this is what I hate about “privilege” as a framework summed up in one tweet. This may become a thread. https://twitter.com/mankindgloryto/status/1289975987086790656

Issue 1: oversimplification

It doesn’t matter to this person if gay men are rejected by families, harassed, or assaulted. Because their average standing is (as he assumes) higher than that of other LGBT people, they are “privileged” and therefor the enemy.

There’s no room for nuance, pros and cons of different identities, or anything of the sort. There’s a simple hierarchy in which all people must be sorted into various levels of “oppressor” and “oppressed”

Issue 2: priorities

Within the framework this [individual] is using, it is more important to drag other groups down than it is to uplift everyone as a whole.

Make society safer for ALL lgbt people, you say? Don’t be ridiculous! It is far more important to critique various groups for their proximity to whiteness/heteronormativity/cisnormativity/masculinity etc than to argue for the acceptance of all people who don’t fit that mold.

Issue 3: unlikely bedmates

Problemetizing various minority groups for supposed “privilege” very often puts progressives in the strange situation of agreeing with far-right positions, just for different motivations.

The most obvious example is far-left antisemitism, which leads to suspicion and exclusion of Jews because they are seen as “oppressors” of the more-marginalized Palestinian people. Never mind that Jews have been persecuted for centuries & in modern times

We are beginning to see this same trend appear with respect to gay men as well. As a recent example, Pete Buttigieg was disqualified in the minds of some for being gay, but for some in the far left, he wasn’t “queer enough” because he’s a married white gay

The same phenomenon is occurring in the tweet that began this thread— even though a third of Americans don’t even believe in marriage rights for gay men, gay guys are still seen as “oppressive” by the [twitter user] above, and therefore are fair game to attack and degrade.

Once there is moral cover for homophobia, expect to see it come out of the woodworks from supposedly “lgbt positive” progressives. Even some lefties love to stomp on minorities, and if it comes across as morally justified, all the better.

That’s all I have for now. But in conclusion, it costs zero dollars not to dress your bigotry in the guise of righteousness. So don’t.