I'm a Gay Man: Coming Out Again

Ah, Vermont: America’s Canada. It’s the Shangri-La of idyllic liberalism through the lens of an overwhelmingly white™ population sheltered from the realities of urban socioeconomics and intersectional diversity. The Great Green North brought to earth Goddard College, so it’s no surprise its progressive organizations would be dabbling in the kind of experimental wokeness that might make a Feminist Studies major in Colorado blush or a gay man in Pennsylvania seethe.  

Pride Center Vermont, “the region’s most comprehensive community center dedicated to advancing community and the health and safety of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer” community, has managed to elevate its values to a zenith that comes full circle, tiptoeing into its own homophobia.

 

For all of those who aren’t up to date on the recent additions to the LGBT community’s alphabet soup, or just need a refresher on the founding stalwarts, PCV offers a glossary of terms and definitions it calls “LGBTQIA+ 101: The Basics.” It includes our community’s everyday words like “Lesbian” and “Transgender,” as well as newer ones like “Pansexual” and “Two Spirit.” While its debatable whether those who identify as Two Spirit necessary belong under the LGBT umbrella, most of the terms are assigned mundane dictionary definitions.

 

However there is one standout. Perhaps the identity most commonly associated with the LGBT community, certainly the most commonly used, “Gay” is defined as:

 

1) A man who is romantically and/or sexually attracted primarily to other men. 2) The term may be used by any person to describe same gender attraction (e.g. gay man, gay woman, gay person), or as an umbrella term for all people who experience same gender attraction.

 

So far, so good.  But PCV’s definition of “Gay” goes on to claim:

 

For some in our community, this term can feel invalidating or undermining (to) the full breadth and depth of attraction identities (emphasis mine).

 

Poor grammar aside, I’d like to see their research. (I asked and will post a follow-up if I receive a reply. Don’t hold your breath. I asked over a month ago.) If the word “Gay” in fact invalidates or undermines the breadth or depth of attraction identities, what is an appropriate, alternative term for homosexual men?

 

Interestingly, PCV’s glossary doesn’t include the word “Homosexual.”

As a gay man, I’m not necessarily offended by the word “Queer,” which PCV defines, but as anyone who was bullied with the word in their youth can attest, it’s not something I personally identify with. That’s a fairly common theme among men and women over 40. More curiously, PCV’s definition of the word “Queer” doesn’t contain a caveat similar to the one used for “Gay,” despite it being as triggering, if not more so, to a much larger audience within the LGBT community.

 

The glossary goes on to note:

 

“It is very important to respect people’s desired self-identifications.”

 

I’m not sure how gay men’s desired self-identification is being respected when PCV acknowledges it as being “invalidating” or “undermining” to others, particularly when no reasonable alternative term is offered for gay men. It’s worth noting PCV repeatedly uses the acronym “LGBTQ+.” “The “G” is right there at number two. 

 

Pride Center Vermont has summited progressivism’s genderless Mount Everest, accounting for every gender and attraction, even the voids of those genders and attractions, by bullying those who started our Liberation Movement out from under the umbrella we started. Make no mistake; these microaggressions are designed solely to make us repent for the Original Sin of being born male, especially continuing to identify as such.

 

After 40 years, gay men are finally digging ourselves out from under the stigma of AIDS only to be shoved back in the closet by our own community.

 

I know hate. I know persecution. When I was a kid in the ‘80s, bullies at the skating rink constantly asked me if I was “a boy or a girl” just because I was effeminate. As a teen in the ‘90s, I was bullied – thrown off the back of my school’s bleachers before being beaten and shoved headfirst into a trash can – for being a “Queer.”

 

Now me and my brothers, and sisters too, are being thrown off our own parade floats because we’re not queer enough.

 

I can handle Ron DeSantis and Marjorie Taylor Green. I’ve been handling them my whole life. But now, my own community has become my biggest bully. When I watch conservative pundits on the television railing against the “homosexual agenda,” I’m inspired to fight. When I visit PCV’s website, or when a nurse asks for my pronouns, I’m reminded of the vile children who threw me in a trashcan because I was different, or asked if I was “a boy or a girl.”

 

If the word “Gay” is invalidating or undermining, how should I identify? Am I just supposed to step aside without any identity at all? Should I forget all the rallies I went to, all the quilts I signed, all the friends I buried?

 

What are my struggles worth to what my community’s become? How can I embrace that community when it doesn’t allow me my own identity? 

The End of Pride as We Know It

Part of me wants to go to PHL Pride Collective's march on Sunday just to see what an unmitigated disaster it will be. But I also don't want to step outside just to get pissed off. 

To quote Lisa Simpson, "this is why I can't have nice things."

It only takes a few people to fuck up a good thing for everyone else, and when a fringe group of faux queer activists hijacked Philly Pride, they did exactly that. Many of us bemoaned Rainbow Capitalism and how corporate Pride festivals around the world had become. It was true. Bank of America shouldn't be able to price Cape May Mosaics out of a booth. But with greater acceptance over the past decades, Pride festivals have become ways of introducing our curiously straight counterparts to our community in fun, friendly, and inviting ways. The festivals would have been nicer without T-Mobile kiosks and the Wells Fargo wagon, but those sponsors helped pay for security and services. 

Be careful what you wish for. Corporate sponsors aren't just banned from this year's Philly Pride Parade, so is the fun and spectacle. 

It's profoundly sad. In a community that still faces harsh marginalization and violence, we're no strangers to conservative fear mongering and hate. But here, Philadelphia Pride was upended by people who claim to be part of our community. Philly Pride Presents had its problems, but it also had thousands of good hearted volunteers over the years, all of which - including what they had learned about organizing a huge public event - was discarded by PHL Pride Collective when it handed itself the reins. 

PHL Pride Collective is a vanity project by a group of narcissists only loosely tethered to the community, passive warriors who believe the more letters in the LGBTQQIAA+ alphabet soup they eat, the more important they are. They collect identities like Pokemon, with cries for equitable distribution at their behest to be compounded by how quantifiably special each one individually is. Using the word "collective" is ironic. Their tagline should read "FUCK EQUALITY!"

They've stacked the chess board in their favor, surrounding themselves with eight genderless queens. They're untouchables masquerading as freedom fighters. Call them out and you're racist or transphobic. Once was a time when nuance would get lost in text messages and IMs only to be resolved with some face to face clarity later. Now we speak in a linguistically arrested series of sentence fragments with no room for interpretation. What's said is what's meant, full stop, and in the politically polarized realm we live in, rational detractors are afraid of landing on the "wrong" side of a sensitive debate, forced into silence by radicals willing to cancel them with a Tweet. 

There are a lot of worthy causes out there. The world is literally on fire. But not everything should be lumped under Pride's umbrella, it's crowded enough as it is. Somehow the gay and lesbian community became a catch-all for everything that didn't have a parade. Now that we're a footnote in our own community, we're lumped in with other causes that already have their own months and holidays as an afterthought.

Vegan? Come aboard! We'll toss all the flesh eaters off the float! Autistic? Great! Homosexuals are mentally defective too! 

Gay cop? Get out! Gay soldier? Problematic. Gainfully employed homeowners who pay their taxes? That's not really what we're about. 

I feel bad for what our nation did to the Native Americans centuries ago, but why does this year's Pride march feature a land acknowledgement for the Lanape People? Was there no room left in PHL Pride Collective's itinerary for pandas and whales? 

The theys and thems behind this year's Pride march don't care about what anyone went through before them because it pivots the spotlight away from their own marginalization and pet causes, or so that's how they see it. In reality, the past experiences of all gay men and women - dare I say even white ones - are not a threat to the tangential experiences of people today. The trans rights movement used gay and lesbian successes as a blueprint to say, "we're next," then turned around and called us transphobic because we claimed to still exist. PHL Pride Collective is too vain to recognize the fact that little gay boys and girls still kill themselves, that gay men and women in conservative and rural areas are still reviled by their neighbors and snake handlers hypocritically preaching "do unto others." 

It seems the only people not represented by today's gay community are actual homosexuals. It's kind of ironic that a community that solely exists because of sex and gender was stolen by a bunch of non-binary virgins who think sex is a weapon. If the far Rights hates homosexuals as much as they claim the Good Book does, they should be championing the Radical Left, because it's tearing us apart and stripping away our voices. In the wake of Sunday's Pride march, I fear nothing will be left but the rubble of five decades of hard work. 

And they'll blame us. 

G Philly

It's no secret that the news has changed over the last two decades. The days of hard hitting investigative reporting have been traded for revenue generating click-bait and a sensationalized twenty-four hour cycle of entertainment. 

Professional journalism still exists, it's just hard to find. 

Sophomoric garbage doesn't have a home. Conventional wisdom would assume it's local, but it weasels its way into the big three cable news networks and major urban papers. In Philadelphia, nowhere is the bilge water of tired wannabes more apparent than at our namesake magazine, Philadelphia.

Since the magazine's inception it's struggled with reaching a true cross-section of the city. Haplessly tone deaf, photos meant to represent Philadelphians were often decidedly white amid a city that is anything but. Interviews on the street echoed the magazine's racist undertones and it was, at least until very recently, regarded as a rag thumbed through by wealthy Main Line women waiting for their stylists. Philadelphia Style, a similar publication fills that role. It's consumed with tedious fluff, but it knows what it does and does it well. It doesn't pretend to be more than style and society news.

Philadelphia itself, however, has recently attempted to separate itself from the muck, and the result has been a bumbling mess of lunchroom rants stylized as blogs with seemingly no purpose other than to incite backlash on social media. This interaction, once reserved for Letters to the Editor rarely read and even more rarely responded to, is uncharted territory. Journalists don't really have best practices mapped out for exactly how to react to responses on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Being the public face of a publication on social media does have its responsibilities, however, and a healthy act is to simply not respond in length. As our Commander in Chief can surely attest, though likely loathe to admit, Tweets have a nagging ability to last forever and one late night rant can soil the reputation of everyone in your orbit.

A few years ago, Philadelphia attempted to shed its straight white reputation by hiring one writer who seemed to address its entire checkered past. Ernest Owens, a blogger from Chicago, is a stylish gay black man well versed in a Millennial style of journalism that is advertising gold. However, Owens is the only journalist writing for Philadelphia's G Philly, the magazine's LGBT insert. Found alongside the Philadelphia Gay News and LGBT city guides at local gay bars, G Philly used to be just another community entertainment guide. Its Man Crush Monday and Woman Crush Wednesday featured charming stories about locals in the LGBT community. It wasn't a standout leaflet but it was something to browse at the bar while waiting for a friend. 

Ernest Owens has transformed G Philly into something else entirely, and despite some initially good intentions, he's made G Philly his personal manifesto against Philadelphia's own Gayborhood. There is no question that racism is alive and well in Philadelphia's LGBT community. In a city gentrifying fast, racism abounds. Perhaps it stands out so starkly in the Gayborhood because, as a marginalized community, we should be better than most and hold ourselves to a higher standard than the demographics of Old City or Northern Liberties. 

It's truly unfortunate that a community so familiar with bigotry is riddled with amplified prejudice from within. It doesn't take particularly high level thinking to understand why this is, even why it seems to be on the rise. The LGBT community isn't a racial, ethnic, or religious minority. We're raised  by everyone everywhere, and we join the community when we come out, long after we've been ingrained with whatever preconceptions our parents and native communities fed us. Additionally, younger generations not raised amid the struggle and strife of those twenty or thirty years ago may not be as sympathetic to the very notion of prejudice itself. 

Owens speaks from this mantra, an enhanced expectation for unrealistic idealism blind to anyone born before 1982. He fixates on incidents to the point of obsession and his writing reflects the narcissism of a man who views the world through a tunnel, unwilling to relent when he's proven wrong. Two decades ago, journalists were swilling bourbon and smoking cigars at their desk, slamming phones when they didn't land the scoop first. They'd be the last to let a challenge go unaddressed or burn a bridge. Contacts were everything, even when they were monsters. Today, writers like Owens shut down when challenged, blocking Twitter users and doubling down on falsehoods instead of shifting narratives. He has no interest in the truth, or newsworthiness, only justifying his preconceptions by any means necessary. 

No adherent to his personally crafted end is beneath him. 

Throughout his posts, he rarely cites those he quotes. More often or not, those he interviews are anonymous, sometimes the anonymity isn't even noted. Quotes supporting his arguments routinely ring with the same speaking style of Owens, frequently too convenient to be believable. It's not a stretch to imagine he simply makes up lines to support his own conclusions. In an absence of journalistic ethics - it's not as though Philadelphia is logging the identity of those anonymously interviewed - there's no reason to believe Owens isn't a charlatan. 

His long time fixation has been on the Gayborhood nightclub, iCandy. He had a legitimate beef with the club, as should everyone. When owner Darryl DePiano surfaced on YouTube repeatedly dropping the n-bomb, the Gayborhood erupted. Stonewall kickballers were taping over the iCandy logo on the back of their uniforms, protests were held, a boycott ensued. Perhaps it would have been best for everyone if DePiano had sold iCandy before the hostility had time to marinate. Instead, he made a donation to the Attic Youth Center on behalf of a black author, who Owens failed to mention by name in his blog about the entire fiasco. Ironically, in the very same article, Owens chastises DePiano for failing to remember the author's name.

It was a shoddy attempt at reconciliation. The $300 donation is chump change to a nightclub owner trying to make amends to a community that had long patronized his venue. Nevertheless, Owens' continued rampage against the venue has taken a valid point of racism and raised it with charges against its performers and employees. An Instagram account @icandynightclubisracist surfaced three days ago, and considering its profile and four of its first posts link back to Owens' articles at Philadelphia, it's easy to guess who's behind the account. If Owens isn't, he certainly inspired it.

In it, the account slanders local drag queens, referring to one as an Uncle Tom. These are community members who eke out a living as artists, bartenders, and servers; good people still persecuted by homophobia who deserve praise for their commitment to low wage performances, not more shame by some anonymous huckster. Were this Owens' known account, such accusations would certainly be grounds for dismissal, perhaps even legal action. But it doesn't really matter who owns the account because it reeks of the ire he wrought with the digital pages of Philadelphia, where he incited more racism and hate by conflating his ego with the noble attempt to right a wrong. It's sad when popular opinion begins to pity racists for more than the shallow scum that they are, when publicly shaming people like DePiano makes anyone feel sorry for him. Yet this is the community that Owens - who blazes on against philanthropic organizations like the Mazzoni Center - is trying to create for all of us who just want to do better. 

At this point, Philadelphia is likely regretting its hire. Not only have they allowed Owens to run G Philly as his personal blog, they are aiding in the undoing of a community that faces enough battles from lingering homophobia and the onslaught of gentrification. However, the magazine is also in a position where, to fire Owens, would mean a return to its nefarious straightwashing and whitewashing, all under the pretext of cutting ties with the one gay black man they have on staff. It wouldn't look good, and Owens undoubtedly known this. He's placed himself in the perfect position: a well known rabble rouser with a robust following on social media. To let him go means his obsession would shift from iCandy to his employer, and likely the collapse of the magazine. 

The growing pains of social media and the redefinition of news are beginning to wear thin. Writers like Owens generate a lot of clicks, comments, shares, and revenue. But smart news outlets need to begin differentiating between savvy social media personalities and megalomanics. Unfortunately, in this realm the two go hand in hand. The most sought after "influencers" are also the most arrogant and unhinged. The future for Philadelphia looks grim, but not so for the Gayborhood under Ernest Owen's unsubstantiated critique. He's never allowed himself to become part of Philadelphia's LGBT community. He writes of the Gayborhood and its storied streets from the vantage point of an outsider. G Philly was never the Gayborhood's letter of record, but it has no hope of sustaining itself even as a door side rag. For all our troubles, we are a tight community, and Owens has only allowed himself to be a visitor even on his best day. At his worst, he's ranting about a movie he refuses to watch, a toddler spitting out his first spoonful of green beans. We've persevered through much more, and right now our biggest threat is gentrification, not some blogger with a Jesus complex. In the words of Mother Ru and every hardworking queen in the Gayborhood, "sashay away."

"I still put my panties on one leg at a time."

When David Duchovny reprised his role as Denise Bryson in the longtime coming return of Twin Peaks, the internet was surprisingly kind. Bryson, a trans FBI agent, was first introduced in a three episode arc in 1990 and was Duchovny's breakout role, the role that undoubtedly led to his best known Fox Mulder in the X-Files. 

The Daily Beast heaped praise on the actor and the character, and her relationship with David Lynch's Agent Gordon Cole. The tables are turned. 25 years ago, Cole was Bryson's boss. Now she's Chief of Staff. Cole's interaction with Bryson is perhaps one of the new series's least Lynchian moments, and he handles it the exact way you'd expect an older agent with a heart of gold to do so, a bit awkward and straight to the point, once telling those who tried to stand in her way to "fix your hearts or die." 

We should all aspire to be so direct. 

Cole hasn't become more politically correct with age, and neither has Bryson. The two debate the assignment of a hot, young FBI Agent (Chrysta Bell) to a "Blue Rose" case. Bryson calls Cole out for his penchant for sexy young agents, and Cole reminds Bryson that the agency is big enough for two attractive women. It's a charming scene in a series full of bleak imagery, incest, rape, and murder. And although the frenzied internet has (for the most part) welcomed Bryson back, Twitter and social media have been every bit as reactionary as you'd expect.

"Cringe worthy" was the phrase tossed around Twitter. But if you step outside of Bryson's mahogany walled office and into the universe of Twin Peaks, her's is by far the least cringe worthy scene. 

Twin Peaks is a show that has made truly unique art out of awkward sentence structure, backwards speaking, dreamscapes, and nightmares. It's full of long pauses, bizarre language, and completely implausible plot points. It is not a show set in any reality, and more a series of isolated vignettes that are likely meant to stir a mood or feeling rather than advance the story, whatever it happens to be about. The entire show is deliberately "cringe worthy."

So to read Bryson's character described as such leads one to wonder whether these viewers actually watched the first four parts in their entirety or simply fast forwarded to Bryson's scene. In the context of the entire show, Bryson's scene is mild to dull, and that's what's always made her the best representation of a trans character on television, in 1990 and today. While Bryson's gender identity is discussed in the show, it's largely incidental. Take away Cole's loud, monotonic voice and it's the real conversation you'd expect between an FBI Agent and his boss. 

It's unlikely we'll ever know why Lynch chose to incorporate a trans person into Twin Peaks, but it's not hard to guess. Lynch's works are populated with the unordinary: dwarves, amputees, agoraphobics, giants. We'd all like to pat ourselves on the back and say that transgender people are just like everyone else, and they should be, but the reality is, they are not perceived to be of the ordinary by most people. Lynch also creates strong female characters who struggle against the odds. Drug addicts, rape victims, and women who fall prey to "the evil that men do" abound in Twin Peaks, and Denise Bryson, a trans field agent who climbed to a high ranking office in the testosteronal United States government is an ultimate example of this. That she's shown to have done so without relaying the heart wrenching stories of her transition gives her character the same respect of anyone in the show. Like Deputy Hawk who happens to be Native American, Denise Bryson is an FBI agent who happens to be trans. 

Obviously the biggest gripe about Denise Bryson's reprisal is that she's played by David Duchovny, a cis male actor, and accusations of "trans face." I really hope that phrase dies before it takes off because it's an insult to performance art and our own intellect. Acting is about playing someone else. Maybe it's the result of being bombarded by reality TV, docudramas, and deeply personal journey stories like Transperfect, but audiences have been inflicted with the notion that characters can only be played by actors who personally identify with the role. 

Only 0.3% of the country's population identify as trans, and plenty are too busy being architects, doctors, lawyers, and teachers to gratuitously play a trans character simply because of how they identify.

If an actor can superficially pass for the character that's needed, the best capable actor will do. That's acting. Gay men and lesbians play straight roles and vice versa, Italians play Greeks, Christians play Muslims. When you're crafting performance art, you want the best talent for the job. And when you're casting a trans character, you can't cast Laverne Cox or Jamie Clayton in everything. In fact, doing so would demean the abilities of talented trans actors capable of playing cis characters too. Expecting trans characters only to be played by trans actors turns those roles into superficial cliches. 

Denise Bryson is a compassionate portrayal of a trans woman in a series with a love/hate relationship with compassion for anyone, especially women. Twin Peaks is a surrealist hell-scape of good versus evil, and an unconventional piece of outsider art. It doesn't exist in our universe, literally or figuratively, and to try to make sense of it in the context of our own social rules and expectations is to go looking for trouble. As an unabashed Lynchian and Peaks Freak, my opinions are entirely biased, but I'm thrilled that Duchovny returned as Denise Bryson as more than just tokenism or fan indulgence. She's back and she's relevant. But if you try to dissect Bryson's character or Lynch's directorial choice to recast Duchovny, you need to actually watch the series. Twin Peaks is a world of nonsensical demons, and if you use logic to pick apart every character, or the show itself, you'll fall down a rabbit hole of maddening frustration. 

"It's not about the bunny," and if anyone doesn't get that, they need to shut up about a show they clearly never bothered to watch. 

The Unreal Oneal

Get ready for the Reid-Bynes-Lohan School of Hollywood Hard Knocks, kid. In a recent Vulture article, The Real O'Neals lead Noah Galvin levied a curse-laden slew of insults at Colton Haynes, director Bryan Singer, and Modern Family's Eric Stonestreet. 

It sounds like he really took playing a young Dan Savage to heart.

He called Haynes coming out, "fucking pussy bullshit," said Bryan Singer "likes to invite little boys over to his pool and diddle them," and slammed Stonestreet's role in Modern Family as a caricature. Somewhere within his rant, he managed to slip in a backdoor brag about a confused guest-star hitting on him.

Sounds like a catch, right? 

In each of these cases, he could have made a point. He could have said that his own coming out story was much simpler than Haynes', and that both of them are making it easier for aspiring gay actors. He could have referred to Singer's controversial lawsuits without resorting to slander. And he could have respectfully criticized Stonestreet's performance as an older gay man, while admitting a lack of understanding for the generation Stonestreet represents. 

But he's a kid in Hollywood, and a green one at that. The Real O'Neals is his first major role, with small credits dating back only three years. Gay or straight, he's not the first Hollywood rookie to dive into the spotlight without considering the backlash. Let's face it, he thought he was being funny. Few gay men amongst us didn't resort to nastiness to land a laugh in our teens and early 20s. 

But it wasn't funny, it was just mean. 

The backlash hasn't hit, and who knows if it will. Galvin's words were so extreme and off-the-cuff, his co-stars - even Dan Savage - may not know how to respond. Those he insulted may have taken his belligerence into consideration and decided to avoid a potential Twitter war.

I hope Martha Plimpton is as much a mother on the set as she is in character. If anyone understands the double-edged sword of fame, she does. As a member of the Carradine family, I'm sure she's learned a thing or two about what can be said - and shouldn't be said - in the public eye. She's likely got some tough love for him next time they're on the set together. 

The "I know best" mantra of the early 20-something is nothing new, and certainly not exclusive to gay men. It's also never been an attractive trait. Perhaps had his rants been aimed at his peers - gay men who were already out when they landed their first gig - it might have been better received, or at least excused as a youthful indiscretion. 

Ugly Betty's Mark Indelicato comes to mind, and at least one from the cast of Glee. But the uplifting coming out stories and incidental transitions of his peers don't trend, and they don't fit the nasty narrative Galvin is confusing with humor. Hollywood politics aside, that's what this is about, and that's what's so sad. 

He's claiming to buck the trend of clichés by playing right into them. His humor only has ground in negativity, a pessimism that can't even appreciate how lucky he is. What's more cliché than "the bitchy queen" - critical of everything and everyone - without relating any of it back to himself?

Like Haynes or Singer, Galvin has no professional obligation to his community, a point he hypocritically made shortly after bashing them for lacking in their obligation to their community. 

But that doesn't change the public's perception. Had a straight actor new to the scene made these comments, the public would brush it off as a kid being a kid. But this kid's gay, and on ABC, a network as new to the gay world as himself. To many fans of The Real Oneals, Catholic families who've grown to identify with its lovable characters, Galvin's comments are laced with the notion that gay men might all be this nasty. He may not have an obligation to address that, but I think he's about to be introduced to an unfair world in which he soon realizes he should.

*UPDATE

Queue the apology in 3...2...1...

Variety

Wow, that was fast.

To be fair, his apology sounds as earnest as it gets, particularly understanding how new he is to Hollywood. He let fame go to his head, and he got carried away. I still can't help but picture a stern Martha Plimpton fresh to the set, "So, you learn your lesson, kid?"

A Real Hollywood Superhero

When the Advocate ran Jase Peeples' story, The Problem with Colton Haynes and Not Quite "Coming Out" back in January, it rang with a mix of problems, the least of which was with Colton Haynes himself, or whatever strategic game Peeples alleged Haynes was playing.

The article was a swift reaction to Haynes' broadly sweeping social media presence, and specifically a comment he made in which he rhetorically questioned his own "secret gay past." It gave a lot of gay fans hope, crushed the dreams of CW fangirls, and drove social media insane. And it maddened them even more when he failed to provide a followup. 

But it wasn't a failure, not then, and not today with Haynes "officially" out of the closet.

The failure is in the need to officiate every celebrity's lavender debutante, and how the media singles out specific individuals in an effort to expose very real prejudice within the Hollywood image machine. 

Colton Haynes and Arrow co-star Emily Bett Richards

In January, many assumed Haynes was simply being coy, humorously interacting with his fans on social media in a way that's gained him more than four million Instagram followers. Others assumed that he was playing the Hollywood game, towing the line between gay and straight to keep his fans wondering. Still others - perhaps the most optimistic - were hoping that Haynes was the harbinger of an equal Hollywood, one in which it finally, truly, didn't matter to him, or anyone else, who was gay.

As it turns out, none were the case. If he was playing games, he would have run with the massive publicity and gone after bigger and better roles. Instead, he vanished from the screen. 

Taking time off, Haynes spoke with Entertainment Weekly's Marc Snetiker this week about his comments in January, the headaches they generated, and joined the ranks of Hollywood hunks who have officially come out of the closet. And as it turns out, Haynes' story and the reasons behind his vague comments are too rarely explored by those covering entertainment news for magazines like the Advocate.

When Peeples' article ran back in January, it reeked of an aging mentality that implies celebrities have a responsibility to their communities. Like Perez Hilton's demands masked by apparent professional journalistic integrity, Peeles wasn't making a new argument. To him and the Advocate, actors like Haynes owe their communities more than their art or their jobs. 

Actors are held to an unrealistic level of responsibility, particularly famous ones. We look at their lives, their parties, their Instagrams, and envision a utopia flushed with cash and demand that they be the people we want them to be. When we read Haynes' comments on Tumblr, see his campy costumes on Instagram, and watch him interact with his co-stars, there isn't a seasoned gay amongst us who doesn't know that this is a gay man. But that doesn't matter.

To us, the choice is simple: just come out already.

But to us, we're coming out to family and friends, and maybe a Facebook following of a few hundred. To celebrities, many of whom are out to family and friends, coming out is an anxiety inducing spectacle fraught with hateful social media comments, disappointment from fans, and even the praise that comes with it can be overwhelming. We don't just demand they come out, we demand they do it perfectly.

From Ricky Martin to Lance Bass to Sean Hayes - all faced with tabloid-style pressure from the likes of the Advocate - no gay man has ever had the perfect coming out story in Hollywood. Whether it's orchestrated or incidental, the LGBT community is fiercely opinionated and obnoxiously critical. We criticize these strangers for being in the closet. Then when they do, we lambast them for not doing it sooner. 

Does anyone really need to ask why gay men in Hollywood are closeted? 

We demand the press release, we get it, then we bitch about it. In fact, the most redeemable coming out stories are often the most imperfect: Neil Patrick Harris comes to mind, and perhaps now, Colton Haynes. Those are the ones that truly resonate with us civilians. 

Many actors lead two lives, not as a means to deceive fans, but as a means to cope with the fandom. Their careers spill over into this second personality and they become a public character, one they begrudgingly drag home and continue acting out for months on end.

For Haynes, one of the few celebrities known for interacting with his fans on social media - actually talking to them directly - those worlds likely become blurred. His character isn't talking to his fans on Tumblr, Colton Haynes the dude from Kansas is. It's not surprising that so many of his eccentric Halloween costumes involve complete disguises. In a world where we completely disregard the privacy of even our most benign and unknown celebrities, slipping into a full body Ursula costume must be a great way to escape into a night out on the town.

Peeples thanked Haynes on Twitter for his bravery, but his words and expectations remain. Haynes has opened up about his anxiety and the pressures of Hollywood over the past few months, and his decision to take a break from fame. The words in his latest EW interview aren't those of a cynical or seasoned celebrity, one with a meticulously groomed public persona, but those of a very real person who takes his expectations and the opinions of his fans very seriously. In many ways, this is refreshing, and hopefully the resurgence of interest in his personal life won't sculpt another two-dimensional Hollywood personality.

The problem was never with Colton Haynes "not quite 'coming out'," and it wasn't simply that we expected him too or felt he owed it to his fans. The problem is that we refuse to understand that celebrities are human beings with the very same DNA that makes us terrified to come out to family and friends. The problem is that we paint these people into a corner, pressure them to adopt a public persona and issue a press release. The problem is our entitled expectations take very real people and push them to become a character we want them to be, rather than accept them for the flawed humans that they are.

Haynes is gay, and has been out nearly his entire life to his family, friends, and coworkers. Luckily for him, he has a very strong base to lean on as the public screams, cries, and speculates in the coming weeks. For others, the pressure can be scarier, and our good intentions can have horrible consequences. We all know how hard it is to be closeted gay men, and many of us know how crushing the pressure of our mundane lives can be. Haynes sounds like a very thoughtful person, and on the shoulders of a weaker man, the words from our own advocates could pressure our should-be heroes into dire scenarios involving drugs, alcohol, or worse. 

Peeples' words and the Advocate have a place in our community, and the message in Peeples' article has its merit, as long as it maintains a narrative of Hollywood in general. But singling out individuals, however famous, that may or may not be "one of us" isn't just irresponsible, it's dangerous. How many favorites have we lost to addiction and suicide, and how many of those were lost to the pressures we heaped upon them?

If Hollywood has a problem with gay men, let's talk about Hollywood's problem. Colton Haynes is a talented actor and a refreshingly honest voice in a cynical world. If we should be singling him out for anything, it should be for being the perfectly flawed man many of us aspire to be, and for having the patience with us that we should all have with our Hollywood heroes. From Kansas to Los Angeles, Haynes' life thus far is that of a true superhero.

It Isn't Funny Anymore

With her mother, O.J., and stepfath-,...stepmoth-,...okay, that dried up old clam, getting more attention than her, Kim Kardashian West, a.k.a. Mrs. Jesus Christ, decided to Tweet a(nother) nude selfie. Personally, I'll be happy when this overrated (shouldn't be rated to begin with) sofa cushion vanishes social media. Until then, I'm perfectly fine watching her collapse into herself like a neutron star. 

Her selfie(s) didn't go unnoticed, and it's hard to tell if they were tended to in the way she had hoped. Chloe Grace Moretz, star of Carrie and Dark Shadows, took to Twitter to school Kim K. on the importance of being a role model, and setting goals for young women.

It is, after all, National Women's Day.

Better than you, in every way.

Instead of ignoring Moretz, Kim K. decided to "welcome" her to Twitter since "no one knows who she is," and condescendingly complement her nylon (whatever that means). It should be noted that Moretz has worked consistently as an actress since she was seven and at nineteen, hasn't registered at the Bynes-Reid-Hilton School of Post-Adolescent Uselessness. In fact, she's already been in a lot of big movies and her career is only beginning. 

But the message at its core was lost on Kim K. who took the opportunity to prove that she's not just a bitch, but a stupid bitch. After her backhanded "welcome" she made some comment about an $80M video game check and paying off Mr. Christ's $53M debt. I wasn't aware Kim K. was a gamer, made video games, or "starred" in them, but, well, you know...

As Moretz pointed out..."goals."

Just in case anyone wasn't sure how insecure Kim K. was by the end of the day, she trolled Bette Midler with a joke about her age, then dared her to "send nudes #justkidding". 

Honestly, this must be what it was like to watch the Titanic sink.

I'm not even sure who Kim K.'s target audience is anymore, because she's certainly not attracting new male followers with these antics. The only reason I read about this is because she was torn apart by BroBible and AskMen for these ageist and sexist remarks, two sites that don't shy away from superficially celebrating the female form. It seems she's now just taunting female celebrities who've made careers out of, you know, careers, daring them to prove they're better than Kim K.'s...body? 

I honestly don't know what else she does.

If that wasn't enough for the First Family of Trash, Kim K.'s stepfather, short-time stepmother, now sometimes-costar Caitlyn Jenner spent some unwarranted time in the spotlight saying Hillary Clinton "couldn't care less about women." Mind you this is from a woman who's been a woman for exactly twelve months, and only because she said so. Think what you want about Hillary Clinton, but she's spent her career - her life - breaking down barriers from the courtroom to the battlefield for future generations of women. Jenner, on the other hand, is an Olympian-turned-Wheaties-spokesman who dove into the unreal world of reality television to advocate for the rights of self-professed women to look more feminine. 

Sorry, Cait, Hillary's dick is bigger than yours ever was and she doesn't care. 

Jenner went on to say that "any" of the GOP candidates would be better for the trans community than Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders despite, oh for fuck's sake, any amount of irrefutable evidence I'm not going to bother to dig up on Google. 

Mind you, again, all of this unfolded on National Women's Day.

This, people, is why caricatures like Donald Trump are viable candidates. We've cut the breaks on the clown car and thrown it off a cliff, and we're watching the circus burn instead of considering the reality that these unreal cartoons are actually influencing our decisions. This would all be laughable if it weren't so serious. America is facing its season finale and writers are scrambling for a plot. 

WAKE THE FUCK UP. 

A Kardashian, a Jenner, a Real Housewife, or a Trump. What's the difference?

The sad thing is, I can't sympathize with a single Trump supporter, but I can understand why they exist. He's a tyrant, a zealot, and a dip-shit, but even Hitler was smart. A "Queens-born casino operator" wouldn't be able to wrap Southern evangelicals around his finger without a brain. The world's most evil geniuses are wickedly intelligent. 

What I can't understand is why any remotely intelligent civilian follows the subhuman ilk that encompasses the parasites of reality television - the Kardashians, the Jenners, the Real Housewives - all held to the litmus of the "short-fingered vulgarian," Donald Trump himself. A "guilty pleasure" does not exonerate you from guilt, it admits it. You are actively dumbing down a nation and enabling the relevance of the nation's most ignorant by watching these shows. You are electing Donald J. Trump.

Come November, if you "like" or follow Kim Kardashian, Caitlyn Jenner, or Donald Trump out of some kind of morbid sense of humor, know that you are responsible for not only Trump's rise to power, but also the minions he appoints. 

It just isn't funny anymore.