For true LGBTQ equality, we must interrogate past and present stereotypes
June is pride month, and the focus is on equality and acceptance from society in general, looking at how the LGBTQ community stood up and made our voices heard over the last 50 years. We celebrate and reflect upon key events and people: Stonewall Riots, Harvey Milk, the AIDS crisis, and most recently federal marriage equality.
While it’s important to pay homage to those who paved the way for future generations, I can’t help but feel that the true significance of pride month is overshadowed by a lot of rainbows and fluff, and many celebrating don’t know much about our past and continued struggles. The novelty, trendiness, and appropriation of gay culture drives a lot of what pride month has become and in some cases is the only thing allies understand about our culture and what defines us as people.
Inclusivity in the workplace is good for business, but allies still fall short of looking at the people who make up our community as individuals, each with their own history and unique connection to their sexual orientation. Some corporations are opportunistic (surprise!) and are capitalizing a trend, and some have long-standing alliances. Ironically, many of these corporations like Salesforce, Google, and Apple are also responsible for the high cost of living in cities like San Francisco, and as a result, LGBTQ people from less accepting places who need to be here to be themselves are unable to afford it. So there is a love-hate relationship, at least in our city.
Though a large percentage of LGBTQ people feel that society is accepting of them, and more than 2 out of 3 Americans now support same-sex marriage, self-realization and coming out is still a challenge for many presented with a limited view of what it means to be gay. Yes, there is more diversity and representation of LGBTQ people in business, sports, politics, and other areas. Yet the gay stereotype still exists in many influential areas such as TV and film, which is where many people who are not part (or not yet part) of the community get their information. Gay characters are more common and humanized, but fit a mold not representative of many gay people.
People still make assumptions about who is and (as significantly) who isn’t gay based on these stereotypes. Although it can be well-intended, some allies will appropriate gay culture when they’re around ANY gay man, even if that person doesn’t want to be typecast and is simply attracted to other men. Peer-pressure within the community also exists, and some gay men feel that they need to act a certain way around other gay guys to fit the profile. I realize we are not the only minority to experience this, and we’re guilty of doing it to other minorities as well.
For those of us in our liberal bubbles, let’s also not forget that LGBTQ people are still hated by a number of conservatives (mostly religious). Individual’s rights are constantly under attack, especially transgender people (and more specifically trans women of color). Mike Pence has had a long anti-LGBTQ track record; one example is when he recently spoke at an event put on by the Family Research Council, which has been deemed a hate group.
The Vice President of the United States is a spokesperson for a hate group. Let that sink in. Tangentially, here’s a list of 18 outspoken homophobic leaders who turned out to be gay or bi.
There is a misconception that marriage equality was the grand finale of a decades-long fight, but plenty of people are hearing messages of anti-acceptance as our country is fractured and LGBTQ topics are so divisive. While generally a positive thing, bringing awareness of these issues to the forefront also opens the door for those against us to speak their minds, and many LGBTQ kids and adults hear more negative messages at home or church since it’s a topic often covered by the news.
I came of age in the mid-90s, in the suburbs about an hour from NYC. As the youngest of 4 and being so close to a major city, my upbringing wasn’t sheltered. My town is middle-class and diverse, and from a young age, my friends and classmates were Black, White, Latino, Indian, Asian, and mixed-race. I was into sports, 90s hip hop, punk, and hardcore (ok, Madonna and Janet too). I had a great home life and family, a serious girlfriend for a couple of years of high school, and a great group of friends.
While I never heard fire and brimstone homophobia from my parents or the church we attended, my perception of what it meant to be gay was based on stereotypes, and that caused me to misunderstand and repress my attractions until my early 20s. Part of this was the casual pejorative use of ‘gay’ to describe things that were lame or less than masculine.
A term I also often heard, gay lifestyle, is synonymous with many perceptions that still exist today: flamboyance, effeminacy, partying, gay bars and dance clubs, and non-monogamy to name a few. This is not a judgment and I love that some gay men (including myself) celebrate some or all of these as part of our identity and don’t succumb to heteronormative ideals.
My issue with the term lifestyle is that it plays a big part in narrowing how the mainstream perceives ALL gay men, for better or worse. It makes a direct correlation between having a same-sex attraction and everything mentioned above, discounting the fact that many straight people also live their lives this way. Simply identifying someone as a straight person never comes with any of these connotations attached.
Maybe you’re thinking ‘who cares what some people think- it’s just a word’, but one of the most challenging things for a gay person to overcome is the misconception that being gay is a choice, and this is further reinforced by the word lifestyle.
In the 80s, the AIDS crisis hit the gay community hardest, and it was (and in some places still is) thought to be a gay disease. Communities were decimated as young and older men were sick and dying in droves waiting for Reagan to do something about the crisis. His administration laughed it off for years until gay activists took matters into their own hands.
There are several informative documentaries about the AIDS crisis and how it further marginalized the gay community. It also made us come together to take care of one another and helped gain allies outside our community who finally saw gay people as humans capable of suffering. However, even in the 90s when I grew up, more was known about the disease, but it was still a major part of the fear and stigma of being gay.
I volunteer weekly for the LGBT National Help Center as a peer counselor. I take calls from people who believe something in their past caused them to be attracted to men, like abuse or growing up in an all-female household. They’ve been misled by the messages from home or religion that equate their attractions to an abnormality or abomination, and they think it’s something that can or should be cured.
In actuality, most experts and the American Psychiatric Association affirm that we are born with our sexual orientation or it’s developed in the first few years before we have any conscious memories. According to the APA, “…no specific psychosocial or family dynamic cause for homosexuality has been identified, including histories of childhood sexual abuse.”
They also state “sexual orientation is not a choice that can be changed at will, and sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors…is shaped at an early age…and evidence suggests biological, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person’s sexuality.”
While it’s not as common to be gay as it is to be straight, it’s perfectly normal and natural. Lifestyle is a choice, but sexual orientation is not.
True equality and acceptance will only come when we understand that who someone is attracted to has no bearing on their morality or the type of person they are or can become.
Please check out part 2 and part 3 of my series on LGBTQ equality, stereotypes, and my personal experience of self-realization and coming out.
Part 2:
Part 3:
