‘Gay Enclaves Face Prospect of Being PassÉ': How Assimilation Affects the Spatial Expressions of Sexuality in the United States

Abstract

Journalists, activists and academics alike predict that gay neighborhoods in the United States will disappear, yet many of their claims are unsubstantiated or overly deter mined by economic factors. This article examines 40 years of media accounts to identify the mechanisms that explain why these urban areas are changing. I begin with the obser vation that the rate of assimilation of sexual minorities into mainstream society has accelerated in today's socalled 'postgay' era. Assimilation expands the residential imag ination of gays and lesbians beyond the boundaries of a specific neighborhood to the entire city itself. Furthermore, as sexual orientation recedes in centrality in everyday life, residents opine that few care if a person selfidentifies as gay or straight. These two respective mechanisms of expansion and cultural sameness bring existing economic wisdom into dialogue with a cultural and political perspective about how our shifting understandings of sexuality also affect the decisions we make about where to live and socialize.

Sexual Orientation, Gender, and Environmental Injustice: Unequal Carcinogenic Air Pollution Risks in Greater Houston

“…Thus, while scholars of sexuality and space are currently focused on the decline of gay neighborhoods and dispersal of LGBT people across metropolitan space (Brown 2014; Ghaziani 2015; Hubbard et al 2015), in Greater Houston, LGBT residents (especially same-sex male partners) beyond Montrose are still concentrated in proximate neighborhoods within and just beyond the Inner Loop and in a few peripheral ‘islands’ (e.g., Galveston, see Figure 3). And while one could point to recent City of Houston Mayor Annise Parker (a lesbian) as a sign of progress based on political empowerment, the local struggle for social justice continues, as ongoing conflicts problematize assumptions about heteronormative acceptance of the LGBT community.…”

“…Most importantly, it underestimates the size of the LGBT population as it excludes those who are not partnered, and it is estimated that only one quarter of gay men and two fifths of lesbians are in relationships at any given time (Ghaziani 2015). It also excludes those who do not live with their partner, those who are unwilling to self-report via census questionnaires as members of a gay or lesbian couple, those who identify as bisexual and/or transgender, and those who are homeless (Doan 2007; Doan and Higgins 2011; Hayslett and Kane 2011).…”

Performative Progressiveness: Accounting for New Forms of Inequality in the Gayborhood

“…To evaluate the discomfort that heterosexuals experience in the presence of gays and lesbians, Monto and Supinski (2014) presented their study participants with hypothetical scenarios that described everyday interactions. Their study draws attention to the limits of contact, and it raises questions about the forms that homonegativity takes when societal acceptance of homosexuality is at historically high levels (Seidman 2002;Ghaziani 2011;Dean 2014). Their study draws attention to the limits of contact, and it raises questions about the forms that homonegativity takes when societal acceptance of homosexuality is at historically high levels (Seidman 2002;Ghaziani 2011;Dean 2014).…”

A social constructionist approach to resilience for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer and/or questioning academics and students in South African universities

“…Others, however, have chronicled its role in possibly intensifying the minoritisation or homogenisation of sexual dissidents (Binnie & Skeggs 2004), the exacerbation of the binary between the heterosexual and homosexual communities (Rink 2013) or the fallacious ideology of assured safety outside such communal spaces (Fox & Ore 2010). Parallel to this thought, Ghaziani (2015), writing from an American perspective, attributes the changing social and political ideologies concerning the acceptance, accommodation and legal protections afforded to sexual minorities as a central reason why mainstream culture (which could include the university's campus culture in general) may also become an overarching 'inclusive ghetto' for all sexual actors, thus negating the necessity for separate and exclusive homosexual settings. Notwithstanding these arguments, recent scholarship on resilience implores an increased emphasis on the social context of vulnerable groups to understand their own unique indicators of resilient behaviour (Boyden & Mann 2005;Reygan & Francis 2015;Ungar et al 2007).…”