The Advocate "What Is Gay Now?" Survey Results
The Advocate "What Is Gay Now?" Survey Results
The Advocate "What Is Gay Now?" Survey Results#0
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:10pm
The Advocate Magazine held a survey called "What Is Gay Now?" over the passed two months. There were 3,225 respondants (myself included) and these are the results.
The red dots next to the answers are how I responded to the question.
This is a very insightful survey and a fantastic peek into the Gay Community. There are no conclusive results, only numbers and for you to draw your own conclusion. There are incredible similarities within some questions and then stark differences in others...
Which leads me to conclude that the Gay Community is:
1.Very much still alive
2.Everywhere
3.We are as different from ourselves as we are from the community at large
What do you think? More specifically, the LGBT readers who didn't take this survey (though you should have!) where do you fall into place?
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#1
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:17pmI can't believe they spelled "Barbra" wrong!
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#2
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:19pm
Judy Garland only 20%????
The world has gone mad.
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#3
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:20pm
Just out of curiosity: I know that there's a LOT of debate in the LGBT community about racial/sex prejudice and whatnot, but I've never heard the proposition that the term "gay" is white. Is this really something that's out there? What's the term for non-white LGBT?
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#4
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:21pmNWLGBT.
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#5
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:21pmOn the down low.
"In Oz, the verb is douchifizzation." PRS
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#6
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:26pm
Rath, are you serious? Or are you joking?
Lordy. If you ARE serious, it's rather funny because "gay" is, after all, part of the acronym LGBT.
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#7
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:31pm
Actually, yes DoodleNYC, you're right. For non-white gays, namely the black community, it's the "down-low."
To be black and gay (also hindu and hispanic) is far more oppressive and unwelcoming, as a whole, than for the white community. When you see images of "gay" (esp outside of San Francisco), it's largely buff, smiley, blue-eyed white men with chiseled chests.
There is huge alienation within the gay community itself, where terms like "Rice Queen" and "Ebony" etc come from. As if there wasn't enough division from gays and the rest of the world, there's stark division within the LGBT community in itself.
Unfortunately, because of the large fear for blacks to comfortably step into the gay community, the women are feeling the fall-out. African-American Women are the largest population to be carrying the AIDS virus today because their closeted husbands/boyfriends are having to sneak out to get their gay sex, and sadly bringing the virus home to their women. Because it's too scary for most gay black men to out themselves, and their women are the victims.
I could go on and on, but yes, I'm surprised there wasn't more of a response to that question (only 8%). I was one of the people who voted "Yes" only because I'm from San Francisco and can see it first-hand. As the numbers say, a large number of people who responded to this survey do not live in large cities, which may mean they don't HAVE the exposure to measure whether or not gay is "white" because there is less media and exposure of the gay image where they are located.
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#8
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:32pm
I'm never serious, bway.
While we're at the whole "gay" label thing, I find it odd that the phrase "gay and lesbian" is used constantly. Lesbians ARE gay. Can't "gay" just include all of us?
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#9
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:32pm
As I said on another thread... I got the "Judy gene" but not the "Babs gene."
But I think Streisand said it best herself on Inside the Actors Studio...
She said (something like), "I think gay people gravitate toward me because I was so DIFFERENT when I came on the scene. Everybody was looking for "Doris Day" or singers/performers like her, and then I showed up on the scene. I was very different... and yet I made it. I think that's what they embrace."
That was WAY paraphrased... but this was the gist of her comment, and it made a lot of sense to me at the time.
Judy wasn't so different... a unique talent, but not a "drastically different type." But she was a survivor. She was also the iconic Dorothy Gale. She had been through a lot over the years... and she endured (at least during her Broadway/concert years). As you get older, you'll understand how important and inspiring that is.
After she died, her death fuled the fire for the Stonewall Riots that started the gay lib movement. She's practically our patron saint, for that alone.
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#10
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:36pm
"I find it odd that the phrase "gay and lesbian" is used constantly. Lesbians ARE gay. Can't "gay" just include all of us?"
I hate that semantic burp!
I've always felt that lesbian and gay were the adopted "nice" terms for homosexuality...there is no word for a gay man like lesbian, is there?
"In Oz, the verb is douchifizzation." PRS
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#11
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:37pmI love you again.
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#12
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:38pm
Jeez, you are fickle today!
Seriously, is there another word for a homosexual male that didnt start as slander?
"In Oz, the verb is douchifizzation." PRS
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#13
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:39pm
Gay, perhaps?
I don't go around saying "I'm a lesbian." I say "I'm gay." Does that make me male?
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#14
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:45pmIt makes you a conservative "gay woman."
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#15
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:47pm
We boys don't have a non-derogatory term for male-only homosexuality.
But, hon, we've got plenty of derogatory ones!
It's almost like we're trying to take territorial control over the word "gay."
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/8/06
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#16
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:49pm
Cher is always better than madonna. ALWAYS.
actually, ALL those women are better than madonna.
-Adam Shankman.
"I haven't left this building since Windows 3.1!"
"Celebrating a birthday this week: Rene Descartes is 412! Do you know who he is? Then why are you watching this show? You could probably get into college and even get one of those job things. As for the rest of us; Amanda Bynes is 22! Yay!"
-E!'s "The Soup"
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#17
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:54pm
ok, perhaps I just misunderstood the question. I don't know any gay black men (and I know a lot) who would say "I'm not gay, I'm on the DL." The DL refers to a guy who is gay but is hiding it.
I thought the question meant something else.
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#18
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:57pm
I dont like the "diffuse" theory for derogatory words. It's not the words themselves, but who uses them and the intent behind them that are evil. Queer is a bad word if someone hateful is saying it...using it in the title of a tv show doesnt change that.
Okay, that was too serious for me...I have to lie down.
"In Oz, the verb is douchifizzation." PRS
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#19
Posted: 6/14/06 at 4:58pm
*gets doodle a glass of water*
*and puts some scotch in it*
blocked: logan2, Diamonds3, Hamilton22
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#20
Posted: 6/14/06 at 5:02pmSpeaking of derogatory, I couldn't figure out why they listed "gay" and "queer" as separate answers for sexuality. And what the hell is "genderqueer"? Is that supposed to mean "transsexual"? I don't consider any of the Pop Culture icons to be part of my "personal LGBT experience". Where's the photo of Jon King?
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#21
Posted: 6/14/06 at 5:03pm
*yummy, scotch and water!* Thanks, B12B!
I want a lesbianish type label.
"In Oz, the verb is douchifizzation." PRS
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#22
Posted: 6/14/06 at 5:04pm
For those with little knowledge or memory of gay history, here is how the nomenclature of "gay and lesbian" evolved.
"Gay" is an adjective. Kathy Griffin and her "gays" notwithstanding, it describes a way of being, as in "gay people."
The problem is, as is so often the case in a patriarchal culture, the first thing that pops into the imagination when people here about "gays" is gay men. This is why as the Gay and Lesbian movement evolved, most politically astute lesbians wanted the word included so as not to be rendered invisible by the boys. Which happens all the time.
You still see it now. When gay marriage foes talk about the horrendous notion of gay marriage, they always specifically recoil at the idea of "two guys" getting married. Always. Meanwhile, in Massachusetts, I do believe that the most recent statistics show that 80% of the married couples have been women.
The inclusion of the word lesbian reminds people of the presence of women in the movement and also reminds the gay men that the movement shares many of the same goals and issues of second wave feminism.
Well, conscious gay men and lesbians.
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#23
Posted: 6/14/06 at 5:06pm
Too bad, doodle. You're not a lesbian.
Don't you heteros have enough??
re: The Advocate 'What Is Gay Now?' Survey Results#24
Posted: 6/14/06 at 5:06pmI'm with you, Matt. I've never understood the prevalent "I don't want to be labeled" mantra that seems to coincide with coming up with 20 extra ever-shifting meaningless subsets of made-up and mispelled words.
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