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?

[SimonJT]

Sadly homophobia is everywhere in the UK, and the UK is possibly the safest place to be queer.

There are quite a few openly homophobic colleagues in my team at work, if a guy wears a pink shirt to work or anything they consider in the slightest bit feminine they will call them poofs and make limp wristed gestures. They don’t know that I’m gay.

There is a huge huge problem with gay shame, more amongst queer men than queer women (however being a queer woman has it’s own specific difficulties).

You go through your school hearing gay insults (even at primary school), you have no idea what gay means when you first hear the word, but you do know it is something bad/shameful/not nice. Realising you are that awful disgusting thing is terrifying. I witnessed awful verbal and physical homophobic bullying at school, college and uni. I’m not ‘femme’ in my behaviour (but I do sound like a teenage girl!), so I generally avoided being their direct victim, but I couldn’t standup for it, report etc as that would have been outing myself.

I obviously can’t talk for queer women, but for queer men there is so much shame about doing anything sexual with another man. It’s actually really common for queer men to hide and cry afterwards (even in longterm relationships) as you know doing it and enjoying it confirms peoples beliefs that you are disgusting. Which in turn either leads to avoiding intimacy, or going the other way and being part of really risky behaviour.

I do sometimes hear people complain about the queer community, but like any minority having a safe space is really valuable. As a queer man I can’t be myself in public, I have learned that on the few occasions I have dared hold a partners hand, with comments ranging from fag etc, to being beaten up. But in the queer community I am safe, I can be myself without being scared. In a gay bar I can hold their hand, I can dance with them, I can kiss them and we can feel safe doing it.

Mental health is really poor in the queer community, personally I don’t know anyone who has survived being queer without coming to harm because of it.

I’m 31, but it’s only fairly recently that I have stopped wishing to be straight and it is only really recently that I’m genuinely happy that I am gay.

My ex is a singer in a band and is openly gay, if he does anything remotely ‘sexual’ record companies try to ban it or censor it, but they don’t if a person doing the same (or much worse!) is straight. It was deemed innapropriate for him to lick a car windscreen in a video as it was too sexual, thankfully he got his own way, yet there are video’s with topless women and simulated straight sex!

He made a short tv show called growing up gay that explores some of the issues queer people can face, it’s definitely worth a watch.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p057nfy7

[CupcakeDrama]

Ofcourse people still are. My sister recently found of my nephew is gay and is devastated. Shes been very homophobic towards him. A few of the boys from the estate have found out (they are all teens) and are now avoiding him/not wanting to be friends with him anymore. Im surprised people are surprised.

[ThatssomebadhatHarry]

Intolerance breeds intolerance

[Aprilladvised]

Isn’t it funny that while all our teens are being really aware and pc (the new generation) that there are still so many ignorant, uneducated people out there who hold such archaic, appalling views

And yet the most recent incident of homophobia I have heard of was by a group of teenagers to their 16 year old classmate.

[CupcakeDrama]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/teenagers-choked-gay-student-london-tube-spared-jail-homophobia-will-mayrick-a8352341.html%3famp

Teens are really aware and pc? hmm

[Sweetbabycheezits]

Simon your post really moved me, thank you for sharing your experience. What can straight people do, when it's not part of our lives experience, to help the queer community feel safer? Is it simply to call out people for explicitly homophobic comments as well as those making "jokes" about gay people? We live in a pretty small village, and I suspect that there is probably a pretty strong homophobic undercurrent around here (fortunately, I haven't really heard anything explicitly). I wouldn't hesitate to shut down a homophobic comment, but is that enough?
A very close relative of mine is a lesbian, and she has the most wonderful partner...we love them both so much, and my children adore the bones of them both...it doesn't occur to them to think their relationship is strange or weird, which I am relieved about...I hope they are growing up to be people who will reject homophobia.
I want people to feel safe and to be able to be themselves all the time. I know that's a very pie-in-the-sky ideal, but maybe more can be done by straight allies?

[Rufusthebewilderedreindeer]

My dad and fil are homophobic

My dad is basically uncomfortable with the whole idea but would rather die than upset ds1 and so is as friendly and open and huggy and generous with ds1 boyfriend as he is with ds1 himself

Fil does not want the boyfriend anywhere near...to the extent that he would rather not see the rest of us than see the boyfriend

Anyone i mention ds1 and boyfriend to asks how i feel about it, when he was younger i was told that he would grow out of it and he was just confused

I generally shut that comment down with 'i think he knows who he wants to fuck'

[HaroldsSocalledBluetits]

From talking to my kids and their friends about it there is a lot of lip service about tolerance going on amongst teens but homophobic insults are still depressingly regular. And the lesbian friends my DC have seem to get a really hard time in particular, especially the butch ones. Teenage culture is not a nice place to be for a girl who doesn't do the long straight hair/face sculpting/ bodycon dresses thing, whatever her reasons and for some boys the fact that these girls aren't interested in them anyway just tips them over the edge.

[onionchucker]

I think I was naive - I really thought homophobia had almost died the death. At school in the 90s one girl came out and the headmistress said she had to leave the school or get counselling - so she left the school. Things have definitely changed since then - thank goodness.

It was maybe the circles I moved in, but for the next 10-15 years or so, I never heard any homophobic comments from any of my friends and my gay friends never discussed having any problems.

Then I moved to a small village in another country and wow.... what a shock. Homophobia is rife - the way people talk is disgusting. There are a few men here who I think are gay but they keep themselves to themselves - there are no openly gay men and no couples living together. I know of a couple of gay men who moved away to a big city.
This goes along with a general attitude that women are there to service the men's needs - whether that be sexual or running the home and bringing up the children. And of course if you turn down a man's advances you "must be a lesbian".

Then I thought maybe it's just being in another country with different attitudes - all my British friends are very open and tolerant - several gay couples and singles in our circles.
BUT a close relative came out as a lesbian a couple of years ago and I have been shocked about how some people in the family have reacted. She can't bring her girlfriend to family parties because her own mother forbids it, saying she would upset some of the elderly members of the family. Her girlfriend is referred to as her "best friend" or "flatmate" and so on.
It's really opened my eyes. As I said I was very naive and being straight myself have never had to face any of these problems or experience any "funny looks".

[Rufusthebewilderedreindeer]

Oh god and the more recent comments ive had about 'feeling sorry for children nowadays'

Insinuating that there is pressure on a child to be gay when they dont want to be...fucking idiot

I was told by two people that i i kept talking about ds1 being gay that it would actually turn him gay...cos thats how it happens

[GregoryPeckingDuck]

How old were these people. There is a certain generation that, while not actually homophobic, is in the habit of using homophobic language. Obviously gay people of that generation also sometimes use homophobic language in an ironic kind of way. You may have just got the wrong end of the stick.

[hilbobaggins]

My dad is basically uncomfortable with the whole idea but would rather die than upset ds1 and so is as friendly and open and huggy and generous with ds1 boyfriend as he is with ds1 himself

Why is this homophobic?

[Rufusthebewilderedreindeer]

hilbo

Pre ds1 being gay he said various homophobic things, thought it was disgusting, shouldn't be allowed in the military etc

His love for his grandchild means that although he may well still think these things and is uncomfortable with any affection shown between the two he will not let any of it show

Hopefully given a few more years he will think its all perfectly normal and not be homophobic in the slightest

He is getting there

[HaroldsSocalledBluetits]

Yeah there is definitely a certain type of person who thinks you can "turn" someone gay. I've had similar with one of my sons who has always been a sort of sensitive chap, badgered me to paint his nails and buy him dolls when he was little, always had lots of friends who were girls, hates rugby that sort of thing. I've had numerous veiled comments over the years about how I "want to watch myself" and "be careful with him" as though what he liked doing was dangerously gay or something (when of course that's nonsense - if you're a bloke and fancy blokes you're gay, that's literally the definition, nothing to do with nail polish) and more sadly that this was something to be averted at all costs, presumably by encouraging "manly" pursuits. Society is still very fucked up about all sorts of things to do with sexuality.

[Sweetbabycheezits]

Harold this sort of thing happened when my ds was young...DH's sister used to be our childminder, and ds was the only boy in her group of 4. One day, he and the girls were playing dress up with the fairy dresses, having a whale of a time, and DH's brother turned up for a visit and went mental that Ds was wearing a dress. Ds was 3 at the time! Even DH was a bit gobsmacked at the reaction...no one in his family has really ever expressed any homophobic views, so it seemed pretty over the top.

[amandacarnet]

Of course things have changed massively in a short space of time. It used to be legal-to be sacked for being gay or lesbian, and plenty of people were. I have also met two women who were sectioned in mental hospitals purely for being a lesbian. They are only in their fifties and this was in Britain. Also heard a lesbian comedian in the eighties talking about police in a police car shouting out anti lesbian stuff to her through the car window. It was only in 1999 that legislation made discrimination illegal. That is only 20 years ago, so not surprising there are still a lot of people with homophobic beliefs.

[PregnantSea]

A lot of it is just a stupid person's reaction to fear. When a stupid person is afraid of something they feel which they don't quite understand, they squash it down and then lash out at others. Screaming at other people for being "faggots" is wonderfully satisfying to those sorts of people because they are sure then that everyone knows they aren't a faggot! Success! The more vile and unaccepting you are to gay people, the less gay you seem, right? I know it sounds crazy but to stupid people this behaviour makes sense.

[mirime]

You from the Welsh valleys OP? Being a valleys girl myself I would say that they're like a different world, a country of their own perhaps? People from the next town can be considered outsiders.

[HaroldsSocalledBluetits]

Actually that's true I guess. It takes time for these things to filter through. Certainly in my lifetime a very dear older friend who I first met in the 1990s, sadly no longer with us, was never "out" because she had come of age when she and her partner had to be "companions" and by the time attitudes had shifted slightly they already had a publicly facing setup that suited them. So it's not even as though acceptance = instant visibility.

[uptodatetech]

Yes Welsh valleys sorry. Not sure if home is particularly bad or is it a wider thing outside of big cities?

[SimonJT]

SweetBabyCheezits

I think it’s more changing things for future queer people, right from being in reception you’re surrounded by views that cause shame. My three year old has learned the word gay as an insult at nursery, three! But I shouldn’t be surprised as nursery has concerns that he was playing with dolls, so as a three year old he already knows being gay is a bad thing and boys can’t play with dolls. I’m able to correct that for him, some parents don’t.

It’s also the little things like sex ed at school, it all centres round how straight people can protect themselves, which isn’t a great deal of use when you’re gay. You get told you can have sex at 16, but if you’re gay you don’t know if that applies to you, you don’t really know what sex might actually entail. And there’s only one way to find out, porn, which only teaches people awful things about sex.

Then we have toxic masculinity, unless you present as a certain way you aren’t a ‘real’ man, obviously not a queer specific issue, but one that damages all men.

I get told my son will be gay because I’m gay, well in that case, surely having straight parents should have made me straight?!

Until queer people are actually considered a normal part of society nothing will change. Ultimately we live in a straight world, so I’m not sure it can really be done fully.

I’m aware I’m not explaining myself very well!

[KM99]

Why? Any number of reasons...

Ignorance
Fear
Shame
Doubt
Cowardice

I was raised in a small village in the North during the 80s. Homophobia was rife. I wouldn't join in but I certainly didn't speak up when the "cool" kids were making crude jokes and comments.

But I grew up, moved away, mixed with different people and understood life a bit more. I damn well speak up now.

[scaryteacher]

As pps have said, it takes time. When I was growing up in the 70s, it wasn't as accepted to be gay as it is today and was considered outside the norm.

It will come to be more accepted, but if you grow up with something being illegal, as it was for some time, and then not spoken about, then it is difficult to alter your mindset.

[TacoLover]

Yes I've seen so much homophobia still. Especially on Mumsnet though I've seen a lot of biphobia; posts asking if bisexuality is a 'red flag' saying bisexuality means you are more likely to cheat, is just a pathway to being gay, just attention seeking, etc. Really pisses me off.