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placating straight people
Jul. 4th, 2003 08:45 amI wrote this in a response to a freind's journal but decided to put it in mine instead because it's something that's very important to me. I think it will be clear what the context is....
But D..., how would you have gay people deal with this? The game that's being played is "rationalize my prejudice" and the media plays along (a lot less than they used to, but still....) So when you have a gay pride parade with 200,000 people and 95% of them look regular and the rest dress up in festive ways, and the newspapers take a picture of the biggest scariest drag queen and that's what they print. What should the other 95% do? Forbid the drag queen from being there? All it takes is one big scary drag queen, and they've got their shot.
And why is the big drag queen scary? Because she's obviously not straight (even though the majority of men who dress up in women's clothes are straight, but that's not the point.) And people say "ooooooh, look, he's not hiding the fact that he's gay and non-straight-appearing, he acts like he's PROUD OF IT! Bad! Bad!". Rationalize the prejudice. They already don't like gay people, and/or have absorbed negative stereotypes, and here's their proof! Look at that fag! What is the drag queen doing that's so bad? She's saying "FUCK your rules". That's it. She's not following the rules. And he knows that even if he followed the rules, they'd still find ways to make him feel bad if he let them. So he doesn't. He wins.
Trust me, little Gordo grew up noticing how people talked about gay people, and how people focussed their derision on those gay people who were visible, just like little D... did. And little Gordo had to figure out a way to make it OK for him to accept that he was homosexual while avoiding all that derision, and so he decided if he wasn't like those awful visible gay people then other people would like him and accept him. And he decided that the derision came from the behavior, so if visible gay people would stop acting that way it would make the world safe for people like him. Problem solved. He would be safe.
So he was on constant guard so that he'd never ever act like a fag. No one could know, and then they'd like him. Even after he came out, he wasn't exactly macho but no one would ever guess. And he wished everyone was like him so that the prejudice would stop.
Then there was one year in college where I had a roommate who was involved with the local gay community center and the college gay group. I got to know all sorts of people, a lot of them flamboyant and nelly and loud. Some of them small and femme and delicate (and some of those were actually women.) And they got me to do drag for a Halloween party, and it was HUGE fun. I was a BIG UGLY WOMAN and I loved it. I had the best time, we went out places and made people laugh. And it was made very clear to me that doing that, and acting like that, was not a bad thing and anyone who said it was was just wrong. If people wanted to say bad things about gay people who did drag then my old response - I wish no men did drag so that straight people won't hate gay people - was wrong - the right response is "drag is fun, get over it".
Of course there were a lot of other things I was figuring out at the time, it wasn't just that one thing, but the core of it was that I finally understood that I didn't want to play "rationalize the prejudice" anymore because I didn't want to be prejudiced. And being prejudiced in the same way is the only way to play that game with them.
I've used drag as an example because it was part of my experience. I think you can classify most things that prejudiced straight people hold up as their rationalizations into two categories:
1) not actually bad, like drag
2) bad, but just as many straight people do it
You talk about the movie _Cruising_ = straight people are just as much into SM as gay people are. But making a movie about fags doing it was more exciting. And some straight people say "well yeah, but we don't get on a float and broadcast it" but the question is: what difference does it make? It's still being done. "Rationalize my prejudice" doesn't have to be logical.
That's my experience. Everyone's path is different.
But D..., how would you have gay people deal with this? The game that's being played is "rationalize my prejudice" and the media plays along (a lot less than they used to, but still....) So when you have a gay pride parade with 200,000 people and 95% of them look regular and the rest dress up in festive ways, and the newspapers take a picture of the biggest scariest drag queen and that's what they print. What should the other 95% do? Forbid the drag queen from being there? All it takes is one big scary drag queen, and they've got their shot.
And why is the big drag queen scary? Because she's obviously not straight (even though the majority of men who dress up in women's clothes are straight, but that's not the point.) And people say "ooooooh, look, he's not hiding the fact that he's gay and non-straight-appearing, he acts like he's PROUD OF IT! Bad! Bad!". Rationalize the prejudice. They already don't like gay people, and/or have absorbed negative stereotypes, and here's their proof! Look at that fag! What is the drag queen doing that's so bad? She's saying "FUCK your rules". That's it. She's not following the rules. And he knows that even if he followed the rules, they'd still find ways to make him feel bad if he let them. So he doesn't. He wins.
Trust me, little Gordo grew up noticing how people talked about gay people, and how people focussed their derision on those gay people who were visible, just like little D... did. And little Gordo had to figure out a way to make it OK for him to accept that he was homosexual while avoiding all that derision, and so he decided if he wasn't like those awful visible gay people then other people would like him and accept him. And he decided that the derision came from the behavior, so if visible gay people would stop acting that way it would make the world safe for people like him. Problem solved. He would be safe.
So he was on constant guard so that he'd never ever act like a fag. No one could know, and then they'd like him. Even after he came out, he wasn't exactly macho but no one would ever guess. And he wished everyone was like him so that the prejudice would stop.
Then there was one year in college where I had a roommate who was involved with the local gay community center and the college gay group. I got to know all sorts of people, a lot of them flamboyant and nelly and loud. Some of them small and femme and delicate (and some of those were actually women.) And they got me to do drag for a Halloween party, and it was HUGE fun. I was a BIG UGLY WOMAN and I loved it. I had the best time, we went out places and made people laugh. And it was made very clear to me that doing that, and acting like that, was not a bad thing and anyone who said it was was just wrong. If people wanted to say bad things about gay people who did drag then my old response - I wish no men did drag so that straight people won't hate gay people - was wrong - the right response is "drag is fun, get over it".
Of course there were a lot of other things I was figuring out at the time, it wasn't just that one thing, but the core of it was that I finally understood that I didn't want to play "rationalize the prejudice" anymore because I didn't want to be prejudiced. And being prejudiced in the same way is the only way to play that game with them.
I've used drag as an example because it was part of my experience. I think you can classify most things that prejudiced straight people hold up as their rationalizations into two categories:
1) not actually bad, like drag
2) bad, but just as many straight people do it
You talk about the movie _Cruising_ = straight people are just as much into SM as gay people are. But making a movie about fags doing it was more exciting. And some straight people say "well yeah, but we don't get on a float and broadcast it" but the question is: what difference does it make? It's still being done. "Rationalize my prejudice" doesn't have to be logical.
That's my experience. Everyone's path is different.
