I just wrote a post about how queer activists need to be feminists and vice versa.

But no, you're not imagining it. It's much worse when men are blogging, in my experience.

I agree that queer voices are marginalized in the blogosphere. I think part of it is due to queer voices being marginalized in the mainstream at large.

And it's not just queer voices, it's queer issues at large. Due to the fact that so much blogging is based on stuff that's going on in the mainstream media, where queer issues are rarely taken into consideration, I think people just forget to incorporate that when blogging.

here's an example of this that i saw on feministing...even though you guys try to be inclusive (and this isn't a criticism of any of the bloggers here)... the post about MA using GPS technology to track DV offenders and keep them from violating restraining orders was totally hetero-centered. DV affects the queer community just like it affects the straight community and the lines aren't so clear in queer cases. Reporting DV in queer relationships is also tricky because law enforcement officers don't always acknowledge that it's DV if the partners are of the same sex. But because the article was so focused on the standard scenario of a man beating on his wife, most of the blogging about it was the same.

And I often do the same thing in conversations even though I identify as queer and have relationships with both men and women. If I'm talking about something in a heterosexual context, I forget to consider what that means in same-sex relationships. It's tricky.

And I think it's also hard for straight people to blog about queer issues without inadvertantly marginalizing the voices of queer people by not letting them speak for themselves. But that doesn't mean that queer allies should stop speaking out, cause that would be bad too.

Ugh...conundrum.

That probably wasn't helpful at all, but this has been bothering me a lot recently.

Will you share your writings on this topic with us at some point, Samhita? As a straight person living in one of the awesomest queer-oriented areas ever, I occasionally get that "oh shit, was I marginalizing there?" feeling. Anyway, it's a fascinating topic and I'd love to see more of your thoughts.

Well, the human norm is straight, by an overwhelming majority. So it's not surprising that the norm of a subset of humans chosen without any particular discrimination for or against sexual preference would also be mostly straight. This goes both for political bloggers and for blog readers.

You seem to think that queer voices are marginalized - translation: someone is doing something to push them out of the blogosphere. What? I can't stop your blogging nor you mine. I can't stop you reading the blogs you want, either, nor vice-versa. The queer blogosphere (to the extent it exists as such), is not marginalized. I just think they are marginal - nobody is pushing, and only a few feminist blogs (and Andrew Sullivan) are pulling.

That said, several of my favorite libertarian blogs are written by gay bloggers. Sexuality comes up occasionally but mostly it's a nonissue because most politics is not about sexual preference.

You're not imagining it at all. I want to second Colleen's great post.

I think it is a matter of queer voices being marginalized. I have to admit that if I want insightful commentary on queer issues as they relate to me (a bisexual woman) I usually head to blogs written by lesbian or bi feminists, because there is a lack of emphasis on queer issues in many mainstream political blogs.

Like Colleen said, if blogging is often based on the mainstream media, and since the mainstream media marginalizes queer issues or ignores them altogether, it is no wonder there is a lack of a queer voice or queer presence in the blogosphere.

Leonard, I won't argue with you about queer people being in the minority of humans. What the issue is more about, though, is whether or not queer issues are acknowledged in the mainstream political blogosphere (they often aren't) and when they aren't, do mainstream bloggers listen to valid criticisms about that fact (they often don't).