walk through life with people arguing with us about who we are and why we do what we do. It's hard to stand up for other people's right to be special when we don't hear that we're special and important.

That's my take anyway.

So... much love to all the queens and the leatherdaddies and the bears and the otters and the dykes on bikes and the volleyball dykes and the bisexual hippies and the pansexual goth boys and the gay transmen and the gayboys in short-shorts with the timberland boots and the butches and the femmes and all the other people in all of the various neighborhoods of our wonderfully special and complex community....

[libnnc]

56. I love reading your posts....

(soft-butch, nerdy, history major here) :hi:

Have you read Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold? And if so, what's your take on the author's analysis of butch/femme roles as acts of social rebellion during the pre-feminist era?

This is a great thread btw.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

32. Great post, Dookus

Yep, I was one of those lesbians in 1983 working on creating one of the first hospices in Orange County...often for men who gave me dirty looks when I went in "THEIR" bars even though the most popular lesbian bar in the area regularly had men frequenting it back then.

In some respects, I think it has gotten better largely because so much MORE of the gay community is focused around community centers in lieu of bars these days...but I do think it still exists...have to admit though...I mostly stay out of bars lately....although when Misunderestimator and I were in Palm Springs recently..we went out for a beer on a Sunady night..ended up at a men's bar and were basically ignored. It felt so 1980's.

[Brian_Expat]

38. So let me get this "straight" then

I imagined it when the two lesbian nuns down the street in Massachusetts opened the HIV hospice for gay men.

I imagine it when I have a great chat with a lesbian, two gay male partners and a transgendered woman all at the same time at meetings of the GBBC when I'm in the United States.

I imagined it when a wealthy gay man pledged $100,000 to breast cancer for lesbians. I also imagined participating in the breast cancer walk with other gay men and lesbians as a single troupe.

I imagined it when I attended a church in Boston with a lesbian pastor and a mixed gay, lesbian, and transgendered crowd of congregants who mingled and were great friends.

I was completely off my rocker when I had a great dance with some lesbians at the local gay pride festival here in London.

I was high and hallucinating when I noted that the NGLTF was headed up by both gay men and women.

Yep, some "divide."

[Misunderestimator]

40. Apparently you didn't imagine those things anymore than any of us imagined

what we experienced. Why do you think that YOUR experiences trump everyone else's? I've had many experiences with unity in the community such as you describe, but I've also experienced a divide. Why can't we talk about both?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

41. So let me get this straight...understand one thing..if I can just say this

all rhetorical devices designed to dominate a conversation when one's own point is a bit weak ;-)

[Misunderestimator]

42. So let me get this "straight"...

... you're saying that the meek shall inherit the earth? :)

[Liberal Veteran]

43. So let me see if I understand this correctly.

You provide anecdotal evidence that there is a divide between the values of gay christians and mainstream gay organizations on the basis that you have experienced such things first hand.

And you are taking people to task who are pointing out that they have experienced nothing of the sort and yet at the same time, you are dismissing the stories and anecdotal evidence of the divisions other people have seen and experienced between gays and lesbians?

Seems to me you put a great deal of stock in your own observations and experiences, but when it comes to other's observations and experiences on a different division, you are dismissive and claim it doesn't exist.

You'll pardon me for observing that your credulity seems highly selective.

[khashka]

46. I saw what you saw

and I still see it. There is a great divide between gay men and lesbians. And it should not exist. I hate it, I detest it. Much of what I have learned in life has come from women, and especially gay women.

And yes, when the Aids crisis hit. So bad. So so bad. I watched lovers and friends and people I barely knew die. Horribly. And who was there? The dykes.

And they have my respect and my gratitude and damn near any thing else they want. But you know? When they tried to get us to get upset and worked up about breast cancer, we ignored them. We forgot about them, didn't really care.

So, yes, there is a divide and there is blame. But I place the blame on the men. The women have done so much and the men have done so little.

I am a gay man. But it doesn't stop with that statement. Making that statement was for many years tough, painful, hurtful. But that statement also brings resposnibility with it. And one of those responsibilities is to stand up for my sisters. They've fought my fight, the least I can do is fight theirs.

Sorry, that's a big problem for me. The split between gay men and lesbians. I see it all the time and I hate it.

khash

[readmoreoften]

47. hugs to you

good to know you care about us and just to let you know...you can count on this dyke standing by all the boys.

[dsc]

48. I have lived here only a short time

so I am no big expert but we seemed to do well working on the election. Clearly there is a divide, and likely always will be one, but it certainly seems better than when I was in college.

[Behind the Aegis]

51. The great divide

I feel that the divide is mostly due to fundamental differences between men and women. Someone else are posted something similar, so I won't restate the whole thing. I will say the in-fighting needs to end! Gay men should be just as concerned about lesbian issues and vice-versa!

Don't think a divide exists? Look at our national groups...as soon as a man is appointed, we hear bitching about how "men are keeping the women down like straights." If a woman ascends, then the men are bitching about how "she won't understand the needs of the gay male community." It used to be in student groups, that if a lesbian was president, then the majority of the members would be female, if a gay man took over, then the group changed to predominately male. Don't believe me? Go to a local university and meet with the GLB group, chances are the leadership will determine the gender make-up of the group!

Misogyny is very prevalent in the gay male community, more so than lesbians discriminating against men. We face so much hate from the outside world, we should not have to face it in our own community!

[readmoreoften]

52. Heh, at the university I work at...

No matter who runs it, all the student groups seem to be poly, sex positive, bi or trans. But then again I'm in a large urban area.

[Behind the Aegis]

53. Lucky!

I used to work at a university...been looking for 21 months now for another job! Of course, I am in Okla-HELL-ma, so most groups here are white and male. Such is life. Glad to hear there are few places out there that are more inclusive!! That does my heart good!

[Sapphocrat]

54. It exists.

You ask valid questions -- and I composed a long reply, then decided against posting it. It's a sensitive subject for me (and, obviously, for more than a few people here).

Suffice to say, in my experience over the past 30 years, it's been one of the saddest aspects of being gay, second only to the overt hatred from paranoid straights, and just beating out the butch/femme division within the lesbian community. (And that exists too -- don't let anyone tell you it doesn't.)

As a result, I don't foster close (offline) friendships with gay men anymore. Oh, I still love you guys, I love spending time with you, and I still identify more with gay culture than lesbian culture -- but I think men and women (gay, straight, or otherwise) have fundamentally different ideas about friendship, and my mistake has always been to expect the same thinking-and-feeling pattern from men as I do from women. That doesn't make either side right or wrong; I think our priorities are just different. And that's not a gay-v.-lesbian thing -- it's just a man-v.-woman thing.

And it's the main reason I haven't been active, in person, in the local LGBT community here for a long time -- so I can't tell you if it's gotten any better or worse. I just couldn't stand the frustration of gay society feeling so much like straight society... Meaning, think about the way decisions are made (and who's most likely to get shouted down) in your place of employment. I wish the LGBT world were democratic, but it's not. Men -- and money -- always win.

One other thought (since the butch/femme question was brought up here): Yes, in general, I do think those of us on the butch-er end of the spectrum receive a far more hostile reception among gay men than do femme lesbians and straight women. I've always wondered if a butch lesbian is some kind of threat to men, all of whom have been browbeaten all their lives into not "acting like a sissy." Maybe some men think we're going to out-man them or something... Maybe that's why so many straight men hate butch lesbians so much (and cling so desperately to that moronic fantasy that all lesbians look like the pictures on the covers of their porn DVDs -- or like the cast of "The L Word"). I don't know. But it's not a bad theory. After all, there are lesbians who hate effeminate men -- probably because they remind them of the torturous "norms" of femininity all little girls are forced to conform to.

Mind you, these are all generalizations, based solely on my experience. Your mileage may vary.

[RumpusCat]

55. Depends on where, I think

I'm in my twenties and came out in the Southeast. There, my experience was that gay men and lesbians got along pretty well, going to basically the same bars and social groups. This was especially true among people about my age. I think in the SE it was a 'strength in numbers' thing. When I moved to NYC a few years ago I noticed the divide a lot more--the bars are fairly separate here--maybe because there are enough of us here to support separate spaces. I'm a butch dyke and my gayboy friend and I went bar-hopping for his birthday, and I got some of the ugliest looks from the older guys in the gay bars. To be fair, though, I do know some women who are awfully snippy about gay guys, too, but this type doesn't tend to be very bar-going.

I think the divide, insofar as it exists, is lessening, especially among younger queers. ^_^