The Gentrification Of Gayness
By Keith Boykin, in sexuality
Wednesday, April 2 2003, 10:51AM
Bestselling author E. Lynn Harris hosted the television show In The Life last night and introduced a piece on gentrification in Chicago's "Boy's Town." The problem is not as simple as the upper-incomes versus the lower-incomes. It's a problem of one culture taking over another.
Dupont Circle to Logan Circle
Gentrification is fast becoming a hot issue in urban gay communities across the country. In Washington, D.C., for example, I moved into multicultural Logan Circle in 1994 when property values were affordable and it wasn't unusual to find a prostitute on the street late at night.
In the mid to late 90s, a board member for the National Black Lesbian and Gay Leadership Forum lived across the street from me. Several black LGBT friends lived on the block too.
By the time I left Washington in 2001, Logan Circle had completely changed. In fact, I was the last black person left on the block. After I left, the block became completely white. Many of the new residents were white gay men seeking affordable property after the rise in living costs in trendy Dupont Circle, just to the west of Logan Circle.
Despite the gentrification in Logan Circle, several popular black churches remained in the neighborhood, and each Sunday from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m., the color of the neighborhood changed dramatically as the parking spots disappeared.
When new residents began complaining about the parking problem, one of the biggest churches in the area, Metropolitan Baptist Church at 12th and R Street, decided it was time to move to the suburbs.
Gay Urban Pioneers
In neighborhood after neighborhood across the country, white gay urban pioneers are taking back the cities after decades of decline and blight. Aided by access to capital not available to many of the long-time rental residents in the communities, many of the newcomers are quickly changing the neighborhoods, for better and for worse.
In New York's Greenwich Village, black and Latino LGBT youth haunt Christopher Street late at night while residents plot ways to rid their neighborhood of what many perceive to be an urban menace. Many of the upwardly mobile gay men have already relocated directly north to Chelsea, which has become the hot gay community in less than a decade. But as white gay life has moved north, the center of black and Latino gay life remains in the Village.
On the West Coast, the same trends are underway. Kirk Read complained in the San Francisco Bay Times on February 20 of the "bitter reality that the Castro's historic climate of political resistance has given way to a Homosexual Gentry who see homeless queer youth as an irritant on their way home from Pottery Barn."
A few years ago, Data Lounge reported that chain stores in the area are crowding out local businesses unable to afford higher rents and "the unique character of the Castro is fading into a commercial Main Street residents fear is unrecognizable from any similar walkway in the country."
In Los Angeles, the (mostly white) gay strip along Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood leads directly into posh Beverly Hills. The gay community is still largely segregated by race in L.A., as in other cities.
In Chicago, property values are beginning to climb along North Halstead Street as gay yuppies move into expensive condos near local bars and nightclubs. One immediate casualty of the gentrification is the culture of the community. As many of the new residents are demanding a quieter street on which to live, nightclubs are being told to turn down their music, and bars are warning their patrons not to loiter outside.
Even in Harlem, the first wave of white people to move into this historically black community seem to be mostly gay men. You can see it at the popular New York Sports Club gym on 125th Street or at the trendy Fairway grocery store underneath the Westside Highway.
Yes, Virginia, gayness, or at least white gayness, has become gentrified.
The Challenge of Gentrification
Gentrification, by itself, is not necessarily problematic. It's how it's done that matters. In parts of Harlem, residents live without access to important cultural and social services available in most of the rest of Manhattan. You won't find many outdoor cafés, late night restaurants or corner organic grocery stores in most of Harlem, but you will find plenty of churches, liquor stores and hair weaving salons.
Gentrification is already starting to change the pattern in Harlem, although too slowly for some new residents and too quickly for many longtime residents. The challenge in gentrification is to provide important new services and facilities for the community without altering the culture of the community or forcibly relocating most of the longtime residents and businesses.
It's not an easy thing to do. While new residents may pine for more coffee shops, older residents may simply want clean, affordable laundromats. The decisions we make on these simple issues will have longstanding consequences.
At the end of the day, the central conflict of gentrification is a clash of cultures. In the context of the gay community, gentrification not only represents a change in neighborhoods, but a change in the movement itself. As gays and lesbians become more concerned about upscale social outlets than social justice, many people left behind will be wondering what happened.
The same is true in the gay racial context. As members of the white gay community become more integrated into the hierarchy of the privileged, LGBT people of color will become increasingly disconnected and disaffected. The same people who were supposed to be allies in the struggle may soon become enemies. Are we ready for that change to happen?
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