You know how every time Pride Month comes around with the parades and coloured crosswalks, you start seeing comments like, “I don’t care if you’re gay, just don’t shove your sexuality in my face.”?
Well, I’ve been thinking about that.
See, straight people like this don’t actually care if LGBTQ people march in parades. Here in Lethbridge, for example, our annual summer fair kicks off with a parade, and I bet there are a few LGBTQ people in that parade. And these straight people don’t care.
These straight people don’t actually care if LGBTQ folk march. It’s not the marching that’s the big deal.
These straight people don’t like knowing that LGBTQ people aren’t straight when they’re marching.
They want to assume everyone is straight. They want to assume everyone is like them. Because if everyone is the same, then it’s easier to justify their rhetoric of hate.
That’s why they don’t have a problem when other straight people shove their sexuality in their face with handholding, kissing, or hugging.
Because it’s not the public nature of the sexuality that’s the problem. It’s that the public sexuality isn’t the same as their sexuality.
And if everyone isn’t the same—if there are gay people, and bisexual people, and trans people, and intersex people, and asexual people, and all sorts of identities that aren’t straight and cisgender—that challenges their rhetoric of hate.
Actually, for that matter, when you hear people complain that there are too many letters in the LGBTTQQIAAP acronym or that there are too many sexual orientations and gender identities, it’s the same thing.
“There are too many initials” or “I can’t keep track of all these new identities” is just a coded way to say “I’m uncomfortable that you’re not like me and it delegitimizes what I was taught.”
But that’s good. It’s good these straight people are uncomfortable.
Imagine what it must be like to grow up in a society where you think everyone else isn’t like you, where you’re the only one like you. Where society is designed for everyone but you. Discomfort seems to be inadequate to describe that experience.
So, maybe it’s time straight, cisgender people accept discomfort. Getting rid of prejudice and hate is impossible without discomfort.
