For this to change my opinion of my colleague?

[HappyGoLuckyGirl]

I work within a very good team of people, we're all largely the same age and all get along brilliantly.

I was speaking to one particular colleague at lunch and the conversation got onto a friend of a friend of his that had a daughter who was transgendered. She was early teens and was wearing a binder on her chest and had started hormone treatment, apparently.

My colleague then proceeded to state that that family was 'weird' because they had one transgendered daughter and two gay sons. When I queried this with him he began to say that gay/transgendered people were not right, it's not natural, it shoudn't be shown to children and that they did it just to be 'different'.

He even said "no child of mine will ever be gay"

I challenged him and asked him to justify his views. He couldn't, he just kept repeating that it was "wrong" and "disgusting".

I have a close cousin who is gay and a lot of my friends are gay too, two of my very best friends have girlfriends and are openly gay.

I tried to explain to him that it shouldn't matter to him as I likened it to him being disgusted by what the person in front of him ordered at Subway. He's not eating that sandwich, so it doesn't matter in the slightest if he doesn't like it.

I try not to judge people for their beliefs and views but I can't help feeling that this has totally changed my opinion of him. It's been two hours since the discussion but I can't get it out of my head. He's genuinely the only homophobic person I have ever come across (other than my ex's 85 year old Grandma!) and it's totally shocked me. He's my age too (early twenties).

I don't even know why it's affected me so much as his opinions and views shouldn't even matter! I guess I'm just really disappointed that an otherwise seemingly nice chap could have such ugly views.

Yanbu. I'd think very differently about someone if they had such views.

Was he possibly winding you up as you were biting? Maybe he does this to very "right-on" people and isn't actually anti-gay, but you were just annoying him.

tbh one transgendered daughter and two gay sons in one family is statistically unusual. Nothing wrong with it of course.

Yanbu. Of course it will change your opinion of him. I like the subway analogy though.

yanbu.

I'm not surprised it has changed how you think of him. You've been exposed to his unreasoning hatred of a huge group of people. Some people love to have someone to hate, and it is a worrying, unattractive trait.

He's horrible. And stupid.

It would change my opinion too.

He was defintely not joking. Especially with the "no child of mine will be gay" thing, he got quite irate then. Another colleague asked him if he had any gay friends and he swore and said he wouldn't ever be friends with "a gay".

I see this person everyday. It's really repulsed me that someone could be so hideous about other humans.

But I feel bad because now I'm judging him!

You have carte blanche to judge people like this.

You hold vile views: you accept that people will judge you to be an idiot.

YANBU.

As it happened over work lunch, was it on work premises and is it therefore not allowed under workplace equality legislation?

He's a cunt. Simples.

Maid - It was at work, yes. I don't know if he could get into trouble as it is his views and opinions, they don't reflect the views of the company?

There was only us two and another colleague who sits quite a bit away and didn't really get involved. I don't know how the rest of our team would have reacted!

no child of mine will be gay

That is inviting trouble.

According to my gay intellectual friends, some people are born gay and some are made gay by overbearing homophobic parents.

Jesus wept.

It would bother me too OP. It bothers me enough when my dad and FIL make slightly racist / sexist jokes but they are both mid seventies. But someone your age - early twenties - just awful. I had hoped we were past this sort of thing, that your generation were the enlightened ones. I don't think I could be friends or even smiling acquaintances with someone with such horrid values.

That’s bizarre. If you can ever bring yourself to talk to him again then ask him if he remembers the moment when made the decision that he was going to fancy girls as opposed to other men. Or blondes instead of brunettes.

Of course YANBU! He should not express his offensive, discriminatory views in the workplace.

You're perfectly entitled to judge someone for being an out and out bigot. It would certainly change my opinion of a colleague, because I couldn't be friendly with someone with that sort of mindset.

I'd also be pretty concerned about the implications for the workplace, because there's a very good chance that there are a number of gay people there and if this gets back to them, or indeed if he says this type of thing in their presence, they will be made to feel very uncomfortable indeed.

The saying goes something like "methinks he doth protest too much".

He's either extremely homophobic or has inclinations that way himself.

In general I don't care what people think, only how they behave.

There isn't necessarily any connection between what people believe in the abstract and how they behave when dealing with someone in the target group. The most racist person I've known was actually above-averagely moral and kind, in general, and when I actually observed him interacting with the kind of people he claimed to have such a low opinion of.

I've known a couple of women who've admitted to being anti-semitic. In both cases I have some doubt (given their background) they they've ever knowingly met anyone Jewish. So I wondered why.

I suppose, like language and religion, beliefs like these are just a part of peoples cultural inheritance. So, other than with regard to their intellect, I don't think less of people merely for having "unacceptable" beliefs.

The corollory of my attitude to them is that I do take a dim view of people with "correct" beliefs who are nasty to the bigots. Their actual bad behaviour is a worse crime in my eyes than merely holding prejudiced views.