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Genevieve said:
Everyone has their prejudices and fears. I grew up in an ignorant family where females were second class. Now, I am still surprised and in awe when I meet or read about a successful intelligent woman. If the woman is black, I’m in more awe. This is even more strange, since I am a woman and have advanced degrees and a prestigious job. But I still have to step over my own prejudices in everyday life because I know they’re wrong. The way I act is more important than those ingrained prejudices from childhood.
Some of the remarks you mentioned are insensitive. Some are from people who love you but are working through their understanding of what you called your “unforseen” declaration of queerness. Maybe there are levels of acceptance which develop as those who care about you come to terms with their own fears and prejudices.
Just a thought.
26 May 2009 at 11:01 pm

Duncan said:
Genevieve, I thought that the points you raise were implicit in zack’s post. I think you’re assuming that “homophobia” means only violent gay-bashing or yelling “fag!” from moving vehicles or saying that we should all be killed. While it includes such things, and more, it is also homophobia to start squirming in one’s seat when two men kiss on a movie screen. (It’s also homophobia to start squirming and groaning and hissing when two women kiss on a TV screen, as a bunch of creepy little queens did at my university when the campus GLBTQ+pi group showed “If These Walls Could Talk 2.”) There’s certainly homophobia in the “insensitive” remarks zach kindly shared with us.
Look at this for comparison. Pointing out homophobia doesn’t, or shouldn’t, mean that you’re condemning people as total frothing bigots who are beyond redemption. Homophobia is something that people get over. Most of us homosexuals have to do it too; many of us never do.
But, zach: “confusing the tenets of homosexuality and cross-dressing.” First, though, you get beaucoup points for spelling “tenets” correctly (instead of writing “tenants”), though “tenets” is not the proper word in this sentence.
If your dad was confused, so are most gay people I’ve known. How many gay men say that they knew they were gay by recounting how they tried on Mom’s shoes and dress at age 5? One very PR-conscious gay boy I knew liked to recount how his mom always knew he was gay because of a photo taken of him at age 2, happily holding her purse? (I have similar pictures of me happily holding toy guns, so I guess I’m not gay.) Even for adults, behaving “very gay” is always associated with gender-nonconformist behavior or mannerisms. Whether this has any basis in reality I haven’t decided yet, but it’s certainly part of gay folklore and folkways.
27 May 2009 at 12:17 am

Chris in Nashville said:
The worst homophobic comment I ever heard was from my mom after I came out: “Well do you have AIDS yet?”
Southern Baptists are awesome……
27 May 2009 at 10:53 am

Jack said:
I wonder if we’re using the term “homophobia” too broadly here. I mean, can’t we draw a distinction between “homophobic” and “insensitive” or “ignorant”? I feel like labeling any and all misconceptions of homosexuality (like many that Zack listed) as homophobic weakens the power of the term.
For example, Zack mentions that he has “one friend from the south who has extremely religious parents who make no bones about voicing their displeasure about having a gay son. In some ways, I think he has it easier. He knows specifically what he is dealing with. Me? I’ve had to infer.” I understand that he describes his own parents as being homophobic in a nuanced, “accepting” way. But to suggest that this is basically the same as (or worse than) having parents who are openly hostile to one’s sexuality is disingenuous. Both parental stances may stem from the same root inability to comprehend homosexuality, but unconditional love paired with occasional unintentional gaffes is not the same as intentional disparagement. Can’t we give Zack’s parents at least a little credit and call them “ignorant but well-meaning” or something, rather than lump them as the same as openly hateful people? I realize you characterize them as loving, but it seems like self-victimization to write a post about how much they get wrong instead of how much they get right. I don’t mean that we shouldn’t discuss the offensive things you’ve put out there, but maybe we can do it in a less standoffish way. The post isn’t just about the things said (which I would find legitimate in itself), but about what those things say about the people who said them.
My own parents have been completely supportive, though they have occasionally said things that make me cringe. They’re curious and eager to learn, and like to ask questions about things like gay marriage that they might support but aren’t as well-versed in as me. Nonetheless, my dad still occasionally feels the need to give me a talk about safe sex (I’m 23 years old now) and admonishes me to “please please please be careful, I don’t know what goes on or whatever…” as though because I’m gay I must be living some kind of mass-sex-romp lifestyle that may easily end in acquiring AIDS. I personally sort of let it slide and gently explain that I really only have sex with my (now ex) boyfriend, that I use protection, etc. Who knows, maybe he sits down with my straight brother and gives him the same talk, I don’t know. But am I wrong to say that my parents aren’t homophobic, but rather totally gay-friendly and (sometimes) slightly misguided?
In my head, homophobic = fear/dislike of homos. It seems wise to me to use this as a term to distinguish friend from enemy, even if those friends are kind of out to lunch sometimes. If we help along the good guys, they’ll get there. And disparaging them as equal to the enemy seems like a bad start to me. Any thoughts on this?
27 May 2009 at 12:31 pm

Katrina said:
In response to the term “homophobia” being used to broadly in this post, I think that perhaps “heterosexism” might be more appropriate? Usually less blatant (though equally, if not more harmful), heterosexism is far more systematic and more likely to be conditioned within us, leading to comments that are inadvertently offensive.
On that note, this was a response that I received on my blog post about same-sex marriage:
“i don’t get why anyone would freakin’ care if someone gets married. I mean i get the abortion=murder stuff but marriage? who cares?”
Not necessarily homophobic or even heterosexist, but certainly offensive, though I believe her heart was in the right place.
27 May 2009 at 10:05 pm

Mark said:
I agree with your mother. You’re “still very handsome”.
28 May 2009 at 7:22 am

Duncan said:
I don’t think that “homophobia” is being used too broadly here. As I indicated, I think a lot of people use it too narrowly, to refer only to violence, and I see no reason to limit it so. I use it to refer to a gut-level revulsion, whether mild or intense, and I don’t think there’s any reason to doubt that if someone gets uncomfortable around gay people, that’s a mildly phobic reaction. It’s also possible to be “ignorant” without being homophobic or “insensitive.”
“Heterosexism” just isn’t the same as “homophobia.” A person can hold antigay views without being homophobic about it — I’ve encountered a good many such people. Contrariwise, it’s possible to be officially pro-gay — equal rights, gay marriage, perfectly politically correct — and still be quite homophobic. I encounter lots of straight liberals of that type, especially male. (Try this guy, not only a liberal but a scientist — but still homosexuality makes him uncomfortable.)
That being said, I don’t entirely like the concept of “homophobia.” For one thing, I came out back when the gay movement was very suspicious (with good reason) of psychiatry and other mental health professions, who could take just about any emotional state and label it an illness/disorder with a nice Latin or Greek name. I’m not convinced that homophobia really is an illness. For another thing, one reason to medicalize a condition is to absolve the subject of moral responsibility (as when homosexuality was defined as a sickness, not a sin). But people often moralize homophobia, to imply that a homophobes are wicked, which they aren’t — by definition, they’re sick, not sinful. If you believe in homophobia, you should be compassionate toward homophobes, not judgmental. Urge them to get treatment. (The idea of Pat Robertson or Pope Rat undergoing aversion therapy for homophobia has a certain nasty appeal.) So no, saying that someone is homophobic is not equivalent to saying that what they say is “intentional,” rather the opposite. Nor does it mean they’re the enemy, or whatever. It just means that they are uncomfortable around gay people, to greater or lesser degrees.
I’ve seen people protest that if you call someone homophobic, you’re saying that they can’t change. Which is not only absurd, it’s false. Homophobia may not be curable, but people often get over it through being around gay people, having gay friends, going to orgies … just kidding on that last one. It’s not a permanent condition.
28 May 2009 at 8:29 am

Rav said:
For what it’s worth, I kind of disagree with 6 being an example of, well, anything really. The fact is, growing up in a majority-straight world, we’re used to being the only gay – as far as we know – at a party, in a class, on a team or whatever. It’s just not an equivalent situation for a straight person to be the only one at a party. They’re not used to it!
And for whatever reason, most largely-gay gatherings take on a different tone to mixed gatherings, a tone that might not make a lot of sense to a straight person. Often a lot of the conversation is about either sex or “gay issues”. Hardly surprising – it’s a thing we all have in common. By contrast, it’s not like straight people getting together talk only about sex, relationships, and the future of hetero marriage.
28 May 2009 at 1:22 pm

JD said:
Whenever a straight person tries to lecture me about condoms, I look at it as an opportunity to lecture them right back. We should all be using condoms if we’re having penetrative sex, and it really blows my mind how many straight people don’t use them. If women were more able to pass HIV on to their partners, we’d see a rash of new seroconversions in the heterosexual world.
About #10: with a little tweaking, that statement could actually be a show of love and concern. We do know what some gay men are like (i.e. sexual predators, chickenhawks, lying sacks of shit), but then some straight guys are just as bad, if not worse.
28 May 2009 at 2:06 pm

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