The LGBT community is sometimes thought to be monolithic by the outside world because of their shared experience with oppression. However, in reality, the LGBT community—and even the gay community alone—is varied and subject to its own hierarchical structures (Nast, 2002). Nast (2002) suggests that gay white men are predominately powerful in the gay scene because of their inherent racial privilege; these are the most visible individuals in the gay scene as homosexuality becomes more widely accepted, Nast (2002) suggests. Catungal and McCann (2010), on the other hand, suggest that there are restrictions on the visibility of sexualities in Canadian culture as a whole, and that these restrictions are deeply based in the public conception of morality. Even within the LGBT community, there are separations; the community is not monolithic and not all individuals within the community experience oppression and repression in the same way.
There are undoubtedly heterosexual norms in both American and Canadian society, and breaking from these norms can lead to becoming the target of violence and aggression (Hanhardt, 2013; Howard, 2013). The solution for many who shirk the heterosexual norm and openly embrace an alternative lifestyle is to live in one of the “gay neighborhoods” that have sprung up as a way to defend against institutionalized violence against sexual minorities (Hanhardt, 2013; Howard, 2013). However, even within these neighborhoods there are hierarchies: gay men, particularly gay white men, are seen as the default. All other identities and sexualities are sometimes seen as fringe participants or sexualities. This begs the question of the hierarchical structure of privilege within these niche communities; it also encourages the reader to attempt to determine the internal, structural levels of violence within these communities.
References
Catungal, J. P., & McCann, E. J. (2010). Governing sexuality and park space: acts of regulation in Vancouver, BC. Social & Cultural Geography, 11(1), 75-94.
Hanhardt, C. B. (2013). Safe space: gay neighborhood history and the politics of violence. Duke University Press.
Howard, C. (2013). Building a" Family Friendly" Metropolis: Sexuality, the State, and Postwar Housing Policy. Journal of Urban History, 0096144213479322.
Nast, H. J. (2002). Queer patriarchies, queer racisms, international. Antipode, 34(5), 874-909.
