Observations at the Air Port
Oh, dear, two posts in a row, I'm becoming a nuisance. \o/
Today, I was sitting at an airport gate (San Jose Airport in California) with the gate right next to me having just boarded their flight. In that group was a family, two gay dads and three kids (two were ~5-7, one was a baby). Unsurprisingly, they were getting a lot of looks.
One interesting thing that struck me, though, was that no one said a word, or even gave them an openly hateful look.
Actually, no, one guy did - and one of the dads asked him what his problem was; from the sounds of it, expecting homophobia - I was, too, as were probably some other bystanders.
Imagine our surprise when the guy's main issue was the baby - he was upset that someone was going to bring a child so young onto an airplane, and that the baby would start screaming and being a horror. One of the dads was still pissed off with the guy for the hostile looks to their baby, though the other one seemed to find this an amenable/"legitimate" point to be wary about and reassured the guy the baby was a quiet one and would sleep through the flight. (TBH, I'm somewhat on the guy's side on this - screaming babies in a tiny and confined airplane cabin? D: )
Much more people were interested in telling them how cute their kids were (very) than expressing any negative attitudes to the fact they were clearly gay dads.
...okay, this isn't remotely productive, but really got my thinking about perceptions of "gay" families, especially in contrast to news you hear about gay parents facing harassment while doing normal family things just because they're gay parents. But it also got me thinking about changed attitudes towards public homophobia. Not too long ago they could have gotten a lot of flak and there's a good chance no one would have told them off about it. Today, while I am sure not all the hostile looks were over someone bringing a potential screaming horror onto a plane, no one said a word outloud (at least a homophobic word - screamingphobic is another can of worms all together).
Thoughts? Experiences, especially concerning gay families?
Today, I was sitting at an airport gate (San Jose Airport in California) with the gate right next to me having just boarded their flight. In that group was a family, two gay dads and three kids (two were ~5-7, one was a baby). Unsurprisingly, they were getting a lot of looks.
One interesting thing that struck me, though, was that no one said a word, or even gave them an openly hateful look.
Actually, no, one guy did - and one of the dads asked him what his problem was; from the sounds of it, expecting homophobia - I was, too, as were probably some other bystanders.
Imagine our surprise when the guy's main issue was the baby - he was upset that someone was going to bring a child so young onto an airplane, and that the baby would start screaming and being a horror. One of the dads was still pissed off with the guy for the hostile looks to their baby, though the other one seemed to find this an amenable/"legitimate" point to be wary about and reassured the guy the baby was a quiet one and would sleep through the flight. (TBH, I'm somewhat on the guy's side on this - screaming babies in a tiny and confined airplane cabin? D: )
Much more people were interested in telling them how cute their kids were (very) than expressing any negative attitudes to the fact they were clearly gay dads.
...okay, this isn't remotely productive, but really got my thinking about perceptions of "gay" families, especially in contrast to news you hear about gay parents facing harassment while doing normal family things just because they're gay parents. But it also got me thinking about changed attitudes towards public homophobia. Not too long ago they could have gotten a lot of flak and there's a good chance no one would have told them off about it. Today, while I am sure not all the hostile looks were over someone bringing a potential screaming horror onto a plane, no one said a word outloud (at least a homophobic word - screamingphobic is another can of worms all together).
Thoughts? Experiences, especially concerning gay families?