If you pass for heterosexual...

[angelpdx]

Alright, so this may sound a little condescending, I hope you don't take it that way. I just get the impression that many of my straight, or passing as straight, friends have no idea how to deal with homophobia. Many think they do, but their responses are... let's just say, they aren't what I would do

Comments

[dorjejaguar]

That's a situation I've never dealt with. Who were the judges? How was the decision made?
Truth is I rarely have to get loud but thats because I rarely encounter someone who is outright biggoted. Homophobic or homoconfused is more like it.
I did confront someone on a bus though once very directly and openly. But that was years ago and he was just spouting off. It was bizarre. It was a little punk boy, new in town, on the bus going down Market St. in San Francisco. Spouting off about them "faggots". Most everybody was just wide eyed, they couldn't believe how stupid he was. I went on to inform him that that kinda talk wasn't gonna fly too well where he was. I explained that San Fransisco was a third gay and that most of the inhabitants were accepting of that. Told him he was the minority. He was pretty shocked. I laughed at him. I'm pretty sure he dropped that mighty fast. I'm certain it was all ignorance and whatever was cool wherever he had come from. Poor idiot.
It is so often ignorance and just people not knowing what to say about people they've never been around nor understand. That's why letting them know that I am one of those is so powerful. They find out they know someone who is that way. If I stay open to talking with them they often come to me later and talk more, trying to understand stuff. I become the sexual expert or something. Lol.
Hmm. Actually come to think of it I did have a rather heated discussion fairly recently with someone who tried to tell me it was "unnatural" cause homosex doesn't make babies. I challenged his assumptions left and right. Quite honestly I was really pissed. That was a hard one cause he was just being plain old judgemental, my way is better than your way crap.
I am much more understanding of people not understanding a culture that isn't their own and having discomfort round that. Believing one is entitled to judgement is something else. That pisses me off. That and stupidity pisses me off. Making illogical arguments pisses me off.
Anyhoo.
The situation you came up against was more complex. Are you wishing you had said something? That someone had said something?

I do have a fair amount of practice confronting such crap from when I was younger. Then, it was mostly racism though. I ran into that often enough then.

I am really sorry this happened hon.
This sorta thing easily can happen though, and not with just sexual orientation or gender orientation or race but with physical type, cultural type, ect. Have a contest where one does not have impartial judges and the decision is not at all democratic and some judges dick or kneejerk reaction to the unknown shows up and the wrong person wins.
Loads of leather contests have lost credibility for the same reason. (Not around here mind you) but in other places where fucking the judge or being sexually appealing to the judge was the quality most likely to gain a win.
Happens a lot and its not right of course, but the best way to change it is to make how the winners are picked more democratic. That way the good in people has a chance to restrain the stupid in people.

Don't stop singing. We love you just as you are. And I still wanta hear that voice.

[angelpdx]

You wrote:The situation you came up against was more complex. Are you wishing you had said something? That someone had said something?

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Yes, actually, I am. I'm wishing that ten people had all stood up en masse and said "this isn't right" to someone other than me. I'm wishing all one hundred or so people in the audience who applauded loudly for me had stood up and said something, or heard those ten saying it and muttered their agreement. I'm wishing that the homophobia I suffered had been made visible and had it's anonymity taken away. As the victim, I was visible, so why not the perpetrator? I'm wishing that fear of exposure, embarrassment, or visibility, didn't make people too afraid to speak up.Homophobia won't disappear if it isn't brought out into the open and made visible.

As for leather contests... well, I've never been popular for speaking my mind, but even the contests *here* are loaded. Sometimes people win because they are the only one running, even when they should never have been allowed to enter. People who don't well represent their community win titles that should have been retired years ago when they started begging for contestants.