A Bit More Detail

• CBC reports on how the New Brunswick village of Shipman briefly gave an official sanction to the so-called "straight pride" flag. What can I say but that rural decline in the Maritimes does not have its good points?


• Mike Miksche at NewNowNext takes a look at flagging, something that is at once nightclubbing activity, performance art, and a uniquely queer sport.


• Hornet Stories notes that "tongzhi," the Chinese word for comrade appropriated by queer men, is no longer used by the Communist Party of China in light of this appropriation.


• CBC takes a look at the new explicitly queer opera by Rufus Wainwright, Hadrian.


• Asia Times notes the disappointing slow progress of LGBTQ rights, including marriage equality, in Taiwan.


• Atlas Obscura takes a look at the history of Florent, the all-night diner in Manhattan's Meatpacking District that watched over a whole generation of LGBTQ history and community.


• S. Bear Bergman writes at the Forward about how the introduction of the Trump administration's anti-trans laws are a Nuremberg Laws moment. Resistance is needed.


• Queerty reports on the news, recently found by scientists, that the genes linked to non-heterosexual orientations are also linked to straight possessors of those genes having more sex. (You're welcome.)

• This history of LGBTQ life in Saskatchewan by Valerie Korinek sounds fascinating. Has anything been done in Atlantic Canada, I wonder? Global News reports.


• This Artsy editorial is quite right about the importance of David Wojnarowicz, artistically and politically. I own a copy of his Close to the Knives.


• There is, I have to conclude, at least some homophobia in the jokes about Trump and Putin being a couple. It's quite quite possible to be a straight homophobe, for starters. Vulture deconstructs the meme, here.


• Scott Thompson is a national treasure. Read this CBC Day 6 interview.


• CBC takes a look at the roaring success of China-oriented gay dating app Blued, with tens of millions of users.

You just told us that a homophobe is secretly a broken, twisted piece of work: that his conduct and personality are defined by urges he’s working extremely hard to suppress; that he lashes out violently and publicly in order to help keep his broken sanity together; that he cannot possibly be a complete human being; that he is, fundamentally, an extremely sad and disturbed person; and that all of this is because he is secretly gay.

In short, he’s a wild-eyed freak.

You have no reason to think that he’s secretly gay. No study has ever concluded that a majority of homophobes (let alone all of them) are secretly gay. Sure, studies like this are constantly reported in the popular press, but the findings are always exaggerated and most of the studies reported in the popular press weren’t even looking into this phenomenon to begin with.

There is a weak scientific basis upon which to conclude that some homophobes experience some degree of latent homosexual attraction, but this degree is not necessarily higher than large numbers of people who live as perfectly contented, well-adjusted heterosexuals. (Having some small degree of same-sex attraction [that one time you kissed a guy in college; noticing that your personal trainer has nice abs which, in the back of your mind, you’d kind of like to rub; etc.] doesn’t make you gay.)

What we’re left with, then, is you digging up a particularly nasty and hoary stereotype in order to discredit someone who you dislike.

[. . .]

Can you avoid invoking homophobic stereotypes in order to make your case? Can you stop using “gay” as an insult, and can you rise above this sort of schoolyard namecalling (“OH YEAH? WELL YOU SECRETLY LIKE COCK!”) to make your points?

Homophobes should consider a little self-reflection, suggests a new study finding those individuals who are most hostile toward gays and hold strong anti-gay views may themselves have same-sex desires, albeit undercover ones.

The prejudice of homophobia may also stem from authoritarian parents, particularly those with homophobic views as well, the researchers added.

"This study shows that if you are feeling that kind of visceral reaction to an out-group, ask yourself, 'Why?'" co-author Richard Ryan, a professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, said in a statement. "Those intense emotions should serve as a call to self-reflection."

The research, published in the April 2012 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, reveals the nuances of prejudices like homophobia, which can ultimately have dire consequences.

"Sometimes people are threatened by gays and lesbians because they are fearing their own impulses, in a sense they 'doth protest too much,'" Ryan told LiveScience. "In addition, it appears that sometimes those who would oppress others have been oppressed themselves, and we can have some compassion for them too, they may be unaccepting of others because they cannot be accepting of themselves."

Ryan cautioned, however, that this link is only one source of anti-gay sentiments.