You Will Be Assimilated. Resistance Is Futile

But for those who cannot be assimilated life can be harsh.

The Queers Left Behind: How LGBT Assimilation Is Hurting Our Community's Most Vulnerable
Huffington Post Gay Voices
By Colin Walmsley
July 21, 2015
On the evening of June 28, two very different celebrations took place to mark the most historic New York City Pride week in decades.

The flashier of these celebrations was the iconic Dance on the Pier. As the Pride Parade came to a drizzly end, an exuberant crowd of young, gay and mostly white men made their way to Hudson River Park's Pier 26, where Ariana Grande headlined a big-budget outdoor mega-party. Complete with laser lights, multiple jumbotrons, fireworks and a legion of half-naked go-go dancers, the event was a brazen testament to the newfound trendiness of urban gaydom. Admission started at $80, but that didn't stop 10,000 enthusiastic fans from snatching up tickets to what organizers billed as one of the world's top-tier LGBT events.

If any of those 10,000 attendees had taken a break from the dancing and glanced across the Hudson to the north, they may have seen the outline of the Christopher Street Piers, where a celebration of a very different kind was taking place. Here, a motley crowd of queer homeless youths -- who definitely could not afford admission to Dance on the Pier -- decided to throw an impromptu party of their own. With the bass from the Ariana Grande concert pulsing in the background, the youths -- male, female, cisgender, transgender, gay, lesbian, bisexual, black and Latino -- drank, smoked, sang, vogued and played cards under the dim light of the street lamps.

Both parties paid homage to a common past by celebrating Pride and the decades of struggle it commemorates. Both parties acknowledged a common present by sharing space on the Hudson River Piers, the heart of New York's LGBT community. But the extravagant Ariana Grande concert and its upscale audience could not have seemed more out of place among the piers that have served as a safe haven for the queer community's most marginalized -- mostly queer homeless youth of color -- for decades.

The Haves and the Have Nots.

The “Haves” fought for marriage equality, the “Have Nots” fought for a roof over their heads and a meal.

What separates them besides the obvious one like race and what side of the tracks they were born on is how well they can assimilate into society. The feminine gay, the butch lesbian, or masculine looking trans woman they are the ones who can’t find a job, they are the ones living on the margins and struggling to stay alive.

If you are white, college educate and you can integrate into society life couldn’t be better. But if you cannot assimilate into society and you are black or Latino, a high school drop out because the bullying and harassment you faced in school you are probably out on the streets preforming survival sex.

The next time you go to a Pride event look around and look at those who are celebrating and look at those who are missing.