The Homophobic Homo
I was watching an old (I say old, 2015) documentary on Netflix the other day. The Reggie Yates Extreme series, if you’re interested. There are a couple of episodes that look at various aspects of being gay, such as being gay and part of a less accepting culture in the UK, such as Muslim. Obviously, that isn’t what I’m writing about. At least, not specifically. I say obviously as if you can see me writing this and can see that I’m a very white male.
I digress, the point was that on more than one occasion these episodes featured a gay male or female expressing their internal feelings of homophobia and that struck a chord with me. It’s a weird notion, isn’t it? The idea of an LGBTQ person that is also homophobic. Is that even possible? Well yes, it is. You’re reading one.
Let me clarify, I don’t hate gay people. I’m married to one. However, I most definitely do have a feeling, an instinctual reaction of unease when I see two men showing affection to each other in public. And yes, it’s always worse with two men, maybe because this strikes the strongest personal chord with me. Does this count as homophobia? Maybe it’s a very British, passive aggressive homophobia or maybe I’ve tried so hard to bury and counter act it that it’s been heavily watered down.
Don’t worry, I’m aware this is probably still confusing for a lot of you. The thing is, when something is so drilled into you as a child right through adolescence it becomes entrenched in your psyche and whether you want it to or not it’s a part of your mentality. You can’t just suddenly stop those feelings or reactions. You can control HOW you act upon them, and you can chastise yourself and shake it away as soon as the thought appears, but it still happened. You can’t erase it.
I have spoken before about how I often felt like I existed outside of the LGBTQ world, like it just wasn’t for me because I didn’t fit in to what I felt a gay guy should be. What if that actually came from this internalised homophobia? What if I kept myself outside of that world under the guise of exclusion when I actually excluded myself for fear of being lumped with the gays? What if I didn’t want to be seen as one of the gays because I still felt it was wrong?
This also got me thinking about the article I recently wrote about Sex Education including information in LGBTQ relationships and it further highlights why I think this is so important. There was some backlash to that article, which is fine, despite the complete lack of education or understanding on the part of those giving it. If we provide education into these relationships early on, and more importantly teach kids that it is perfectly normal and acceptable then maybe this inner conflict can be avoided, or at least lessened.
More than anything else, this internal juxtaposition causes a huge amount of self-hate and that is incredibly dangerous. You end up a confused mess who isolates and punishes themselves for something that is completely out of your control. You know it’s utterly ridiculous, but you can’t stop it. By providing kids and young adults, in fact everyone, with fair and positive representations of LGBTQ lives and relationships, negative self-images can be reduced and the amount of people that feel this way can be lessened.
Especially if we provide these representations within those communities and minorities that have the deepest roots of homophobia within them.
I have come to terms with it in my own head, but it took me a good thirty years of self-deprecation and uncertainty to get to this point; to realise that it’s OK to just be me. We have the power to stop that happening to further generations, so why wouldn’t we?
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