A couple of weeks ago, I got a text from a friend telling me that security had just kicked him out of a place...because he'd been making out with his boyfriend. Not in an OMG GROSS CHRIST JUST GO HOME AND DO IT ALREADY way, but as you do sometimes when you just can't help it. Implicit in all of this was that it probably wouldn't have happened had his partner been a girl. One summer night, too, saw me with the same friend and another guy we know, wandering around Donsdale on a drunken midnight Sobey's run (don't ask.) An Escalade started following us, for no apparent reason other than for its bro-tastic occupants to scream "FUCKING FAGGOTS" at my friends. They followed us home, too, for the same purpose.
Neither of those friends are comfortable with holding their boyfriends' hands in public. I don't know. I'm a straight white girl, I can hardly pretend to really understand the gay experience in this town, no matter how many friends I've got who identify as some variant of LGBTQ or how many times I've been out with them. I know Edmonton's not perfect. The bros above are a pretty good example of some of the worst. My teenage brother prefaces hugging his dude friends with "no homo" and was the bad kind of confused when he saw I was reading a book about drag queens (I really hope this is all a phase.) But sometimes it's hard to tell whether these are just examples of personal prejudice or indicative of a larger problem. I think both. You can't have one without the other.
On the other hand, remember back in the fall when the Westboro Church people said they were planning on coming to protest the staging of The Laramie Project? I think the counter-protest was organised in something like three days, and yet when I went, there were a few hundred people there, cheerfully carrying signs (my own made use of the Sassy Gay Friend videos on youtube) and having a total fucking blast. Linda Duncan spoke, and so did Fred Phelps' estranged son. In the end, the Westboro crazies didn't show (apparently they hardly ever do), but it didn't really matter. The solidarity that night was the best thing -- it didn't matter if you were gay or straight or polka-dotted, you just wanted to support the cause, and your friends or your girlfriends or boyfriends or parents.
Again, it's not perfect. I've seen it be pretty awful, actually. But getting to be part of something like that is proof, I guess, of the fact that not everything sucks.
You mention how you hope your brother is going through a phase, and how it is hard to tell if such a phase is personal prejudice or something larger. What is the larger problem? Do personal prejudices not stem from widespread public misconceptions, or are they spontaneous occurrences within (unlucky) bigots' personalities?
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about that when I wrote it. Personal prejudices definitely stem from public misconceptions, but then I guess public misconceptions are going to come at least partly from personal prejudices. And to me it's pretty obvious that a lot of the larger problem is fear of the unfamiliar. And it's hard to make the unfamiliar familiar, and the whole thing just makes me sad and rather angry. (And I maybe didn't answer this as well as I could have, sorry.)
ReplyDelete(As for my brother...he's weird. He's douchey in a lot of ways, but he also identifies as a feminist -- at 18, which impresses me. We had a conversation about gender the other day, and he's not homophobic in theory. I think he's just uncomfortable with it when he sees it. Which bugs the shit out of me, obviously.)
*My keys aren' all working. Do your bes o deiper. :)
ReplyDeleteI was ere for e ouner-proes and I oally agree; e solidariy was awesome! I's nie o know a alooug edmonon as is razy gay-basers and redblooded "men", ere is a lo of olerane sill o be found in our plae. Sorry!!
...keys aren't working? :( Because I'm reading this in Eliza Doolittle voice, haha.
ReplyDeleteAll this talk about your brother really snagged my attention. It reminds me a lot of me, in some ways.
ReplyDeleteI spent the majority of my adolescent life being largely unaware of the issue of gay rights. They were there, some loved them, some hated them, some killed because of it. Some didn't care. I didn't care. I had my own problems (how angsty...)
It was really when I reached university that I figured my own life out and began to see the injustices of the world.
It was a slow process, but one that involved a lot of learning. I think a major turning point for me in terms of how I thought about homosexuality, transgender, etc was only about this time last year in a Sociology class.
To save you the inane details, the point of everything here is that it's all about learning, I think. The more I hear stories of injustice, the more learn about ethics, the more I meet and talk to people more knowledgeable than myself, the more clear everything becomes.
I'm guessing your brother just needs a little bit more learning.
That being said, I don't think you should be upset if he gets uncomfortable when he sees it. As a straight guy who passsssssionately supports all gay causes, I still find myself cringing when I see two men kissing. Not because it's gay and I don't approve, but because it's foreign to the way MY natural hormones think, if that makes sense.