Many anticipated that the Village Voice might become conservative when it was taken over by the New Times. A NY Times piece pointed out that the merger “[W]ill undoubtedly raise questions about whether The Voice and its siblings can preserve their anti-establishment roots as part of a growing corporation.” I expected that this would mean less political coverage and a straight-washing of LGBTQ presence. Luckily, old time Voice gossip hound Michael Musto (who can often be seen riding his bike around the West Village like a madman), is still as raunchy and homo-centric as ever.

In this week's “NY Mirror: La Dolce Musto” column, Musto profiles the F-T-M trans porn star Buck Angel. Thank goodness someone is out there talking about transmen in a laid-back and accessible way. Musto does start the piece with the most predictable question though, “seeking cunty confirmation.” Musto is shocked that Buck hasn’t had bottom surgery, but why? Buck points out that female-to-male surgery is less advanced than male-to-female surgery. The common misconception about F-T-Ms is that they must have surgically altered their genitals, but many do not. Musto’s shock reveals the general fallacies about trans phalluses, or lack thereof. You can be a man without having a penis, as Buck illustrates. It only takes one organ to form a person’s identity--the brain.

Why does all of this relatively old news about transmen seem so new and uncharted in the second queerest city after San Francisco? Later in “La Dolce Musto,” he talks about the decline of the leather daddy fetish, and attributes it to his belief that “[H]omosex isn’t nearly as taboo as before, the gays don’t need to use as many visual signifiers to find each other.” He’s wrong. In order to survive in present-day NYC, gays have conformed more to appear straight, they don't actually have more visibility.

Maybe the problem isn’t that the Voice merger will make it conservative, maybe it’s that the city’s current population is too conservative to notice. Even though it’s a cliché at this point to talk about the homogenization of New York’s culture and nightlife over the past decade, (especially in Manhattan), it has obvious implications in our everyday lives. Another Voice article “On Fire,” about the “renovation” of an East Village club Scenic, shows how homophobic our city is. The nightlife in New York, at least from Studio 54 forward, but likely since the dawn of time, has been run by queers. Scenic’s investors didn’t like the "direction" their club was taking, and hoped to bring in the “beer drinking crowd,” a.k.a. former frat boys. Even though the parties that attracted gay patrons were successful, the larger message is about demographics and whose money Scenic wants to be taking. If you’re gay and drink beer and look like a frat boy (certainly not the patrons of the Rated X panty party), then you’re welcome. Otherwise, to the outer boroughs you go.