I'm Judging You by Luvvie Ajayi

Author:Luvvie Ajayi
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781627796071
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

12. Homophobia Is Geigh

I went to a restaurant with one of my guy friends, and our server (a guy) told my friend his shirt was nice. He then quickly added, “Not that I’m gay or anything,” as a statement of record. He wanted us to make sure we knew it, because when he came back, he said it again. “That’s a really nice shirt. No homo.”

When did being gay start including attraction to shirts? Because if that is true, I need to figure out some things about myself and how I feel about shoes. I wanted to tell him to relax—pointing out that another man’s shirt is nice does not make implications about the type of person you’d like to end up in bed with. It’s like being all “OMG, I love chicken. Not that I’m Black or anything.” DAFUQ? What does that have to do with the price of beads in Togo?

We heteros were, and often still are, very pressed to ensure that we aren’t confused with members of the LGBTQ community. Our haste to accompany any compliment we give to someone of the same gender with a qualifier to remind people that we are not gay is kinda homophobic. Well, not kinda. It is. I’m judging us for that and for other ways we thrive at being unreasonable toward people who identify or present as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, or gender-nonconforming. “No homo” and its cousins are proof that we cannot have nice things, like the end of anti-gay bigotry.

Being homophobic does not mean you actively hate and wish harm on people who are gay. Nah. Homophobia doesn’t always look like yelling out slurs or cutting off your friend who just came out the closet. It’s in the fact that we’re so uncomfortable with people’s private sexuality that we casually and hurtfully distance ourselves from it as much as we can. It is pervasive and it is high-level petty, but most important, it is dangerous.

Why do people care who someone else loves or sleeps with as long as all are consenting adults? The way some people take homosexuality as a personal affront will never cease to amaze me. The way hateful shrews carry on and on about gay people, you’d think there’s some secret Make Everyone Gay Council that runs into every house where straights reside just to transform their curtains into rainbow satin. Some people are so chafed about it that you’d think they were being forced to have sex with someone they don’t want to in their own home as a result of the existence of gay people.

Part of this is because we carry stereotypical ideas of what the LGBTQ community is like and we use them to ridicule and disparage the entire group. Folks thinking all gay men are neck-swerving, shrill pink tutu wearers, while gay women are butch lumbersexuals with bad haircuts. Sure, some might fit into these stereotypical descriptions, but not all. Not even most. And what’s so scary or negative about those things anyway? But there is no nuance in hate, and clichés don’t have time for gradients.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.