I hate to watch sitcoms with gay male characters, like the defunct “New Normal” or the popular “Modern Family.” Almost inevitably they make stereotypical digs at how ugly and badly dressed dykes are. How humorless, because we don't laugh at jokes making us the butt.
Nobody hates dykes as much as fags. And of course, other dykes. Transfolks aren't always major boosters, either. I declare this based on my Facebook page and the few queer articles I've read on New York's mayoral primary, where lefties who once blabbed how important it was to elect Obama — “He'll be our first black president” — are all bashing Christine Quinn.
“I don't care if she is a lesbian. She's in bed with the real estate developers. I'd never vote for her,” they shriek. Or they cite the times she's screwed queers, but never the times she's supported us. Apparently, historic groundbreaking is less important when it's the first woman, first dyke with the chance to run one of the biggest, most important cities in the world.
To my dyke, female ears, their refrain sounds fishy, lesbophobic. Replay it substituting black. “I don't care if he is black, I'd never vote for him.” It sounds like a version of the hate Hillary Clinton got in the presidential primaries. That same feeling of ickiness at her child-bearing thighs and strident voice, the same rabid disgust I don't see opponents direct at our current crop of male mayoral candidates.
I'm not encouraging you to vote for Christine Quinn. I'm not entirely decided myself. But if you are going to vote for one of the boys, I'd like you to ask yourself if dyke-hating is playing a role. Especially in an election like this when nobody is exactly pristine. It's New York. To survive in politics here everybody cuts corners, cuts deals, shares flea-ridden beds.
Mr. de Blasio and Mr. Liu alone have consorted with far worse than Quinn's bastard developers out to screw the poor: they kissed the ass of an actual murderer. In 2002, they were among the 16 repulsive New York City Council members, all Democrats, mostly black, who either attended or sponsored a reception for Robert Mugabe at City Hall, touting him as Zimbabwe's liberation hero.
That may have been briefly true, but for the last several decades, Mugabe had been running one of the ugliest dictatorships in the world. Not only strong-arming his own people, rigging elections, and manipulating the economy, but burning down the houses of the opposition — with them still inside. Starving the districts of his enemies, regularly jailing and torturing them. And, to top it all, he's screamed — and continues to scream — about how queers are worse than dogs and has sent mobs after us.
He was swimming in blood. And by backslapping him at City Hall, a rare honor given only to the likes of Nelson Mandela, idiot New York Dems like de Blasio gave him a stronger grip on power, extended the violence and misery. But so what? Nobody cared then, and despite our occasional email sent about queers abroad, probably nobody cares now.
I can already hear the excuses, “That was a decade ago. It doesn't count.” Or, “It was in Africa. They probably didn't know.” Which is almost worse. Because who wants a mayor who's got his head so far up his moronic ass that he doesn't even read front page news counting Mugabe's victims? In 2008, de Blasio, hinted at ignorance. With the info available, he should have known, he pleaded: “It was a mistake.” Liu, however, at the same time, told the New York Times he didn’t see what “the big deal” was.
Nevertheless, Quinn's still the devil. And there are dykes still sneering, “I don't care if she is a lesbian… I'd never vote for her.” They imply a dyke dumping on another dyke makes her opinion more objective, somehow praiseworthy, not infected with lesbophobia at all. Worse, they give the impression Quinn is running for mayor of Poughkeepsie, not New York City, where for the first time, a woman, a dyke, would have a global platform second only to the US president, or maybe him and the secretary of State.
Perhaps the same thing would happen with a fag mayoral candidate. Queers are such a weird minority. We're the first to say we're just like everybody else, no different at all. The first to stab each other in the back. I'm pretty sure when he was running for mayor, David Dinkins got the black vote. Fernando Ferrer, though he lost in the 2001 primary, got a lot of support from Latinos.
Sadly, it looks like Christine Quinn will only get crumbs from New York queers, because we're so fucking determined to be honest and open-minded. So determined to reject blind support (that does lead to disasters, see Mugabe, R.) that we despise solidarity. And because we hate dykes.
Maybe I'll support Quinn, after all. Cast a big dyke vote for the chance at a global voice.
