The LGBT community stands as an unusual demographic in that, as a sexual minority (of many races, classes, orientations, identities and proclivities) our interpersonal relationships are almost always colored by our sense of what attracts us.

No better chance to see the LGBT community in all its diversity exists than at a Gay Pride parade or festival. Photo by WeHo News.

Even when sexual desire does not factor into the equation (interaction between gay men and lesbians, for example) our aesthetic sense of what attracts us to certain types of people influences how we deal with each other.

We tend to be drawn to people who fit a certain aesthetic phenotype.

This is not to say that sexual attraction does not play a factor in heterosexual socialization, but because we are a small compressed minority, forever looking inward, joined by our commonality as sexual outsiders on one level or another, we tend to be more judgmental about each other along these lines.

I think this plays a role in the various balkanizations that keep different groups from mixing.

Not that racism, sexism, ageism, classism, etc. don't all factor into it - of course they do - most of us can't escape entirely how we were raised - but I think our sense of what attracts us to each other does affect our levels of tolerance and acceptance within our own community and plays a determinant role in how we socialize.

I know a number of guys who are just not into drag, would never sleep with a guy who does drag, and as a result tend to avoid dealing with guys who wear drag - usually driven by a rejection of effeminacy. 

There are people who are simply not attracted to persons of one race or another. Photo by WeHo News.

Similarly there are people who are simply not attracted to persons of one race or another so they tend to hang out in groups that are made up largely of people of the race to which they are attracted.

Then there are those whose sexual appetites are off-putting to some people. It doesn't mean we hate people from other races, or those who do things in bed we think are icky, we just tend to group ourselves according to the target of our desires and as a result our social circle - and thus our experience base - tends to be more narrowly defined. 

This invariably leads to an "arm’s length" manner of dealing with people who are outside our comfort zone. It manifests in different ways.

For example, some of those guys who are just not attracted to drag queens are also the ones who laugh and carry on most appreciatively during the Pride Parade when one skates by.

But is that respect? Or is it reducing someone to their "entertainment value?” They would still never hang out with drag queens so the human side of the equation is not balanced with viable experience. Hence balkanization is enforced and people become both judgmental and resentful of being judged. Nobody wants to be disrespected.

I think this kind of involuntary reaction based upon what attracts or repels us reinforces a lot of the avoidance we see between different groups.

We ascribe lots of labels to it - and some of them no doubt are justified - but it might be instructive to pay attention to the degree such involuntary aesthetic judgments play a role in how our collective sexual minorities treat each other.

After all we are not joined by anything else - we are not of the same culture, same ethnic extraction, or same class - indeed we lack many of the common traditions that other groups share - we are all so different.

Then there are those whose sexual appetites are off-putting to some people. Photo by Sandy Arison.

All we have in common is the fact that our sexuality is considered deviant by the larger society - and that alone is not much to build a community on.

What's left are the socializations that come about by how we perceive each other and the experiences we share - which are usually with people who look like us and think like us.

That many people from even wildly different backgrounds can have similar experiences is often lost on us - not because it isn't true - but because we don't talk to people who are much different from ourselves to ever learn that.

I don't really think there is a solution to this because, given the small size of our segment of society, we are sort of in close-quarters and can tend to scrap like cats in a bag, resentful of each other’s perceived influence over the way the community is dealt with by the outside world.

Those who feel marginalized resent those whom they think try to define LGBT people to maximize their own influence - the "assimilationists" about whom everyone jumps up and down.

Those who tend to fit in more easily, who seem to wield great political influence, can come to resent when those they perceive as atypical of the "norm" get front page coverage (i.e. men in chaps or drag queens in full costume).

Those who tend to fit in more easily, can come to resent when those they perceive as atypical of the "norm" get front page coverage.

It's an insane dance that is fueled by the fact that often these two (or more) groups simply don't mix, don't understand each other (except in a very superficial sense) and - to be perfectly blunt - don't find each other attractive.

I think this comes with the territory and actually fuels further balkanization of lifestyle in our collective.

For example - the rise of the bourgeois class in the LGBT community is not just white men - that same bifurcation along what some would argue are class or assimilationist lines is happening among every letter of the alphabet soup that constitutes our acronym and every racial variation within.

Some people may have issues with the drag queen on the roller-skates and guys in butt-less chaps - but there are transgender people and guys into leather who dress very conservatively on a day-to-day basis and sit on many high-profile boards.

The same applies to every demographic and behavioral variation under the rainbow.

I call this the "Corporate Class" of queer, fueled by a number of factors - most significantly whom they know by virtue of their shared experiences and, often, income level.

It is a phenomenon that plays out everywhere, among every group, and gives credence to the theory that the only real division in society is class. (But that is another topic all by itself.)

Nonetheless, I don't think we will ever get away from the degree to which our aesthetic sensibilities separate us from each other and inform how we may react to certain individuals or the judgments and assumptions - however unfounded - we may sometimes make about each other.

Victor Salvo is Founder and Executive Director of THE LEGACY PROJECT www.legacyprojectchicago.org