Regular Gay vs. New Queers at LA Pride | Ben Meets America

Earlier this month Ben Kawaller strolled around the L.A. Pride parade in Hollywood and filmed himself talking to attendees.

“I met a gay eleven-year-old boy who had to contend not with being routinely bullied, but with the fact that the two other gay boys in his class were dating each other and not him (and who’s to say which is worse, really?). I met a whole slew of gay-looking girls who identified as everything from queer to lesbian to trans, and who very politely tolerated my interrogations on everything from their pronouns to their chest-bindings. I met a ten-year-old who told me she was nonbinary and pansexual. Or rather, they were nonbinary and pansexual. I felt approximately 90. It’s not like the various identities comprising “LGBTQ+” are totally new to me, but at the end of the day I’m just a boring old G who came of age at a time when most of these labels had yet to be invented. Walking around Pride, I wondered if these new letters are a reflection of immutable characteristics—remember born this way?—or rather, a new way of categorizing oneself based on aesthetics—a kind of performance.”

Read the rest of his essay