Gay Stereotyping

Not long ago one of my younger friends posted some shock rocker thing on Facebook and commented that she thought they were gay because of the way they dress and look but their songs are about doing stuff to girls.

I kind of jumped the gun telling her to not be ignorant and that sexual orientation has nothing to do with fashion, or masculinity/femininity. She deleted my comment. I was a bit short with her and she knows me as a Christian. I assume the thinks means I voted for Prop 8 (true) and hate gay people (not true). So that is probably why she doesn't care what I think of her stereotyping gay people.

I am used to being ignored for being argumentative on Facebook so I didn't take it to heart... but I often post a quote "The casualties in the war of ideas are people." And while I pretty much don't care about government politics and how the money is divided up (up to a point) I do care what people think of gay people... especially people who want to supportive of them... because the consequences of these actions cut to the heart of who people are. Unlike Prop 8 this actually matters.

Now the LGTQ community is not going to be giving me any medals for enlightened thought any time soon. We have pretty serious disagreements about sexuality but one this point we are on the same page: Homosexuality has nothing to do with outward appearance. There are plenty of people living up the stereotypes but this is only a fashion statement. I assume this fashion statement is socially constructed as a kind of solidarity with a community which will not reject the person for their sexuality. A person can mimic some stereotype, just like an actor, but the tone of voice, length of hair or choice of occupation has nothing to do with how people have sex.

I guess one of the reasons I care so much is because I had to go through it. I was a pretty gentle little boy in a family with five pretty masculine older brothers. They weren't that bad but there were times where I was made to feel that since I wasn't as tough or athletic as my brothers there was something wrong with me. That wrongness was expressed through the word "gay." Now this was before I even knew what sex was, let alone homosexuality. There result was a lot of pain and confusion.

Now I am not super worried about this girl spending the rest her life assuming every gentle man prefers sex with men and every female mechanic prefers sex with women. Most likely in the next couple of years she will move away from Fremont to San Fransisco (or the equivalent) and meet people in the lgqt community not from Fremont. She'll meet "normal" looking, outrageously masculine, feminine and utterly bizarre people... some of whom prefer sex with their own gender or multiple genders. After a little while in Babylon she'll know better but I still don't want her to put people in boxes till then.