By Damien Donnelly
A great deal of political discourse involves calling out hypocrisy and there’s no doubt that this is important, as long as it’s rooted in fact. It would be ludicrous for us not to point out that Nigel Farage’s wife is an immigrant and two of his children hold dual citizenship, with German passports allowing them the freedom of movement he passionately campaigned against the rest of us having. Highlighting this is a valid attempt to persuade potential voters that there is more to this man and the political party he leads than the issues they champion in order to gain support. Whether that works on those who believe in Reform’s message or not is beside the point; we try nonetheless.
It seems that, to some, this idea of calling out hypocrisy is so crucial to their activism that they will make presumptions about their opponents based on stereotyping, or just make stuff up, in order to make it possible. There’s no better example of this than the current wave of what I’ll generously label unconscious queerphobia sweeping liberal commentary.
The incidence that switched me on to this recent regression was seeing the I’ve Had It podcast hosts mock Mike Johnson’s reaction to the idea of being nicknamed ‘Magic Mike’ in a clip posted on 9th January. I’d seen many clips of these charismatic women on TikTok and thoroughly enjoyed their takedowns of Trump and his goons which are light-hearted in tone while making powerful points. The one about Johnson stopped me in my tracks and made me completely reevaluate their integrity. I can still see the DM I sent to them on TikTok which was read but went unanswered.
One of the IHI hosts introduces a clip of ‘three straight MAGA men,’ one of whom is Mike Johnson. One of the other men tells Johnson, ‘we call you Magic Mike,’ to which Johnson replies that he’d prefer ‘Miracle Mike’ as ‘Magic Mike is a sign of some kind of pornography thing.’ We cut back to the IHI hosts reiterating that his first association with ‘Magic Mike’ is presumably the film of the same name as they show a poster of it for a split-second. The two then start giggling and suggesting he likes to ‘think about those five men’ and adding, ‘I get it. I’m a heterosexual woman. They’re hot.’ And they continue with more ‘it’s OK to be gay’ style chat in a tongue-in-cheek tone before going on to more explicitly lay out the double standard they have fabricated based on the fact that Johnson apparently referred to a very well known film whose title was the same as the nickname that had been suggested. They go on to refer to ‘closeted MAGA men’ more generally, talking about ‘the gay thoughts they have all the time’ while continuing to giggle about it. It’s that giggling that betrays how much they relish the unofficial license they have for what is essentially using ‘gay’ as an insult.
This practice is not limited to American political commentary. While the phenomenon of the ‘manosphere’ has been documented and studied academically for years now, wider awareness of it came about recently with Louis Theroux’s documentary, Into the Manosphere. In it, we are introduced to a number of grifters whose online personas vary in style and focus, with different bigotries displayed by each, but whose commonality seems mainly to be the celebration of misogyny. Whilst it’s very amusing for commentators to point out how these men appeared less confident about their superiority when in the company of women in their lives, it’s frustrating to see this turn into suggestions that they are secretly gay. Taking ‘HSTikkyTokky’ as an example: this is a man who admits to Theroux he would disown a son who turned out to be gay. While, as a gay man myself, I can identify with the idea of one deliberately distancing himself from any suggestion of being OK with others being gay (I definitely did that as a teenager at times), when straight people are speculating that such explicitly homophobic behaviour automatically means he’s gay it hits rather differently.
The other aspect of these men’s lives that’s used in the same manner is the importance most of them place on fitness, specifically in relation to the male gaze. The commentary I refer to basically suggests it’s gay to have muscles and want other men to admire them. Much like the denial trope, there is a kernel of truth somewhere in this in that there are, very definitely, a large proportion of gay men for whom having muscular bodies is important to their sense of attractiveness and self-worth. The ‘Muscle Mary’ trope associated with gay men dates back to the 80s and I remember reading years ago that this was mainly a response to the AIDS crisis, the idea being that gay men wanted to avoid looking thin, and therefore ill. While there is truth in that idea, I’ve since learned this was just one factor among many, including the influence of mainstream bodybuilders like Arnold Schwarzenegger and idealisation of athletic bodies generally in media and we’ve definitely seen a huge increase in straight men going to the gym regularly since the start of this century. Why it seems like a larger proportion of gay men were ahead of the trend here I’m not sure. It could be as simple as them being less likely to have families therefore having more time, but I digress. The point is, this notion of muscular/athletic physiques being the ideal is not a gay thing, it’s just a man thing. There’s been loads of discourse about how straight men’s idea of a physique attractive to straight women is not quite right (ie. straight women mostly don’t prefer the muscularity that many men aim for) and this is down to men comparing themselves with other men. I referred earlier to academic study of the manosphere and it’s notable that none of this backs up the idea that these influencers are secretly gay. Combine these more amateur analyses with the now dated notion of gay men being misogynists and you can see how dangerous a road this is to keep going down.
An even more sinister iteration of aligning bigots with queerness has come in response to the former US Secretary of Homeland Security’s husband’s extramarital sexual behaviour being exposed. The first person I saw commenting on this was Aaron Parnas, an ‘independent reporter’ with 5million followers on TikTok. Parnas relays details from news reports about Kristi Noem’s husband, Bryon Noem, engaging in video chat with online sex workers while wearing hot pants and caricature style fake breasts. He goes on to say there is nothing wrong with what people do in their private lives but that Kristi Noem was ‘part of an administration that attacked LGBTQ rights…and that is what many on the internet are pointing to when sharing this story.’ He leaves it at that but it’s clear he’s implying hypocrisy. I’ve since seen many draw the same contrast between Bryon Noem’s behaviour and his wife’s anti-LGBT+ stance. While I’ve no doubt Parnas and others don’t intend it, this is hugely offensive. Noem’s behaviour is what’s known as a kink. I’ve seen some describe it as a humiliation kink or a bimbofication kink and I’m no expert in distinguishing these but the kink part is what’s important. Kink ≠ LGBT+ and, more crucially, suggesting that having a kink makes you LGBT+ is exactly the kind of rhetoric that conservatives and bigots push. For years now we’ve seen anti-trans activists suggest that trans women are all autogynephiles (a debunked theory related to a man being sexually excited by the idea of being a woman) and we have worked against this disgusting propaganda. That’s why it’s so upsetting to see those ostensibly on our side play right into it.
These people hate us (the LGBT+ community) and want us eradicated. It’s disturbing that, when there’s so much to criticise about them, some will lazily revert to what’s essentially 90s style ‘that’s so gay’ rhetoric without much pushback at all. While I’ve no doubt some in their ranks could be closeted queers, it’s not up to cisgender straight people to label their chosen targets as such based on their biased understanding of stereotypes and queer history. Especially when that’s exactly what anti-LGBT+ bigots have done for decades.
