I’m not going to win any popularity points with this one, but I don’t care.

Brian Lowder wrote an article for Slate that posted yesterday titled “Meet the Gaybros.” The subtitle was “They like sports, hunting, and beer. They make the gay community mad.”

I’ll tell you what makes me mad… articles like this one.

The article starts off with Lowder walking around Boston with a group of men who have dubbed themselves “Gaybros”, gay guys with traditionally manly interests like sports, hunting, and beer. They travel to the city’s “premiere gay sports bar” Fritz, where Lowder comments on the diversity of the crowd. To call Fritz a “premiere” anything is a joke; the fact of the matter is that Fritz serves a clientele who, unlike so many other places in Boston, don’t give a f*ck who you THINK you are. People go to Fritz not because it’s a great place to watch sports but because it’s low key and unpretentious. The “Gaybros” later head off to Club Cafe, a locale I would ironically dub the exact opposite of Fritz… but also not “premiere”. Lowder, on the other hand, makes an exit and heads to a house party at a “handsome” townhouse where he is surrounded by the “Crate and Barrel brand of gayness.”

Here’s why I hate this article. The “us versus them” mentality and the compartmentalization of gay culture in this article (and in real life) is ridiculous and does us a disservice. At a time when the community should be rallying behind each other in support of legal rights for ourselves and the rest of the LGBTQIA community, instead we continue to separate and ridicule one another. We do to each other exactly what the straight (male) community continually does to us. Gay men are, in fact, our own worst enemies.

The whole notion of “masc” versus “fem” is utter ridiculousness. The idea that gay men can only fall into one category or another is ludicrous. These labels, if you will, are not mutually exclusive. What this article highlights is a nasty division within the gay community, one that employs labels taken directly from the very people who oppress the gay community in the first place. The fact of the matter is, there is plenty of room within the gay community for everyone – Gaybros included.

In the words of the person who sent the article my way, “I can love watching the Emmy’s and watching the Pats on the same day. I totally go to Red Sox games because I’m a fan, but I also love to watch my design shows on HGTV. Cut the crap – ALL OF US.”

Gays – it’s time to grow up.