You know you can go skiing and not really ski? Many people do. They drive up, they park, then they put the skis up against the wall of the Lodge, head in, snuggle down with a nice hot toddy and that's skiing to them. The mountains beyond, the free falls, the jumps, the moguls, the steep and the deep, the trees and all that - they never see it.
So its possible to spend a lot of time in the gay community at sleazy bars working on quick sex pick-ups or just outright paying for it and never see the parts of the community that are made up of a different type of people altogether, bank vice-presidents, entrepreneurs, business people, doctors, lawyers and a host of others who were not cruising the bars for quick sex, but attempting - and succeeding - to work toward respectability. In my time I've watched them get 'gay' out of the DSM, get openly gay people elected - first to city positions, then to state positions and work, not just for gay issues, but for the entire progressive agenda. I've watched and walked as Gay Liberation turned to Gay Freedom Day, to Gay Pride. I watched as those parades went from a few thousand to the largest attended event in SF. I've watched and worked with people who got TG protections passed in the Twin Cities and in SF, and in lots of other places. Most of the heavy lifting, the calling in of political chips and the rest was done by those gay and lesbians who were elected, and not by any sort of "TG Community."
That's the mountains beyond the resort. It's hard to know until you go.
