I agree with you re Kav. Is there really any such thing as the 'gay community' these days? I know quite a few gay people and they're not a homogeneous group, they're individual and unique people.
My good friend is someone you wouldn't have a clue was gay until you met his partner. He's a regular bloke who goes to football, has an almost entirely straight circle of friends and would rather have pins stuck in his eyes than spend 10 minutes in GAY.

The problem is the BB deals with stereotypes. Almost every gay man they've had on their has been as camp as a row of pink tents, chosen deliberately to provoke a reaction. Sadly, Michelle for all her good intentions, seems to be re-enforcing that stereotype that gay people are not like the rest of us

Are there viewers of RuPauls drag race on her here? Its a huge favourite in my house and to be fair she IS treated like royalty amoungst the drag queens.
She is actually coming across better in CBB than I thought, I find her quite cold on RPDR.

Even as a straight man it annoys me how she constantly makes herself this advocate for gay people and I can imagine how frustrating it must be as a gay man constantly hearing her

She should just content herself with advocating equality and not saying she represents anyone.

That's what BB and CBB seem to be like these days, unfortunately. (Pretty much since the move to C5, but getting worse as time went on.)


I don't see how Kav can do anything for the gay community unless people know he's gay, though.

Maybe here in the UK we are more tolerant and accepting of homosexuality than they are in the US where there's such a strong macho culture around being a straight man? Americans do tend to (jokingly?) stereotype British men in general as gay, but from our point of view in the eyes of the majority straight culture, being gay isn't that big a deal nowadays. Although obviously there are still pockets of homophobia, most decent thinking people accept it completely.

I know we are always saying where America goes we follow, but I think in terms of accepting people's difference, we are way ahead, and maybe there is a real need for a Michelle in the US that just seems odd to us here? Or maybe she's just an egomaniac.

Exactly what i thought. I neither like or dislike her but this whole Gay thing is becoming boring.
People are PEOPLE not labels !!!
Gay should not be an issue but she seems hell bent on bringing it into the limelight every chance she gets.

America is a very diverse place. I think that is often greatly underestimated here. It might even be less misleading, for some purposes, to think of it as a cluster of different countries that happen to have very odd-shaped boundaries than as one place that falls under generalisations about being more or less tolerant than the UK.

Same-sex marriage only recently became legal in the UK, and there was considerable (though minority) opposition.

The situation in the US is complicated, because individual states can have different laws in that area. The first state to legalise same-sex marriage was Massachusetts in 2004. Or, as Wikipedia puts it, "On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first U.S. state and the sixth jurisdiction in the world to legalize same-sex marriage."

She is really getting on my nerves.

I had high hopes for her at the start - all she does is sit and slate people with KH or bang on about representing the gay community.

Boring as hell.

And I'm sure KH would think it silly, too, if she wasn't buddied up with her, like a couple of extras from Brokeback Mountain.

Exactly this.

I was thinking...imagine if that was a straight male in there 'representing' the 'female community', saying he didn't speak to other men and criticising the women for letting down other women. He'd be laughed out of town.

Or a white person acting as spokesperson or guardian for black people. It would seem preposterous and really patronising.

It's a tricky one cos I respect her passion, loyalty and empathy. And any minority group experiencing discrimination should have champions of every colour, creed, gender, etc to reach a wider audience. Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement had a lot of important white support. The feminist movement had male support. But they cant be more than that. They cant be the main voice cos they just don't have the same 'rights of ownership' if they don't (and never will) walk in the other person's shoes.

I find the fact she hangs out of the rear-end of hopkins (like a jobby) far more cringeworthy.... it can't smell good up there

but yes, she is a deluded crusader

I didn't even know he was gay until now.

This is kinda what I think, I'd add a lot more that would probably give me another 48hr ban.

Also one of my arguments is people are people, I take each person how I find them, doesn't matter who the happen to fancy, where in the world they are from or even if they have a pet centipede.

For a Country that makes a big deal about freedom the USA is in general far less tolerant of individuality than England. It is about group think - looking to a "community" for an identity.

It is why their "eccentrics" (in British eyes) are so unoriginal e.g. in the house Katie (either) has far more character and individuality than Perez, who is just an immature attention seeker.

It is her meal ticket.

I don't think any of that is true. (I gave some of the reasons in an earlier post.) Perez isn't even typical of American "eccentrics", if he's even considered an eccentric there.

How do you fit that with the abolitionist movements in the US an UK where white men such as William Lloyd Garrison and William Wilberforce played such prominent roles? (Of course, there were black voices too, such as Frederick Douglas, and women, including black women such as Sojourner Truth, who had prominent roles as well. Most of the main voices were nonetheless men who, unlike Douglas and Truth, had not been slaves themselves.)

I think that in some cases, the degree of oppression is so great that the most, at least, of the main voices have to be from outside. Another factor is some cases, such as the British abolitionist campaigns against slavery and the slave trade, is distance. The vast majority of slaves and ex-slaves were 1000s of miles away and could not realistically be main voices in Britain at that time.

Every time I see Michelle 'tarted-up' I think she looks like a trans-sexual.

This is not a criticism of the USA (it is a young Country) it has its own virtues. All Cav seems to bring to the table on the British side is his laziness. Both Cav and Patsy have no discernible talent, but both seem to be bitter that they have to earn a living doing something for others.

I would assume she's married to a straight man and has not spent her life surrounded by gay men apart from him. Just more of her rubbish really. Her patronising, stereotyping and know it all attitude towards gay men is quite shocking. She is the one identifying other people by their sexuality. It's insulting and does not belong in current time.. She makes money from her crap about LBGT people, that's about it for me. I don't listen to her any longer. She's the exact opposite of practically everything she has to repeatedly tell us she is. Her hypocrisy and lack of back bone is off putting, to say the least.

She's just jumped on a bandwagon to suit her own agenda.... The way she goes on you'd think gays are frightened little creatures who can't cope with the really world. It's 2015 Michelle... and your attitude is beyond insulting.

It is a much bigger country but it is also much younger. In European (and Asian) eyes it was all built five minutes ago. This is not a criticism it is just a fact.

Because it is a very big Country it also a more lonely place, hence the great emphasis on joining a tribe (of some sort) rather than just being an individual.

Completely agree.
Whilst most gay people are campaigning to be treated equally, Michelle seems intent on labelling them as though their sexuality is the only thing that defines them as people.

Precisely.