“Misogynistic” gay men’s reps – it’s all just scapegoating

This year, the NUS’ LGBT+ conference decided to pass a motion, number 408 to be precise, which at its crux asked for LGBT societies across the country to ‘encourage LGBT+ Societies that have a rep for gay men to drop the position’.

Morality is inevitably a competition. Those who believe they have morals have to be adults to accept that their morals are not the be all and end all. Unfortunately, a lot of students are not adults. They’re children, thrust into a world where they believe that everything they say and do is indubitably correct.

They believe that everything they say and do is indubitably correct

This is because ‘misogyny, transphobia, racism and biphobia are often present in LGBT+ societies. This is unfortunately more likely to occur when the society is dominated by white cis gay men,’ and ‘gay men do not face oppression as gay men within the LGBT+ community and do not need a reserved place on society committees.’

I actually don’t know where to begin. Perhaps it’s with the idiotic idea that because someone isn’t oppressed within one community (apparently), they don’t need representation in the said community. The community which has “G” for gay in the acronym. What should the “G” stand for now?

The community which has “G” for gay in the acronym. What should the “G” stand for now?

This is a motion that deliberately tries to exclude one demographic of people from decision making processes. This is seemingly because there needs to be a scapegoat for ‘misogyny, transphobia, racism and biphobia’ within LGBT communities. Rather than education, which works in other places, exclusion is apparently the option. And exclusion within liberation societies seems to be rather against the point.

But then, if we look closely, we see the actuality of the problem, the centre of this rotten mess. It’s the idea that only one set of people, one stereotype do bad things. It is not just white cis gay men that are misogynistic, transphobic, racist and biphobic. It will never just be one set of people who are ‘this this and this’, however much you want it to.

Rather than education, which works in other places, exclusion is apparently the option

Stereotypes evolve to suit the most ‘moralistic’ in society. You have your white girl feminists, your neckbeards, your white middle class men and now, apparently, white cis gay men as well. They all, perhaps, have some basis in fact – but once you create a stereotype, it doesn’t go away. It will stay, like a brand, until a new one replaces it.

And each time a new one replaces it, everyone who is not part of the stereotypes demographic has a nice little escape. They can be misogynistic or transphobic or whatever else precisely because they don’t belong to the only group who does wrong. Once you create a scapegoat, everyone else is safe. ‘I’m not one of them – so what I’m saying must be fine’.

Once you create a scapegoat, everyone else is safe

We have to look at the people who create these motions, who have these ideas that excluding and blaming large tracts of people is perfectly reasonable, and ask – why on Earth? Why in God’s name would that ever work? It’s just divisive for Christ’s sake. And it doesn’t even make any logical sense.

But then, these are the people so sanctimonious that they don’t sit on ivory towers, it’s tofu or some other crap like that. These are people who believe that their morals are unquestionable and unsinkable.

These are people who believe that their morals are unquestionable and unsinkable

These are people who think their homophobia is acceptable because they don’t believe they belong to a group of people who are homophobic. It’s a fallacy, and one that can only be defeated by finding a way to make these people grow up and act like adults. That is not, I think, going to be an easy task.