The Gang's All Queer

The Lives of Gay Gang Members

Vanessa R. Panfil

• Editorial: NYU Press
• Año: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781479857104
• Categoría: Sozialwissenschaften
• Categoría: Kriminologie

The first inside look at gay gang members. Many people believe that gangs are made up of violent thugs who are in and out of jail, and who are hyper-masculine and heterosexual. In The Gang’s All Queer, Vanessa Panfil introduces us to a different world. Meet gay gang members – sometimes referred to in popular culture as “homo thugs” – whose gay identity complicates criminology’s portrayal and representation of gangs, gang members, and gang life. In vivid detail, Panfil provides an in-depth understanding of how gay gang members construct and negotiate both masculine and gay identities through crime and gang membership. The Gang’s All Queer draws from interviews with over 50 gay gang- and crime-involved young men in Columbus, Ohio, the majority of whom are men of color in their late teens and early twenties, as well as on-the-ground ethnographic fieldwork with men who are in gay, hybrid, and straight gangs. Panfil provides an eye-opening portrait of how even members of straight gangs are connected to a same-sex oriented underground world. Most of these young men still present a traditionally masculine persona and voice deeply-held affection for their fellow gang members. They also fight with their enemies, many of whom are in rival gay gangs. Most come from impoverished, ‘rough’ neighborhoods, and seek to defy negative stereotypes of gay and Black men as deadbeats, though sometimes through illegal activity. Some are still closeted to their fellow gang members and families, yet others fight to defend members of the gay community, even those who they deem to be “fags,” despite distaste for these flamboyant members of the community. And some perform in drag shows or sell sex to survive. The Gang’s All Queer poignantly illustrates how these men both respond to and resist societal marginalization. Timely, powerful, and engaging, this book will challenge us to think differently about gangs, gay men, and urban life.

Part I

Understanding Gay Identity

1

“Why Do I Have to Hide It?”

Forming a Gay Identity

It’s a warm day in early fall, and I am sitting with Imani in the living room of the house he shares with his parents. His cousin Rose is also there, as is the toddler of another one of their cousins who needed a babysitter while she ran some errands. Imani is telling me about his gender presentation, and how he modifies it when necessary, especially to avoid trouble in public. He says, “Hold on, I’m finna1 [gonna] show you a real masculine picture of me.” He finds a picture of him in dark pants, a leather jacket, and a baseball hat, leaning away from the camera, face emotionless. I actually don’t recognize him at first, but the man in the picture does look stereotypically masculine: reserved, tough, and confident. I ask, “That’s you?” He replies, “See? You wouldn’t even know.” He turns to Rose. He asks her the same thing.

“Rose, does this look like me?”

“What?”

“Guess who that is.”

“You.”

“Don’t I look so hood?”

“No.”

Rose denies Imani’s request that she authenticate his realness and hoodness with a totally straight face, but he doesn’t take it very seriously. I chuckle.

Imani continues by talking to the baby who is visiting. “They’re mean. They cain’t take my manliness!” He turns back to me. “I’m mad you asked me was that me, oh my God! That don’t look like me, or somethin’?”

I offer that since we were talking about a number of people today, I wasn’t sure if it was his boyfriend or him. That is the truth. But I confirm that it does look like him, just that I thought he was trying to show me a really masculine picture of the boyfriend. Imani is delighted.

“She thought I was masculine! Oh! Come on! Come on. My picture serves realness. I cain’t wait to call my momma and talk to her. Like, ‘Gurl, my friend thought I was a MAN!’” He shows me several more pictures, asking me to confirm that he looks masculine in each one. He pokes fun at himself by flipping his long, dreaded hair behind his shoulders and saying, “I am a whole lady.” He has clarified to me several times that he doesn’t actually want to be a woman, though he claims he sometimes can be “fishier” (more feminine) than women; he describes this as being “real cunt.” He also maintains, “Cunt is cute.” However, he explains that he can’t be feminine most of the time or he’ll run into problems with his family, his neighbors, and his clique. Sometimes, he says, he has to be “a whole man.”

I think back to being in King’s bedroom over a year ago. He had pictures of Prada and Gucci purses and shoes taped to the wall above his bed, as if their location there would produce nothing but luxurious dreams. Even his pets were named after famous designers. King lamented that neither his financial situation nor his living arrangements would permit him to explore his passion for high-end fashion, typically marketed to affluent female customers: “It’s mostly only models and rich white ladies who really get to wear that stuff.” He went through his closet and gave me a fashion show of sorts, demonstrating how he wears solid colored or patterned scarves around his head in his neighborhood or when his gang would meet, but draped around his neck in downtown Columbus when he went to gay clubs; or a flashy leather jacket that was made by one of his “client’s peoples” that doubled as a status piece on the streets and garnered positive attention in gay circles—flexible pieces for the multifaceted urban gay man who described himself as “fashion forward.”

King added, “Now, I like the Gucci scarves too, but I will not do the man purse.”

* * *

Both Imani and King suggested that despite a preference for gender fluidity in their daily lives, their public gender presentation was more on the masculine end of the spectrum, sometimes out of necessity or in response to expectations imposed on them. There is an expressed contempt in modern society for “feminine” behavior.2 Misogynistic and homophobic cultural messages provide motivation for gender patrolling of boys and men, where members of society seek to change the behaviors of gender non-conforming males through informal social sanctions such as name-calling and physical harassment. Such actions are intended to punish transgression in an attempt to ensure males’ conformity to traditional masculinity and sexuality. Men who refuse to fight or otherwise assert their dominance in aggressive ways may be scolded with epithets that allude to femininity or gayness, such as “punk,” “sissy,” and “fag.”3 Unsurprisingly, homophobic epithets are more often used by males4 in an attempt to control or challenge another male’s masculinity. They might even call other males “fags” preemptively—to reduce the likelihood that they themselves will be insulted in that way.5 Political organizer Suzanne Pharr argues that homophobia and heterosexism are “weapons” of sexism. Gay men, especially visible gay men, are seen as a threat to male dominance and control because they are perceived as “traitors” to their sex.6

Cultural messages that glorify masculinity and heterosexuality pervade many young people’s lives, starting long before they have formed or disclosed their sexual and gender identities. These messages can also be affected by salient social characteristics like gender, race, and religious affiliation. Expectations imposed onto participants influenced how they understood their sexual identities, but also affected how they disclosed those identities to others and the reactions of other people. Imani was delighted to be read as masculine, and King found it necessary to present as a typical urban Black male when going out in public, all because not being masculine enough would attract negative attention from family, peers, and strangers.

This chapter explores how identifying as a gay man has been understood by participants and by others in their lives. Following a mostly chronological progression, I begin by discussing early perceptions of participants’ gender presentations as expressed by their families, peers, and themselves, followed by their behavior to conceal (at least strategically) their same-sex attractions. In addition to their experiences of gay identity formation, I also describe their coming out processes, including when and how they revealed their sexual identities to valued others in their lives, the reactions to these disclosures, and the social statuses that might explain such reactions. I focus primarily on familial and community dynamics here, and discuss peer interactions more in depth in subsequent chapters.

Early Experiences

As noted, the use of homophobic and misogynistic epithets can be used to “patrol” the behaviors of other males, especially gender atypical ones, in an attempt to ensure their conformity to masculinity and heterosexuality.7 Nearly two-thirds of my participants had been teased in school because of their sexuality or perceived sexuality, sometimes leading to fights. Their perceived gayness was usually linked with gender-atypical behavior, though often, participants couldn’t quite put their finger on what other children sensed. Those with gender-atypical behaviors or “feminine sides” identified these as the reasons they were targeted for homophobic teasing, even before they began to identify as gay.8 Oz remembered, “I really didn’t realize that [I] was gay until I was around 12 or 13, and people were sayin’, I was really really feminine when I was in schoo[l]. And they was like, ‘Oh, Oz, you’re gonna be gay, you’re gay,’ and I’m like, ‘No, I’m not gonna be gay.’ . . . But I always had a feeling, like, ‘Maybe I am!’” Ricky recalled that he was called “gay-gay” growing up, because “they said I had a switch, I never knew what a switch was.” Participants typically used the word “switch” to mean swishing their hips while walking. Similarly, people asked JD if he was gay because of “the way I carried myself,” and Hurricane stated, “I was always picked with, growin’ up through school because people saw my feminine side.” Joe explained that while he was questioning his sexuality, everyone had assumptions about him because of the way he dressed; his frustration with constant teasing even led him to bring an aerosol can and lighter to school and start spraying it at classmates.

Casper, Raphael, Jordan, and Kevin all specifically mentioned that their hanging around with girls more than guys resulted in problems in school with classmates or suspicions from their parents. DJ explicitly stated, “Some people say if you have a lot of girls in your life, then you tend to turn feminine, and that’s what makes you turn gay.” Imani joked that maybe he was supposed to have been “born a woman” since he bonds with his girl cousins more than his boy cousins. He said this to me in front of his cousin Rose, who thought it was quite entertaining.

Jordan articulated a number of reasons why participants were teased for being gay, nearly all of which hinged on societal expectations for boys, laced with moral meanings:

I didn’t really like high school, cuz it was a really awkward time for me, because I didn’t really identify as gay, even though I knew I was, and I was still pretty religious, and just, a lot of conflict, and I felt like a freak, and I didn’t really fit in with people. . . . I think [I knew I was gay] way back, when I was in, like, kindergarten, because I feel like I was always very influenced by females growing up, I always liked, like I guess, like, girl things, and I always hung out with girls, all the time. And then whenever we’d play something, I’d want to be, like, the girl in it. . . . I got teased a lot, because I was pretty feminine, and into really girly things, so they’d be like, “Oh, you’re gay,” and I’d just be like, “Oh, shut up, no I’m not,” or something.

This excerpt illustrates the tension in conceptualizing gender-atypical behavior: Jordan hesitates to call such activities “girl things” or “being the girl,” since he identifies as male and is not ashamed to engage in such behaviors. All of the pressure he felt to conform was external. By contrast, because his gender presentation was normative for a boy, King thought his high school classmates perceived him to be “weird,” “odd,” or “just young” because of his “sorta feminine” behavior, but not necessarily gay. For boys whose feminine behaviors or styles were visible, assumptions were made about their sexual orientation, and they were teased as a result.

Despite the fact that the majority of participants knew before their teen years that they were attracted to males, they felt pressure to conceal their sexual interests from schoolmates for a period of time. Otherwise, they thought they would face ridicule or actual physical violence. Rashad remembered, “I thought it was bad to be gay, cuz that’s how everybody was where I was living, if you were gay, you either had to be quiet about it, or it’d be problems.” Rocc explained, “Growin’ up, it was always, ‘This fag that,’ and ‘Faggot this’ and ‘Faggot that,’ so, I guess that’s kinda the attitude I carried, like, ‘Shit, I can’t do this, this shit is wrong, bein’ a fag.’” Max said he spent time with “straight people” in high school because he did not want to be “known” as gay, or for his mother to find out. In a striking comment on his behavior despite saying he was “born gay,” he stated, “before I knew what it was, I knew how to hide it.” That comment resonated particularly strongly with me on a personal level, since I had the exact same feeling as early as first grade. Tony remembered,

I always been like this since I was little. I remember in fourth grade, I used to look at lil boys, I used to think they was cute and stuff. I never said that out loud, and I would always hang with the girls, and I already knew somethin’ wasn’t right. . . . I didn’t figure [being gay] out ’til 10th grade. I knew, okay, this is set in stone. I was just like, this is what it is. But earlier, I used to just fight it like, “I gotta get over this lil thing,” I used to always try to look at girls, females, in the way I’m (wiggles fingers in air as air quotes) “supposed to,” I guess. Quotations! So, it just didn’t work out.

Participants knew precisely what was expected of them and that they were “different,” sometimes using precisely that word to categorize themselves before they knew what “gay” meant: when I asked Reese when he started to think of himself as gay, he answered back, “As different?” before telling me about his same-sex attractions dating back to kindergarten. Eric remembered, “I’ve obviously had these feelings since I was a kid, I was always different, and my mom, she’ll tell you that now, she likes to go through pictures of me when I was a kid, like, ‘Oh, look at you! You were so gay! Why didn’t I know?’” Interestingly, some research on sexual identity formation actually utilizes this framework in its data collection instruments, first asking when someone “felt different” and why.9 Narratives about feeling “different” further underscore a push for participants to eventually construct respectable gay identities to reduce ostracism, but explain why they first felt it necessary to obscure their gay identity.

Cover-Ups and “Holdin’ In That Big Secret”

In order to counteract assumptions about their sexuality that they knew might be difficult for them to deal with, participants enacted a number of strategies. One such strategy was attempting to “pass”10 as straight by using girls as “cover-ups,” which some people might call “beards.” Kevin started off by saying, “I’ve always been the princess of the girls, which is so stupid, because I’m a boy, but I’ve always been very princess-y.” Before he came out, Kevin dated a girl as a “cover-up,” even though he didn’t like her romantically: “I knew that I only wanted to be with dudes, but so people would not say, ‘Oh, you’re a fag,’ or, ‘Oh, you’re gay,’ or, ‘You like guys,’ or you know, shit like that. I said, ‘Okay, I’m straight. I have a girlfriend. Do you see her? She’s right here.’” Dollars dated a “cover-up” because he feared more than name-calling once his classmates “started to suspect” his gayness; he claimed that at “the school I went to, the kids there didn’t believe in homosexuality. . . . You get beat up, and that’s it, every day after school.” Jordan also suggested that in his school career, the only time he heard about gay people was when he was admonished, “Don’t be gay,” and “Don’t be a fag or you’ll get your ass kicked.” Ricky articulated that having crushes on girls was a way to hide being gay from “regular society.” And Max said, “When I was hidin’ it, I felt horrible, because there was girls that liked me and stuff, and I had to act like I liked them back.”

These efforts extended beyond school and into the family. Commenting on a multi-year relationship he had with a young woman which made him unhappy, Steve said, “It was pretty much a cover-up with my family, to get them to shut up, and quit asking me if I was gay.” Tony also admitted to having girlfriends just to avoid the subject with his older brothers, despite declaring, “I already knew all along what I liked”; the same went for Jeremy, who knew he “never liked females” but dated one to get his brothers off his back. Tony also explained that once his dad got custody of him, he intentionally acted like he was straight so that his dad wouldn’t suspect he was gay and be disappointed in him. Such efforts reiterate the expectation of heterosexuality that young people face, particularly young men.

There also was the option of outright denial if one was asked directly. Darius’s mother asked him several times if he was gay, and he denied it each time until he finally told her. When JD was confronted about being gay and denied it, people claimed that he must at least be bisexual, which he also denied until he became an adult. Other participants denied being gay to their classmates; some like Reese waited until completing school to come out. Strategies for obfuscation also existed, such as Javier and Josh telling their moms that the boys they brought around were friends when they were really boyfriends, or D.C. and Dollars letting parents think that the boyfriends they were going to see were male friends from sports or school. Though lying did take its toll. JD said, “Holdin’ in that big secret, like, ‘Oh, I’m not gay,’ I feel like that turned me into a big liar, you know, just holdin’ back that one lie, you start lyin’ about everything else!”

These suppressions of the self had negative psychic consequences for many. Reese stated that from ages 13 to 18, “I was always real angry because I wanted to come out but I was afraid to, because I didn’t know how people would react,” and because he didn’t know many gay people, he didn’t want to be “the oddball.” Although Steve wasn’t technically out to his family, he felt like the “outcast” because he believed his family already knew about him. Max recounted, “I was so uncomfortable with the fact that I was gay myself, so I couldn’t be [around my family], because I felt like I had to lie to them, so I didn’t wanna be around them.” Greg suggested that the fear of negative reaction is what stops many people from coming out, primarily because “a lot of people will look down on it.”

Most of the participants who were not out to their parents stayed hidden not because they knew definitive...