ABSTRACT
How are some LGBTQ groups accepted more than others? This chapter takes a spatial and intersectional approach to studying social movements and identity, by observing how the class and racial makeup within neighborhoods can lead to very different perceptions of LGBTQ organizations by their neighbors, media, police, and city government. Lessard argues that urban studies scholars, city planners, developers, and many lay people celebrate middle-class, white gay community members as “urban pioneers” who become visible as “gay” because of their privileged class, status, and race. Lessard compares two separate gay community organizations that differ in class and racial makeup showing how neighborhood-level processes of urban revitalization and the attendant demographic changes, along with city planning and policing objectives, lead to differential perceptions of the value of queerness for a neighborhood. Although queer spaces matter, narrow definitions that “whitewash” gay identities as white and middle-class renders invisible GLBTQ people of color, working-class, and poor people, making them more likely to be displaced by the later phrases of gentrification.
