Wow, the comments are almost as thought provoking as the article itself. I recently conducted interviews as part of an advocacy group which used GSRM (gender, sexuality, romantic minorities) to identify our target group. We hoped this would avoid both the unintentional exclusion of the alphabet soup and the lack of clarity of who fits under the queer umbrella. One of my interviewees identified as a cis man who presents as femme and is poly. They identified most strongly as poly and expressed their ambivalence around identifying as queer because they can always chose to wear sweats instead of a dress and enjoy all the privileges that heteronormativity endows upon white straight men. They didn't feel they had a right as a crossdresser to claim alignment with the kinds of oppression that trans women face, for example. I let them know that I was appreciative to have their voice included in our study because it did seem clear to me that they do face discrimination that pertained to our study. (Also, white gay men share their optional access to privilege). We talked about poly being a way of queering sexuality.

But on the other hand, I face another dilemma. In the 80s, we had gay and lesbian clubs because they were a place where we could find each other and celebrate our lifestyle without the judgement that we faced everywhere else in our lives. Today, however, the queer spaces have become dominated by a culture that values inclusivity to the point of judging gay men as being too binary and too exclusive. The queer spaces now harbor more judgement than our workplaces. But a workplace is not an appropriate place to cruise. I feel like the spaces in my town where men seeking men can turn to are regressing back to the closet: online hookups, private dinner parties, discreet word of mouth connections.

I feel like this sentiment was captured best by another interviewee in our study who said "I identify as queer, but also gay because sometimes queer can be anything and thus it says nothing. But gay speaks more specifically to who I am attracted to."