To wonder how people are still so homophobic?

[uptodatetech]

I've noticed it on here and in the village I was brought up in. My best friend in school was gay and he had an absolutely horrible time. He heard anti gay comments on the street and at home and couldn't wait to escape the valleys for London. I funnily enough moved there too. We are still good friends and the other day, I was asking him does he regret leaving home. He says even though he would love to live in the area where all his family lived and he was brought up; he never could due to the rampant homophobia.

When I was back at Christmas, there was a group of men 10 or so, in the pub chanting that "There are no poofters in this village". I was at how backward and homophobic people still are at home. Whilst of course there are homophobic people everywhere; I just feel so badly for any gay people struggling to grow up there still.

Where I live, we have a few gay mums and a few gay dads. There is no way on earth I could imagine them feeling safe visiting as a family unit to where I grew up. Then on here, I read anti-gay family posts.

How are people still so homophobic? Will it improve?

[SaskiaRembrandt]

Yeah, bloody reasonable people, who do they think they are going around being reasonable all over the place?!

[amandacarnet]

The gay agenda is trying to get people to see that hate and discrimination is wrong. Just like the race agenda where people try to tell you that you are being racist and discriminatory.
It is so wrong all these people expecting you to act reasonably.

[Mysterian]

What is the gay agenda anyway?

It's the list of stuff that gets talked about at the gay meetings. (I've still not had the minutes from the last one!)

[Tunnockswafer]

It would be very surprising if there were no racist, disablist, sexist or homophobic (etc) comments ever on mumsnet. Does that mean mumsnet has a problem with x-phobia? It would depend on the quantity and if they were tolerated by other posters/mods. That isn’t what I’ve seen, but I’m not on every thread at every time.

[Hopeygoflightly]

I once got told by an old dear that my family was a ‘disgrace’ because we were so ‘normal’ and the kids ‘seemed happy enough’... nowt as strange as folk, I tell you.

[uptodatetech]

When you’re at it however, find out what the Jewish agenda that some go on about? Love to know what I get up to all this time!!

[Hopeygoflightly]

What is the gay agenda anyway? Stay fabulous? I feel like I should pop to a Tory rally or evangelical church to find out as i’m Apparently supposed to be promoting it as I myself am in the gays...

[Hopeygoflightly]

Yup, we’re a ‘gay’ family, 2 mums, young kids in a VERY LGBT friendly city and still get homophobic abuse. In general, and more so because there are so many people ‘okay’ with us being a couple ( thanks!) but not okay that we had children.

[Homefireburn1ng]

We don’t live in a Muslim area and are in a small middle class town. Plenty of educated people. Homophobia is alive and kicking here.

[SaskiaRembrandt]

However I have definitely read homophobic comments on MN. They do exist (whispers: transphobia exists too no matter how much posters insist it doesn't - coming from a gender critical person).

I agree! I'm also gender critical.

[Ivegotthree]

I'm sorry to read this. I work in London in the media and loads of my friends and colleagues are gay and it is absolutely considered the norm and I've never witnessed any homophobia. (Which isn't to say it doesn't happen, but it's nothing like the examples PPs have cited on here.)

I'm sure it's a different story in very rural areas maybe, or very Muslim areas. It's awful and I hope these attitudes change.

[1MillionSelfiesTakenByMyKids]

I've grown up with a slightly different take from many. We have a very close family friend who's in his 90s. We visited him and his partner often and I grew up just accepting that they were together. They'd been together nearly 40 years when they were finally able to get a civil partnership, for legal reasons only. They has nothing to prove.

Curiously my dad is a little twitchy about homosexuality in general but loved these men dearly and accepted them and their love without question.

One of my school friends came out when we were in our 20s and my mum very honestly, if weirdly and phobically, said something about feeling odd about us having had sleepovers etc. Otherwise she is generally accepting. It was just that one comment that stuck with me.

I'm nearly 40 and nobody in my family knows I'm bisexual. I never had a long term same sex relationship (this may or may not be because i have the world's crappest gaydar) so I never had to make the choice to tell them I was anything but the straight woman they thought I was. I was so so confused until my mid teens because I fancied girls and boys but had never heard of bisexuality. I thought I had to disregard half my preferences. The sense of relief when I realised I was a 'thing'. I went to an all girl school and a girl I had confided in Outed me. My class was amazingly accepting and several came up to me to personally offer support, which i found massively embarrassing and difficult to deal with, which gives me the tiniest glimpse of how awful it must be to experience the negative effects of attention to one's sexuality.

And that is my early morning unrelated ramble done with. Almost.

I asked my 90-something friend about dating in his youth. He pretty much said there was a don't ask don't tell policy. I'd love to know more about what it was like, but i don't want to press him on a very personal and possibly sensitive topic. He was a teenager in the 40s. He had twenty years of his sex life being not just frowned upon, but actually imprisonable. How do you ask about that?

[amandacarnet]

Except we are not talking about wariness. We are talking about hate and discrimination.

[zippey]

People are just wary of those who are different. Wether it’s colour of skin, sexuality, weight etc. It’s Hunan nature so probably won’t change anytime soon.

I do think it’s different to the trans debate. The trans thing is just anti common sense.

[Jaspermcsween]

SimonJT what a lovely post

[amandacarnet]

Think about it, I went to the funeral of an elderly lesbian. Her long term partner was referred to in the eulogy as one of her many friends. This was a woman who had been a lesbian since she was sixteen and had had one serious partner who she would undoubtedly have married if it was legal.
I have heard older people say there were no lesbians or gays when they were young. That is because you all made it impossible for people to be out, and even when it was obvious, you ignored or denied it.

[Mysterian]

Poster quotes a Mumsnet post:
But because its being pushed at me 24/7 by the fucking mental liberals, I'm actually getting really pissed off and suspecting another agenda

3 posts later a poster writes:
yawns. What homophobic posts on MN?

[user1471453601]

Oh, homophobia is alive as is islamaphobia and sexism. It was driven under ground for a few years, but brexit made labeling people and discriminating against them because they are seen by some as "other" ok again, apparently.

The increase of racism at football grounds is not unconected.

My daughter and her partner have had a real life example of how this is true.

To spring to the defence of the organisation they are part of, most of the members of said organisation not only told them about the whispers (they are gay, you know, that kind of thing), they also supported her when she stood, as was succesful , in becoming chair of that organisation. A group of no nonsense northern men who were able to see that her sexuality had no bearing whatsoever on her ability.

Not all is lost, but I fear that, as a country, we have taken a big step back. Hence the rise of such people as Yaxley Lennon

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

I agree. Moved to London after uni but come home and often shocked.

My godmother was almost certainly a lesbian but no one talked about it. She lived with her female friend for about 30 years and missed her ever day after her death. But she couldn't talk to anyone about it because small Yorkshire market towns don't have widow groups for gay widows.

She died too last year (aged 85) and I went to the funeral. It was mostly family (maybe 15 people tops) and the eulogy made no reference to her partner of 30 years. They talked about her life and career and travels and personality but managed not to mention her long term best friend who'd joined her on so much of it.

I was so furious but a funeral wasn't the place to call out the family.

[Madein1995]

up from your op, am I right in thinking you mean south Wales valleys? I definitely know what you mean. Homophobia and Racism is rampant here.

I know schoolmates (NOT friends, just the idiots in my year in school) who reckon they would rather die than be assisted by a BAME doctor, nurse or firefighter.

There's still the casual schoolyard stuff of children calling others 'gay' etc.

Sadly it's common in the adults too. We had a lovely couple move in a few years ago on the street down fr me. Nice men (and all the racist, homophobic women went into 'oh I don't mean YOU' mode). Unfortunately they got a lot of abuse including vandalism to their property and car and moved away relatively quickly.

I don't know what it is around here. Part of it is ignorant. In my village at least, most people only go to Cardiff or Swansea once every blue moon, and the furthest they travel is the next village. Most (at least half ) the young people never go to uni and stay here. I'm not saying uni is the be a and end all, but it does give you different experiences. There's lots of families who've lived In the same place their whole life, it's insular and almost suffocating sometimes.

People don't have any kind of experience of people who are different..until I went to uni the only people I met who weren't like me - white, Welsh - were the families who ran the local Takeaways or corner ship. I'd never seen someone in a hijab let alone the niqab, and when I was younger, on trips to the city, seeing those things scared me. Until I was about 6 or 7 o honestly thought black people were black because they'd eaten too much chocolate 😯 i don't think that now obviously, but it speaks volumes that I wasn't told or taught any different, and that my first time seeing someone different was age 7!

I hate how common it is in people my age. Theess no excuse regardless, bit I was there with the homophobic and racist knobs in school. I knew what we were being taught and it certainly wasn't that. There's no excuse In my mind

[Serialweightwatcher]

I think there always will be amounts of homophobes, racists, anti semitics unfortunately because kids are being brought up by parents (who were brought up by their parents) who are these things and who brainwash them in the same disgusting way - I hope one day there will be a world with none of it but it's doubtful ... so sad

[LimeKiwi]

You also yawned as if it was a non issue on here.
I've certainly seen it on these boards, T Daley threads on here a while back was full of it - just off the top of my head

[EmpressLesbianInChair]

Sorry that you find teens going through a shitty time so yawnworthy Grumple

Grumple’s right about Stonewall being lesbophobic bullies. That’s the same point I made upthread.