My Name is Pete Buttigieg and I Don’t Want to Bother Anybody…

By: Adam Sperry

Source: Flickr, Gage Skidmore

Pete Buttigieg speaks with attendees at the 2019 Iowa Democratic Wing Ding.

Pete Buttigieg suspended his campaign for the Presidency of the United States on March 1. With influential democratic donors and a discerning social media presence, he was an outsider with a real chance at the nomination. After a strong early showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, he could not win over people of color in diverse states like Nevada and South Carolina and he faced a harsh reality in the run-up to Super Tuesday - he just didn’t have the votes. 

In the weeks since, there has been much discussion over Mayor Pete’s historic candidacy. The first gay man to ever win a presidential primary. What could he have done to be more successful at connecting with voters? What missteps did he make? Was ‘Mean Pete’ too mean? Are we not ready for a gay candidate? Was it just not his time? But he was so articulate!

At least this is what straight people will be talking about. 

But the queer community has been having this conversation for well over a year. Despite the historic nature of his candidacy, very few of us were ready to vote for Mayor Pete.

Many of us saw Buttigieg’s policy agenda as a series of half-measures and found his experience quite anemic. What we could gather of his political acumen was based on his leadership role in South Bend - a role that left people of color feeling completely disregarded and the rest of us questioning how someone makes the leap from deciding whether or not to add a street light in the town square to deciding how Americans should receive healthcare. 

I think I speak for a lot of us when I say, give us a gay candidate, but give us one with experience. Someone who has won an election with an electorate larger than Columbia’s student body. And more importantly, someone who isn’t such a naked social climber. There were multiple indications that Mayor Pete had been angling for high office since roughly the beginning of time, doing things because they seemed presidential, like  obsessively editing his own Wikipedia page. Somehow Buttigieg was able to make his service in Afghanistan sound like a strategically chosen unpaid internship — which is magic only a focus grouped campaign can manage.

But more than these reservations, I think what disturbed us the most was the warped virtue signaling that was implicit in his campaign. He repeatedly talked about being from the “American Heartland” and that his campaign spoke for the “True Americans”, a strangely Trumpian soliloquy that seems to say that a single electoral college victory makes some politicians more important than anyone else. Not to mention that it’s mighty rich for the son of two former Notre Dame professors, to claim he is just a simple country boy.

The positioning of his candidacy as striking the “perfect balance” of characteristics was also disappointing. I’ve heard countless people say “I didn’t even know he was gay! Couldn’t even tell! And he’s a veteran which really offsets it. Isn’t that great!” But you know what this tells queer people? Our opinions don’t matter unless we have the ‘right’ traits. That we need to balance our queerness or femininity with masculinity or a more heteronormative life, or else no one will value what we have to say.

Buttigieg himself seems to be disconnected from the queer experience that my peers and I have had. He is ‘appropriately’ masculine, doesn’t make too much noise, is unconcerned about ‘frivolous’ things gay men care about, has never used any of the ‘dirty’ hook-up apps, got married to the first man he ever dated—all things his supporters have identified as the reasons why they like him, yet also the things that divide the modern gay community. Masc 4 Masc. Professional. No fats, no femmes, no blacks, no Asians, just a preference. Looking for real men.

Source: @harrithon, Twitter

One thing that the Mayor Pete stans in my life have asked me in response to the critique above is: “Well there’s no wrong way to be gay, right? Isn’t it a bit hypocritical for you to police him for being too masculine?” To which I say, you’re right. There’s no wrong way to be gay. But I would argue that there is a wrong way to honor the legacy of queer civil rights in this country. And on that assignment, I’m giving Mayor Pete a C+ at best.

Every queer person I am close to has faced significant adversity, and even violence because of their identity. Our history is one of families disowning children, of chemical castration, of conversion therapy, of a government watching us die from an epidemic, of murder. And the fact that the only queer candidate that America will embrace is one that has been skilled enough to hide everything queer about himself is unbelievably discouraging.

I want my first queer president to be someone who knows what it’s like to be called f*g or d*ke in the hallways at school, someone who isn’t afraid to discuss the pain of being misgendered, someone who embraces and reflects the experiences of our past and isn’t afraid to speak about them. Someone whose adversity informs their leadership. Not someone who has constructed their entire candidacy as a means to mitigate the fact that he’s gay.

Last week, Pete Buttigieg tweeted the following:

“We can’t afford a scenario where it comes down to Donald Trump with his nostalgia for the social order of the 1950’s and Bernie Sanders with his nostalgia for the revolutionary politics of the 1960s.”

Source: Diana Davies/New York Public Library

Marsha P. Johnson is seen at a Gay Liberation Front demonstration at City Hall in New York.

Social media erupted in anger over the comments, but I wasn’t all that shocked. Someone who honors the legacy of queer civil rights would never say something like this, because they would understand that the revolutionary politics of the 1960s are the reason that their husband can teach in a public school, that they can get married, that they can stand on a stage and kiss another man without fear of retribution. That those actions of civil disobedience are the reason that their way of life is even a possibility. And they would also understand the necessity of those politics today—because the work is not nearly done. People are still being denied housing, they can’t find jobs because of their identity and expression, they can’t use the bathroom, they are still being murdered. Meanwhile Buttigieg plays the politics of “he’s not like other gays” to its absolution.

I’m sure Mayor Pete is a nice guy, and I’m sure his perspective is informed by his experiences, but his candidacy has not been so much historic as it has served to underscore the ahistorical aspects of the gay community today. Details like corporations taking over pride celebrations, the terrible racism on grindr, and the alarmingly high murder rates among transwomen of color fade into the background as we chase representation. And of course, representation matters. But if you’re a gay politician who has erased all context of the historical struggles of the LGBT community once you get there, what impact does this accomplishment really have? What do we gain with the politics of Pete? It seems like the Mayor’s brand is: “Hello, my name is Pete Buttigieg and I want to recruit you don’t want to bother anybody…”

Source: National Archives

Harvey Milk’s Speech at Gay Freedom Day, June 25, 1978.