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I think the marketing around the new X-Men feature film is frighteningly indicative of the current cultural climate around "otherness." There's a paper in there somewhere just waiting to be written. The rhetoric of the fictional "anti-mutant" campaign is convincing. The television spots link neatly into the upcoming US Presidential race. Are you mutant friendly? Are you pro-normal America? If Elian were a mutant, would you claim him for your community?

I fear that the irony is lost on most of the population.

I guess I am even more hyper (hyper) aware of otherness these days. I confronted with my own otherness every day as a gay man trying to make it in the big city. And as SF gears up for Pride this weekend, I really wonder at the whole construction of "pride" and "community" and the blasé blanket of the less-than-all-inclusive rainbow flag.

I have a few thoughts on that...

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Before I jump into my vent about "gay pride," I'd like to suggestively point out the current trend in "queer culture" -- at least among queer men who generally have the most airtime in our cultural discourse -- the sudden obsession with "normal" gay men. The whole notion that just because I sleep with men doesn't mean I'm a pansy, a queer, a flamer, a drag queen, a fag; I'm just a regular joe who likes sports, cars, beer, and crude jokes.

I expect the backlash, but I don't understand it. This quibble over masculinity, over "passing," over "normalcy" reeks of internalized homophobia. Methinks the lady doth protest too much. What exactly does "straight acting" mean? What exactly does "normal guy" mean? There is so much confusion over sexuality, gender, masculinity, gender performance. Just a few days before SF's Pride weekend, the SF Weekly's headline article is "The Regular Guys" with the teaser "They follow sports, wear flannel shirts, smoke, drink, belch, and make crude jokes. Oh, one other thing. They're gay." Fortunately, the reporter Benoit Denizet-Lewis seems to recognize the fallacy in the logic behind "gay but normal guys" and it surfaces in subtle ways in the article. But the trend is still there, still in our faces, still on the internet (www.regularguys.org). What does "traditionally masculine" mean anyway? Or "naturally masculine?" And why is it that both those ideals are also traditionally sexist, misogynist, and wholesomely patriarchal? Should their next slogan be, "We might be gay men, but we're nobody's bitch."

What about the new season of The Real World? I must admit that I was hesitant about another group of seven strangers picked to live in a house (this year it's a New Orlean's mansion). I thought I had outgrown the show. But, so far, the cast has potential. Of course, Danny's coming out didn't hurt either. However, it's a love-hate situation. I was hoping that there would be a queer cast member (since he was not out during the casting special). But Danny's a little too perfect. Already websites are springing up created to by admirers of this "regular guy" (http://rw9.tripod.com). Another tall, muscly, white, charming, good-looking spokesmodel for the queer community -- I would hardly call him "regular." The page I mention begins: "I created this page because just like you I admire Danny very much. It's about time that regular guys like Danny are represented in mainstream media. I didnt think the ninth season of the Real World would be to be any good until I saw how radically diverse the new cast is." Radically diverse? In what way?

Sigh. I could spend hours on this. It just proves to me again that our community continues to fragment and point accusatory fingers and find ways to "be better than" or "more acceptable than" those other people. I guess that's what it's all about, right? Being acceptable? Being normal? Being unobtrusive? As my friend Nancy's said to me, a lot of things aren't surprising these days when Al Gore is most prominent "liberal."

For the past four months, I have delved back into the realm of online chatting. I joined the chatrooms of gay.com (http://www.gay.com), a SF-based content- and online community provider. The goal was to meet more people, to make gay friends, and to put myself into the dating pool (as small as the chat world can provide). I have met a number of people, including friendly people like Rob. I have gone to four gay.com coffee socials. But, for the most part, I have yet to make any significant connections. In fact, I find most of chatters (like the mainstream gay male community) to be woefully ignorant, self-absorbed, and often oppressive (racist, sexists, misogynist, ageist, cliquish, classist, narcissistic). How is this possible? I ask myself this everyday. How can a community that vociferously challenges the instruments of oppression, of "the closet," of hate, of judgement, of damnation, of injustice consistently turn on itself? We are voting in droves because queers can't marry or participate openly in the military. We are up in arms when a young, white, "innocent" man gets beaten up and tied to a fence. We are marching on Washington to let the world know that we will be seen, we will be heard, and we will be counted. How then with all of this fervor and fury and strutting and fretting that we forget ourselves? Internally, we create categories of inclusion and exclusion. Internally, we make it very clear that the stripes on the rainbow flag are bordered, watchdogged, and separate. Internally, we pick up the rotten eggs of words and baseball bats of prejudice and bash ourselves.

And I am supposed to have pride in this? I am supposed to believe the myth that there is a embodied community? Am I supposed to feel welcomed? Am I supposed to feel empowered and uplifted? How can a movement, a race against ignorance, based on the core idea of personal expression, of validity of identity -- voices crying I am, I exist, I deserve, I love, and most importantly I defy dismissal -- recreate the same structures of physical, emotional, and political violence on itself? If we are to claim that man or that woman or that child or that community or that neighborhood or that organization or that hero or that celebrity or that consumer or that voter -- if we are to claim all of these people to show the world we are not alone, we have numbers, we have a demographic -- then we cannot claim them in face only, in dollar amounts only, in ballots only.

I have a stake in these ideas. I have a life in these ideas. I don't necessarily want to reinvent ideologies, but I definitely want to amend them, translate them, explore them. I am a gay man. I am an Asian American. I am a socialist, anarchist liberal. I am a punky, artistic writer. And though I'm not the most pink-powered or bicultural or sign-waving or hardcore poster child, I am still included in the fringe. I am not the queer male mainstream ideal. I am not the queer asian male stereotype either. A lot of this gets up the noses of people.

My gripe used to be that I didn't fit in, I didn't belong, I didn't get to play the same reindeer games. But, as I slowly rebuild the erosion in my own self, I realize that I don't want to assimilate. I am happy with fixing up who I am as I am. My gripe is that I am not afforded the same rights and privileges (and even responsibilities) as my less fringy counterparts. Where have we heard this argument before? I wanted to be accepted, found desirable, affirmed, and acknowledged. Somehow, the pride parades, the dance clubs, the bar scene, the Real World, the Gap ads, and the chat rooms failed to show me how I was included.