Gay Shame is a movement from within the queer communities described as a Radicalization alternative to gay mainstreaming. The movement directly posits an alternative view of gay pride events and activities which have become increasingly commercialized with corporate sponsors as well as the adoption of more sanitized, mainstream agendas to avoid offending supporters and sponsors. The Gay Shame movement has grown to embrace radical expression, counter-culture ideology, and avant-garde arts and artists.
LAGAI – Queer Insurrection (formerly Lesbians and Gays Against Intervention) put such a protest in context. They wrote that the "origins of the LGBTQ movement are revolutionary … Now, some of the same people who participated in those fabulous outpourings of anti-establishment rage tripped over each other on the way to City Hall to have their love blessed by Gavin Newsom, successor to Dan White and Dianne Feinstein, darling of the developers, persecutor of the homeless, and cause of Gay Shame getting beaten and busted by the cops on more than one occasion."
In 2002, AlterNet published a piece by queer activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca who lived in San Francisco about Gay Shame. What he wrote expressed many of the ideas of Gay Shame:
In 2009, according to an article on IndyBay, SF Gay Shame had a protest outside San Francisco's LGBT Center. A press release they put out about the event they wrote:
That same year there was an event of London's chapter of Gay Shame, which they had a so-called "indoor playground of interactive art and alternative ideas...which club that shares a similar non-commercial, anti-consumerist angle...and thirty-five sideshows, 100 performance artists and 3,000 revellers."
A book titled Gay Shame was reviewed on Lambda Literary in 2010. The reviewers noted that the book looks at the origins of Gay Shame, the question of gay pride and challenges readers to "question and explore the possibility that the modern LGBT rights movement's push for acceptance, assimilation, and—they would argue—pride, results in a loss of something importantly queer as it attempts to eradicate shame...by exploring the ways in which pride and shame connected with race, gender and sexuality."
In 2011, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore was interviewed by an online publication called We Who Feel Differently. Carlos Motta, the interviewer asked about how to open up spaces, and in a response, Mattilda described her work with Gay Shame:
Gay Shame was also mentioned on Mission Local, the Bay Area Reporter, writer Toshio Meronek on the Huffington Post, a radical magazine titled Slingshot, SF Weekly, Sarah Jaffe on Alternet, in a 7-page article in the Quarterly Journal of Speech and many others.
Their website described themselves as committed to "a queer extravaganza that brings direct action to astounding levels of theatricality that commercialized gay identity that denies the intrinsic links between queer struggle and challenging power ... countering the self-serving 'values' of gay consumerism and ... fighting the rabid assimilationist monster with a devastating mobilization of queer brilliance." Despite this, in 2012, according to writer Toshio Meronek, a criticism of the "corporatization of Pride events has officially gone viral ... and that Pride actually started as a day of political action called Christopher Street Liberation Day." At one point, after Don't Ask Don't Tell was repealed, Gay Shame put out a flier declaring: "No Gays in the Military! We need you on the streets. Keeping the status quo in check and on fire."
After the end of the last chapter of Gay Shame, there were some reflections on the movement as a whole. One of the main organizers, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, told the San Francisco Bay Guardian that:
This is similar to her remarks on a radio show in late October 2012 called Horizontal Power Hour.
In June 2013, an article on White Rose Reader added to this, noting that: "Starting in 1998, these “Gay Shame” events promoted counter-cultural ideologies and radical expression...some have picked up on this: a blog popped up recently to demand Gay Shame, started by a 48-year old queer male DJ." The Commercialization of "Gay Pride"
Most recently, Gay Shame SF has attracted attention for its prison abolition and anti-gentrification organizing. In 2014, six members of Gay Shame were arrested for protesting a "prison-themed" pride party hosted by Kink.com. In an open letter co-signed by queer abolition leaders Miss Major and Angela Davis, Gay Shame demanded that Kink.com change the party's theme, and "not use themes of arrest and incarceration... in promoting your event." In 2015, a series of "anti-tech" fliers posted by Gay Shame in the Mission District, San Francisco, demanded 'Brogrammers' leave the neighborhood and implied violence.
Additionally, other chapters have emerged as well. In around May 2013, Gay Shame San Diego emerged, describing itself on a Facebook page as being "created as a protest to the over-commercialization of pride events and opposes queer assimilation." This Facebook page has covered topics ranging from gay marriage, Lou Reed, and gay pride. Around the same time, a tumblr of the organization popped up as well repeating the same description on their Facebook page and it has been around ever since. Their tumblr currently has reposted material written by Gay Shame SF, criticized capitalism, and discussed topics such as queer and Transgender liberation.
From 2001 to 2004, there were Shame events in Stockholm, Sweden. Gay Shame SF meets every Saturday at the Muddy Waters cafe.
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