You don’t really learn much about people by listening to them explain to you how difficult it is to get ITV in the evenings in their area if one doesn’t have a satellite dish, and how one cannot record on one channel and watch another. It’s the throwaway comments, sometimes, that tell you so much more. Talk of evening television turned to talk of TV chefs, and during discussion of one in particular (I don’t recall which one), my grandpa casually remarked:
“I’m sure he’s a homosexual, which always puts me off the food.”
Conversation moved on. I like to think I wasn’t the only one thinking “Whoa, hold it right there. What? That is not okay!” But it’s a distinct possibility that I was, and that’s a disheartening thought.
My homophobia radar is rather sensitive, after all. This is the girl who spent several years of her life being particularly confused about where she sat on the sliding scale of sexuality. When the possibility that you might be gay is one you daily turn over in your mind, sentences that begin, “I’m not homophobic, but…” are crushing. These are friends who have known you for years, and yet those kinds of statements make you think that if they knew the feelings you’ve been hiding, they would turn away from you. Is it better to be liked for your half-truth of a personality you present, or disliked for who you really are? I asked myself this question repeatedly. “If they don’t want to know me because I like girls, they’re not worth knowing”, I told myself. But the prospect of losing the friends I loved was too awful to bear, so I didn’t say anything.
I hope I would have developed a deep-seated revulsion to homophobia without this experience. I feel fairly certain I would have. But sometimes an issue needs to come within your personal bubble for you to properly consider it. So many people seem to just accept that alternative sexualities are wrong or not normal without even giving any serious thought to the matter. Perhaps if they found out that a close friend or relative were gay, they would have to confront the issue in their mind, and would realise that it doesn’t matter a bit. Earlier this year, I finally told two friends that I was bisexual, something I only eventually worked out after coming to university and finding The Boyfriend, and do you know what? It didn’t bother them at all. And one of those friends had been the “I’m not homophobic, but…” type at one point. Maybe it's easier for both them and I that I'm in a relationship with a guy now. I'm not a 'threat'. But I hope that wasn't a factor in their acceptance.
What about my grandpa? Should I have said something? Forced him to consider the issue by informing him that his own granddaughter partially swings that abhorred way? He’s in his eighties; ought I to just shrug off this problem of an ingrained prejudice that probably a large percentage of the older generation have? Possibly. I imagine it’s far too late to change the mind of someone who’s always believed that being gay is in some way perverted, and I suppose I really just feel sad for those who belong to that generation and had to hide who they really were or face discrimination. Hope, I like to think, lies in the younger generation, who will be taught that love is never wrong, and everyone has the right to love whomever they choose.
Yet I fear that this message isn’t getting through. Possibly, it isn’t even being delivered. This was brought home to me lately when hanging out with two of my younger cousins. Somehow, we got onto the subject of homosexuality. And lo and behold, one of them came out with the classic line, “I’m not homophobic, I just don’t really like lesbians or gay people”.
“Why?” I asked. “And that is homophobic, you know.”
“I just think it’s weird.”
“Why is that?”
“Just…” And she shuddered, as if the very thought was repulsive.
I got a couple of lame reasons out of her. All the gay people she knows aren’t very nice. Lesbians are all like men. Bisexual people? That’s ‘weird’ too. I tried reasoning: that sexuality has nothing to do with being nice or not, that not all lesbians are like men and you can’t generalise like that (and would it be a problem if they were?) and that maybe one of her best friends was a lesbian without her knowing. Maybe even she would one day fall for a girl, I suggested. She scoffed at that suggestion.
“Why does it matter?” I asked. “Shouldn’t people be able to love whoever they want to love?”
“Well, yeah…” She looked like she didn’t really know what to say to that. “Yeah, they should… I just don’t like it.”
There were a few moments of silence. Then, the inevitable:
“Are you a lesbian?”
“No, I’m not.”
“Are you bi?”
Pause.
“Maybe.”
And I couldn’t even admit it outright. Even though I’d been trying to tell her that being of an alternative sexuality was nothing to be ashamed of, I was reluctant to tell her the truth. Why, when I’ve now made up my mind to be open about this in the belief that it’s the best way to make people think, is it still so hard to just say it? I’m pretty sure she understood my ‘Maybe’ to mean yes, and in all fairness to her, she didn’t act any differently around me afterwards. Which gives me hope that perhaps that really is often all it takes to begin to change someone’s mind: to put that issue right into their world and make it something they then have to confront.
I couldn’t be angry with her for her unthinking intolerance, because it was the most basic kind of stereotypical thinking, and the most unfortunately natural kind of aversion to anything different. No, I was not angry, then, but frustrated. My cousin is about fourteen, and I can’t understand why schools are not adequately addressing the issue. Possibly they feel they have to tiptoe around the subject of alternative sexuality in case they are seen as encouraging it (which is ridiculous; you can’t ‘make’ somebody gay) or in case they offend those whose religions teach them that homosexuality is wrong. And of course, offending religious people is much worse than allowing an environment to develop in which people are bullied for their sexuality, or have to suffer hiding who they are. I genuinely don’t understand the stupidity of the world sometimes. Why don't people think?
For once, I don’t apologise for the lengthiness of this post. It’s something that needs to be said. And yes, it's been said before many times, but as long as there are still far too many people not listening, I will continue to say it.
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