[[Transcript:

“This is gay pride, not Lady Gaga parade. She is not a spokesperson for us. She is not one of us. She is not a lesbian and she is not gay. Just because you like us doesn’t mean you are us. All I wanna say is that Kelly Rowland is the true gay icon. But besides that fact… …your self acceptance songs - ‘born this way’, 'firework’, 'we are who are’ ['we r who we r’]. You’re a straight white woman, you don’t know shit about getting bullied. You don’t know fuck about what we’ve been through. So thanks for writing it, but a gay man should be singing it. Or a black man, or some random ass lesbian with penis growing out of her forehead. Because you don’t know shit about being born this way.”]]

bookishbutcorruptible:

maggieblueberry:

stillgrimey:

ghdos:

sophieasweetheart:

darateke:

At NYC pride [x]

Welp.

Fucking boom

Fuck, you guys, Lady Gaga is OPENLY BISEXUAL. Whether you agree with her methods or not, she is A PART OF THIS COMMUNITY, and she has a say in this conversation.

I bet if you tried a little harder you might be able to marginalize bisexual people more. I don’t think you’re really giving it your all.

I think Lady Gaga’s involvement in queer culture is a little more complex than it gets boiled down to whenever her sexuality is brought up.

1) Disbelieving Lady Gaga’s bi identity isn’t cool. If we’re talking about the cultural phenomenon of women claiming bisexuality as a publicity stunt, we should be talking Katy Perry (“I Kissed a Girl”). Lady Gaga has not (to my knowledge) redacted her assertion that she is bisexual. Saying she’s just doing it for attention smacks of some serious bi-erasure & fucking “it’s just a phase” bullshit.

2) However, Lady Gaga’s presentation is entirely intentional. Her image and music are undoubtedly heavily doctored by publicists, producers and who-even-knows else. This lends a layer of complication to the personal elements of her presentation.

3) Even as a bi woman, Lady Gaga CANNOT speak “for” queer culture. No more than I, a pan woman, can. No more than a gay man can. No more than single person of any identity can. Nor can she purport to “represent” queer culture.

4) It’s hard to tell how much of this presumed attempt at representation is intentional on her part, or on the part of her producers, and how much of it is done by larger cultural influences.

5) BUT she was the frontperson on an anthem that was designed to be viewed as a …well, “queer” maybe? “LGBT”? anthem. Stefani Germanotta (Gaga) may have been on board with a desire to show support for a community she loves and is a part of, but the larger creative team was definitely aware that this song was a publicity stunt. 

6) “Born This Way” as well as a great many of Gaga’s other songs and performances veer into an uncomfortably appropriative and fetishizing territory when it comes to gay male culture*. Which sucks on three counts: 1)Don’t fucking boil whole groups of people down to a motherfucking aesthetic, 2)GAY MEN ARE ONLY PART OF THE QUEER COMMUNITY, and 3)Lady Gaga is not a gay man. She does NOT have the history to co-opt this culture.

7) Gaga’s use of the t-word to describe her aesthetic. Just. No.

HOWEVER BACK TO #1: * * * None of Lady Gaga’s transgressions against the larger queer population mean that she is not a part of it. That’s not how identity and experience work. * * *

Being a part of a population doesn’t make you immune to criticisms from within that population, however. Especially in such a huge, diverse and multi-faceted community as the queer community.

I do not know if the speaker in this gifset is aware of Gaga having said she is bisexual (I also am not doing the work to cite this right now, sorry), and the speaker’s statements could be based in ignorance & the compulsory heterosexuality of our culture.

I do fundamentally agree with the speaker’s basic point: Lady Gaga is NOT a spokesperson for the queer community, and should NOT be treated as some sort of gay guru - which she often is - especially for gay male culture - which she is most heavily associated with - and no queer person owes her gratitude for her creative work centered on gay and queer culture. And the music industry should REALLY get behind a more diverse array of performers who are vocal about queer acceptance, self acceptance and queer culture.

But yes, there are WAY less bi-erasing ways of saying this.

Also, never fucking assume someone hasn’t been bullied.

*Granted, gay male culture certainly has some appropriation and fetishization of its own going on, so by proxy (or maybe not even), Gaga is appropriating some Black (and other) culture. Surprise!