Lucas is a twenty-nine year old queer vegan straight edge kid living in Oakland, California. He’s been straight edge for a long time and gay even longer. He spends most of his time hanging out, watching Golden Girls and Strangers with Candy with his roommates, and practicing Danzan Ryu Jujutsu.
I started calling myself sXe well before I came out, let alone admitted to myself that I was gay. I have this vivid recollection of having a bunch of friends get into drugs around the end of middle school. I just wasn’t interested at all. My best friend, who was getting way into the drug culture, called me up and told me he wasn’t my friend anymore. I was devastated; the only difference in our friendship was the introduction of drugs. For a long time after that, I had no friends. Sometime around early high school, my brother started going to punk shows. I began tagging along, and I fell in love with it all. I met a lot of political kids who were into being young and stupid and not doing drugs. Shortly after that, I began calling myself sXe.
My views on sXe have changed over the years. About seven years ago, I dated an alcoholic. I started making connections between his struggle and the struggle of queers, and how we deal with the pressure of living in a hate-filled society. I started seeing how the places in our society where queers go to escape are usually filled with drugs and alcohol, and I don’t think that’s an accident. One of the weapons used against us are these intoxicating killers. It was awful seeing my friend struggle with these things. That’s one of my reasons for still being sXe; it’s my active stance against these weapons.
sXe is a personal choice, and all my sXe friends have different reasons for being sXe. I also have many friends who aren’t sXe, and as long as their personal choices don’t negatively affect our relationships, they can do whatever they want.
The hardcore scene is a microcosm of society at large; all the same hatreds and fears exist. Sometimes it’s overt, but usually it’s more subtle. First and foremost, queers, like women and people of color, are vastly under-represented in the hardcore scene and in sXe. For the most part, it’s not a welcoming place for these groups of people. This has to do with what the scene doesn’t do, more than with what it does do. Basically, there’s no attempt to create a welcoming environment. Sure there are bands like Limp Wrist who address issues, but at least in the San Francisco bay area, where I live, they’re viewed almost as a spectacle or gimmick by the straight majority, like “I can’t believe they’re saying those things and wearing those freaky clothes.” Like my friend said when we saw Limp Wrist play to a mostly straight crowd at a gay bar, “I never thought I’d be scared of getting gay-bashed at a Limp Wrist show.” People definitely don’t go to hear a message of queer liberation—fucking bike hipsters!
It’s pretty easy to be sXe and queer in the bay area for me. As a disclaimer, though, I will say that it seems as if most people don’t know I’m queer unless I tell them, or it comes up otherwise. I “pass” as straight to most people, in other words. My experiences might be different if this weren’t the case. But the scene here is at least outwardly tolerant, as you might expect from the bay area. However, as my last answer stated, it ain’t all roses there either.
Where I’m originally from, Indiana, it’s a different story altogether. When I came out many of my friends in the sXe scene at the time ostracized me (though there were a few who stood behind me, which I really appreciated). I took a sabbatical from the scene for about two years. I never felt like my safety was threatened; I just didn’t feel like participating on their terms. After a while (and a break-up with a boyfriend) I found myself hanging out with some anarchist kids who happened to also be sXe. This time of my life reminded me a lot of my first few years of hardcore; there was a youthful innocence in these kids, and some of them were really hot. I started going to shows again and eventually re-befriended an older kid I had lost contact with. Through him, I eventually re-immersed myself into the sXe scene. Since I was one of the older kids in the scene, the fact that I was gay was never openly an issue. I think I was a lot of those kids’ token gay friend. I was definitely the only queer kid. When I left, however, the scene devolved into crews and tough-guy shit.
As far as my involvement in bands, we’ve always made the conscious decision to play at venues and with other bands we know won’t pander to homophobic tough guy bullshit. This means playing in a lot of basements to friends. But I wouldn’t want it any other way. Punk rock to me is about those intimate moments of celebration and rage that can only happen in those kinds of settings. Basically, I proactively avoid those parts of the scene that might be a problem. They exist, and they can fucking have their stupid shows (while we have our awesome shows!). My last band, Send ‘Em to the Cemetery, had one song with the lyrics, “Suck Dick! Fuck Ass! Blow Shit Up!” Apparently there was a “discussion” on some lame hardcore message board about this song where “faggot” and other such lovely epithets were thrown about. Sometimes that kind of thing brings you back to reality. But nobody this day and age says that shit to your face.
At this point in my life, I get out of the scene what I want, and fuck the rest. I’ve met some awesome people and been exposed to some awesome ideas through sXe and hardcore, but I really don’t hold much importance to it. It is what it is. I find much more meaningful community through other outlets.
sXe has nothing to do with my sexual relations, unless sXe means liking to get it on with cute boys. As I like to say, the only thing I’m drunk on is cock. All in all, I try to be responsible with sex, both emotionally and health-wise. And I think that’s what Ian MacKaye was talking about. But I’ve never let my sXe beliefs dictate my sexual ethics. I do like the boys.
With radical queers, I have never had a problem. In fact, quite a few of the radical queers here are sober or close to it. Live and let live. Ultimately, I don’t care what the fuck you do to yourself as long as you’re not creating violence or making my community unhealthy or unsafe. There’s room for all types in my queer community, as long as we’re all fighting towards liberation for us all. That’s the most important thing.
Within mainstream society, including mainstream gay society, there is a certain backlash against people who choose radical sobriety; a sort of “you think you’re better than me?” reaction. People also get this “you must be a stick in the mud” attitude, until I fuck their “straight” cousin or something. One time, this normal gay wanted me to go to the clubs with him, and I told him I wasn’t interested. He told me that I need to “own it,” implying that by not being interested in drug and club culture I was somehow not living up to gay standards. That seems to be a pretty common attitude.
Well, if you were to spend Pride weekend in San Francisco, one thing you would immediately notice is the sickening amount of advertisements for alcohol blanketing the city. In fact, I think the whole damn thing is sponsored by Budweiser. I mentioned earlier how bars became a refuge for many queer people. Alcohol seems to have become pretty intrinsic to the make-up of a large portion of the queer community, so much so that it eventually came to represent gay people to the world during Pride. Somewhere the culture becomes the media and vice versa, and they start reinforcing each other. What I’m getting at is when the largest gay event of the year is sponsored by an alcohol company these two things have ultimately become one in the same: drugs and gays. And people within the community reinforce this notion, or else it wouldn’t survive. So the attitude prevails within the mainstream gay community that to be gay you have to drink, etc.
And let’s be honest, marketing professionals know what they’re doing. They put their products where they’ll sell, and marginalized communities have always been a favorite place for alcohol companies. The more suffering, the more sales. Capitalism thrives off inequalities and suffering, so abusive substances permeate these communities while the people in charge of this mess turn a blind eye. We also live in a society rooted in religious moralism, where being gay, being transgender, or sometimes being a woman or a person of color, is seen as a sickness. These forces create this perfect shitstorm where it’s really fucking hard to survive as a marginalized person, especially a gay person. I don’t think it’s a coincidence there’s an overabundance of drug use in marginalized communities. It serves both capitalism and moralism pretty well.
I’ve never felt unaccepted by the queer scenes I’ve been apart of, only by the scenes I don’t care to be a part of.
Before I moved to the west coast, I didn’t know too many queer folks, especially in the radical and sXe scenes. Since moving out here, I’ve met a few through hardcore and more through radical politics, etc. As you might imagine, there’s quite a large radical scene out here. I’ve met a very small amount of queer kids who are into hardcore or sXe. For the most part, the radicals queers I hang out with are not really involved in sXe or punk.
I know queer kids who are in bands, and I know cute queer edge boys, but it’s not really any type of unified thing. We’re all a bit older and kind of divorced from the silliness. Some of the Limp Wrist guys live out here and I see them every once and awhile. But I don’t really see an active scene existing, and I’m not too interested in being active in one.
I’m not too worried about the state of the sXe scene. I’ve never needed a scene to support my beliefs. However, I love meeting other queer folks who are sXe. Like myself, most of them don’t need the support or acceptance of a scene. So fuck the scene, unless the cute gay sXe boy population suddenly explodes. Then I’m there. See you in the pit, boys!
As far as how? Like I said, I’m not interested in the reformation of the scene. Sometimes I see myself and other queer kids into hardcore as the antithesis to the normal hardcore kid. We exist in spite of them, and if we ruffle a few feathers or make some dudes uncomfortable, then awesome. If we out their “straight” best friend, even better. We’re not trying to be the beacon for change, or any of that bullshit. I’m not gonna run for president of the sXe scene.