This is all very important to mention, but it might be just as important to observe that there really is such a thing as “gay culture.” I’m just speaking for gay men now, because I am one, so I’ll leave other parts of the LGBTQ spectrum for other people to talk about.

So while negative stereotypes are obviously something we need to struggle against, when does culture start becoming a stereotype? Many gay men really do behave, and often intentionally, in identifiable ways. Many of us dress in identifiable ways.

I’m thinking of a university age friend of mine right now with a wardrobe that is loudly and intentionally gay. He lives in Brighton, England which is very gay anyway, but when he walks down the street he supposes most people instantly identify him as a member of his tribe.

He’s not struggling against stereotypes, he’s embracing broadcast identity.

Part of our group identity over the last decades has been to embrace and then subvert negative stereotypes. The guys on Queer Eye for The Straight Guy do that, for example, not that I’m holding them up as a paragon of queer identity.

But when many of us intentionally flaunt stereotypical behavior in order to reclaim it, does it not at some point stop being a negative stereotype and just become part of who we are?

And when straight people recognize that, is it really a problem?