Fridae

It's Saturday night and the queue outside the hottest gay nightspot can be seen snaking all the way to the end of the block. You're been queuing for hours in your best party garb and the entrance is still nowhere in sight. Then a group of incredibly cute and well-built guys saunter pass the queue, eliciting icy (and envious) stares from their more plebian counterparts in the queue and walk right up to the resident door bitch who welcomes them with flailing arms and ushers them into the club.

An all too familiar scene?

Welcome to the world of gay discrimination.

While most gay people tend to expect (and take for granted) that they would face discrimination from paranoid homophobes and close-minded bigots, make no mistake - discrimination of gay people by gay people is alive and kicking.

Like society in general, the gay community is distinctly halved with into the haves and the have nots - those who possess certain attributes/qualities and those who don't, those who discriminate and those who are discriminated against.

Making it to the top of the list, discrimination by looks is most common amongst gay men. Call us shallow, but when it comes to looks, it's a fact that all gay men are not created equal. Those born with looks that can make boys drops their pants and morals with one sultry come-hither look will always have world as their oyster while others who are aesthetically challenged (despite their numerous trips to the cosmetic surgeon) find themselves at a great disadvantage in the arenas of dating, mate-finding or even cruising.

Hence it is no exaggeration to say that regardless of one's geographical location, gay men blessed with good looks (and celestial bodies) often find themselves invited to the best gay parties and orgies while those less extraordinary find themselves left out of the by-invite-only party circuit. To make matters worse, for gay men, it's not only what's in the genes that matters, it's also what's in the jeans - but that's another size queen story altogether.

However, all is not lost if you are born with a mug that only a blind mother could love. There is another elitist group of gay men who happen to have the words "I come from money" shamelessly tattooed on their foreheads. Known otherwise as the A-lister within the gay community, these gay men have BMWs, platinum mastercards and a perma-tan as their constant companions. A-listers find themselves invited to the best parties (because of the fabulous gifts they bring) and are on a first name basis with club owners who tend to view them as a ravenous leech would a well-fed buffalo.

These A-listers can often be found at the who's who section of the local society rag and tend to discriminate against members of the gay community who belong to the wrong zip code. So if you don't have the plastic (or the looks), you can forget about entering into their rarified zone of high society.

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Likewise, there are the "dizzy queens". Gay men with sharp tongues will always diss the gay equivalents of dumb blondes. In fact, being born without substantial grey brain cells is the next greatest cardinal sin in the gay scene after overexposure. Trust me, nothing is harder to live down than to be labeled as an airhead in a world where WIT is the most important attribute to possess if you don't have the looks or money. And in most cases, the perceived lack of mental endowment often results in "dizzy queens" not being treated with due respect and many even find themselves out of the running for gay men looking for potential partners.

And while we would expect the gay community to be more accommodating with regards to "deviant" behavior, most (if not all) in the gay scene tend to discriminate against those who display overt traits of effeminacy. Gay men who appear as if they had an operation to remove a bone from their wrists to give it greater flexibility and have a habit of speaking in voices three octaves higher, often find themselves treated with derision, if not mock horror, from the more straight-acting members of the gay populace. Unsurprisingly, gay men who are camp enough to outshine the cast of "The Rocky Horror Show" are often the target of cruel jokes and vicious rumors, and find themselves passed over by most gay men who would prefer guys who can "butch it up" in public.

Given the situation, transvestites, cross-dressers and drag queens arguably have it toughest. Gay men who have a penchant for donning a wig or strapping on a corset are often regarded as traitors to the cause for pandering to the heterosexual ideal that a relationship should comprise of a man and woman, sexual organs not withstanding. Appearing in public in full drag, they are often dismissed by the homosexual community for giving gay men a bad name and making a mockery out of the entire gay rights movement - for who would treat someone togged up like Ru Paul seriously? Whether they do it as a lifestyle choice or only on Halloween, most (if not all) transvestites, cross-dressers and drag queens find themselves a convenient target for abuse and left out in the cold - even by gay men, except for Caucasians suffering from Pinkerton Syndrome or the occasional drunk soldier.

But perhaps the most condemning form of discrimination within the gay community is that faced by HIV positive gay men. Gay men who have tested HIV positive find themselves pariahs and ostracized by both the straight and gay communities. Regarded as potential sources of infection, HIV positive gay men are avoided like the plague. In fact HIV positive gay men are widely viewed as confirming the stereotypes brandied about by homophobes - that gay men are promiscuous circuit queens who are sexually decadent. And regardless of the circumstances leading to infection, most HIV positive gay men find it next to impossible to step back into society and often live out the remaining days of their lives in solitary reclusion.

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Being gay and being discriminated against because of it is tough enough.

But being discriminated because one does not happen to belong to the "mainstream" gay community is doubly tough. Discrimination within the gay community can often add on to feelings of intense isolation that are already present. Akin to bullying, such forms of discrimination could ultimately result in a lack of self-worth or a poor self-image on the part of the victim.

And it is no exaggeration to say that gay men make the worst snobs. Whether it is due to the fact that gay men have a chip on their "more enlightened" shoulders, pride themselves as the next Cruella De Vil or are merely looking for convenient (and obvious) targets to sharpen their claws on, the fact is that discrimination within the gay community can often be harsher and more unforgiving when compared to discrimination from our heterosexual counterparts. Being more vocal, more vicious, more capability of withering insults and more unafraid to express their views, gay men are in fact the last persons anyone should offend in this world (next to evil mother-in-laws). Perhaps the saddest thing is that, even in a small community such as ours, many gay men feel compelled to draw a line, to project the sense of "unbelonging" inflicted on us by conventional society on each other.

So if you find yourself being discriminated against, you could either choose to retreat back into your musty closet, seek solace from fellow sufferers or keep your chin up and move on. If you ask me, being discriminated against has never been about the qualities (or the lack thereof) of the victim but a reflection of the insecurities of the person who discriminates. Afterall, you should celebrate who you are and to quote Andre Gide: "It is better to be hated what one is than loved for what one is not".

And in these more enlightened times, there is hope that gay men everywhere would look beyond small, shallow and crass "qualifications". After all, discrimination is a matter of perspective. And perspectives, as we all know, can change for the better. It just takes a bit of effort on everyone's part not to let their phobias and bias cloud their decisions about people but to get to know others based on who they are as people.

The bottom line is, whether one has looks, money, brains or is HIV free, we're pretty much talking about the same group. And if gay people continue to put down their fellow brethren, it just sends the message right back to the heterosexual community that it can do the same.

Gay men have far too many important issues to fight for (such as partnership rights, equal opportunity, the canonization of Madonna, etc) than to waste time discriminating against each other. Dividing the ranks has never furthered any cause.

And there's no better wake-up call than that.