Society pushes the LGBT community to the outside of society, much in the same way that society pushes ethnic minorities to the periphery. Few realize, though, that the ethnic groups that reside on the outskirts of society aren't all welcoming the LGBT community with open arms.
"It's a matter of racism existing in the gay community and homophobia existing in the within communities of color," said Ruth Hackford-Peer, coordinator of the U's Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered Resource Center.
Simone Fritz, adviser to the Black Student Union, agrees with Hackford-Peer's assessment.
"Within the black community, there is a lot of homophobia," she said. Fritz said she feels that when an ethnic minority person who is gay brings up issues, he or she must choose between focusing on gay issues or ethnic minority issues.
"Overall, gayness is a white issue. Queer is not an inclusive term. Not everyone can fit within LGBT. It may not be conscious, but white still seems to be the center and many black men and women give up the black issue when they come out," she said.
Discussions about where both communities are coming from will help mend the problems of racism and homophobia, she said, but not until white privilege is addressed.
"When a gay man is white, he has to address the privileges he has as a white male before he can discuss the oppression he faces," Fritz said. Hackford-Peer agrees.
"Absolutely the LGBT community is oppressed, but I realize that many of the political fights are a middle class movement," she said. "In the white LGBT community, people are able to express their whole self more fully, but people with conflicted identities don't have that opportunity."
Barbara Nash, a transgendered professor of geology and geophysics, also recognizes the issues that arise when a person is both a sexual minority and an ethnic minority.
"It's different to be white and gay and be black and gay. As a white person, I can't even begin to understand that, but I can appreciate it," she said.
It's that appreciation that Karen Kwan, adviser to the Asian American Student Union, has come to embrace.
"I think the descriptor of oppressed or marginalized group applies to the LGBT community because they face discrimination similar to that which ethnic minorities feel," Kwan said.
That solidarity will be needed in the near future as the U is moving to create a student diversity center that incorporates the Center for Ethnic Student Affairs and the LGBT Resource Center under one administrator. However, even Kwan realizes that there is a fundamental difference between sexual and ethnic minorities. "A person's gayness may not be apparent, but complexion is apparent," she said. "However, even race or ethnicity doesn't define that person as a whole. Looking at gay issues has helped my students understand people in a more complete way." For Fritz, the divide goes deeper.
"The black community, in my opinion, does not think of gays as an oppressed group because of the fact that many are middle-class and white. They can't come into a discussion with a group of black people and say, 'Let me talk to you about being marginalized.' Many can't fathom what that word means," she said.
On the U campus, though, many gays hope to address their white privilege and come together and fight for each other's issues.
smcfarland@chronicle.utah.edu
