IDEOLOGY OF GAY RACIALIST SKINHEADS AND STIGMA MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES*

Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Summer 2006 by Waldner, Lisa K, Martin, Heather, Capeder, Lyndsay

Gay racialists have received scant attention by academic researchers. While many dismiss gay skinheads as a contradiction in terms, these individuals provide an opportunity to explore sociologically the strategies used to both challenge the homophobia of white power groups and manage the stigma of homosexuality. An analysis of a gay racialist website reveals 7 rhetorical strategies including: minimizing the stigma, appealing to master status, appealing to higher loyalties, attacking the stigmatizers, blaming the victimizers, denying the oppressor, and rejecting the stigmatizer. Content on gay racialist message boards suggests that sexual networking and not racial politics is the primary function of these sites. Yet, we note the potential for these boards to function as a transformative-prefigurative space or a place for gay racialists to connect with one another and potentially the larger White Power movement. An examination of stigma management techniques informs our understanding of gay racialists and the diversity that comprises the dissident right.

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"We're here, we're queer, and we're Fascist! Get use to it! "1

A traditional skinhead is predominately a masculine identity defined by a working-class dress code that includes close-cropped hair or shaved head, suspenders or braces, boots, fitted jeans, flight jackets, and polo or button down shirts with an affinity for certain brands such as Doc Marten boots. While skinhead subculture was originally a British, working-class phenomena, membership was interracial due to immigration from several former British Caribbean colonies including Jamaica. Since the birth of skinhead subculture in the late 1960s, the skinhead image has been transformed to symbolize racism. "Traditional" skinheads are not racist and resent the co-opting of the skinhead label by White Power (WP) groups (Healy 1996; Sarabia and Shriver 2004). While we do not wish to reinforce the misperception that all skinheads are affiliated with National Socialism or other aspects of the White Power Movement2 (WPM), we are interested in exploring the phenomena of gay racialist skinheads. An extended treatment of the historical roots of and factional divisions within the skinhead subculture is beyond the scope of this overview but such work is readily accessible (see Sarabia and Shriver 2004).

RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE

Because skinheads did not originate with the WPM, it is conceivable that some gay males, both racist and non-racist, are attracted to skinhead subculture due to the "look" of working-class masculinity including tight-fitting jeans. Gay participation in the British skinhead scene is documented by Murray Healy's book Gay Skins: Class, Masculinity, and Queer Appropriation (1996). Healy suggests that gay skin and Nazi are seen by gay men as distinct categories yet some of his interviewees mesh these by identifying as both.3 Berlet and Vysotsky (2006: this volume) contend "there has long been a tiny subculture of gay neo-Nazis" and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) watchdog group reports on their presence4 in its quarterly, Intelligence Report (2000). Despite evidence of their existence, Kathleen Blee argues that while "we should not overlook this subculture, overstating its size or importance may be more dangerous, especially given the effort by leaders of the U.S. Christian right to equate Nazism with homosexuality" (2002:228). While we agree with Blee that this group is numerically small and not an important player in the WPM,5 we believe it is important to document these claims and to explore important sociological questions including why gays would be attracted to ideologies that are virulently homophobic and what strategies they use to maintain these seemingly oppositional identities.

GAY AND RACIALIST AS OPPOSITIONAL IDENTITIES

Combining homosexual and racialist identities is puzzling given WP beliefs regarding sexuality and gender. While there is a great deal of diversity between various organizations that fit under the WP umbrella, negative views on homosexuality are bedrock precisely because homosexuality is seemingly incompatible with the goal of increasing white fertility to prevent so-called race suicide. Homosexuals are considered by WP adherents as "gender traitors," child molesters, AIDS carriers,6 and a Jewish plot to feminize white men (Ezekiel 2002; Perry 1998, 2004). While some believe that gays need to be physically eliminated, others believe salvation is possible through finding Christ and repenting the "homosexual lifestyle" (Perry 1998).

While at first glance gay racist skin or gay neo-Nazi seems like an oxymoron similar to Jewish skinhead or African-American Klan member, Healy (while acknowledging the homophobia of the extreme right) contends "homosexual identity may not necessarily be incompatible with far right ideology" (1996:135). Thus labeling racialist gays as an oxymoron is an oversimplification and ignores several instances of other "oppositional identities" found in the WPM and indeed in larger society. For example, some view gay and Christian as inherently incompatible (Yip 1997). There are numerous recent WP examples of oppositional identities including Leo Felton whose father is African-American (Levin and Rabrenovic 2001), Anthony Pierpont of Mexican descent and former co-proprietor of the WP record label Panzerfaust, (SPLC 2003b, 2005; Padilla 2005), Davis Wolfgang Hawke, the Jewish Nazi (SPLC 2003a), and Native American Red Lake High School shooter Jeffrey Weise who described himself as a "Native Nazi" (Star Tribune 2005). The notion of a transsexual white supremacist is seen as so improbable that the existence of one was mentioned in the nationally syndicated newspaper column, News of the Weird.7

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IDEOLOGY OF GAY RACIALIST SKINHEADS AND STIGMA MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES*

Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Summer 2006 by Waldner, Lisa K, Martin, Heather, Capeder, Lyndsay

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