Homophobia

[Whatisthisfuckery]

Inspired by the racism thread, although not a taat I don’t think:

Do people think homophobia is still a problem in the UK? I’m genuinely interested in people’s responses.

I very much do as I experience it myself, although by no means everybody is homophobic, in fact not even most people, but a significant number nonetheless. AIBU?

It is incredibly rampant.

My youngest two children are 19 months apart.
The older is a girl, younger a boy.

I was not going to spend a fortune buying all new stuff for DS2 because DDs stuff was perfectly fine even if a lot of it was pink.

So DS2 was out in pink flowery babygros, had pink blankets, sat in a pink high chair, had a pink Moses basket and pushed around a pink Minnie mouse walker.

My dad would often make comments about how I was setting DS2 up to be gay.

I also bought DS2 a pram and a doll when he asked for one. Apparently I'm letting him think that's normal. I pointed out that being a parent is completely normal, and that you can't catch gay, he either was or wasn't and quite frankly I don't care either way!

There has also been an incident at work. I work in a nursery and we have an adopted child whose parents are gay.
They absolutely love their son and he adores his dad's.
Yet the comments I've heard other staff.emmebers come out with in the staff room are disgusting. "I wonder who's top and who's bottom" "that little boy will grow up gay because he doesn't know what a normal family is" "it's no wonder the child and behavioural problems, his carers are gay"
I challenged each of these... Why does their sec life interest them so much?
Of course the child has a normal family. His dad's and him is a perfectly normal and acceptable family. And even if he is gay when he grows up why does it matter?
And as for behavioural problems, maybe that's because of the traumatic start to life he had (he is almost 4 and only recently adopted) and they are his parents not his carers.

I also went to my manager with it.

But my manager hates me so 🤷 (this is a woman who accused me of lying about my MH issues, who told me it's easy for me to sit and turn on the water works in a meeting where she completely blindsided me and accused me of being a liar, and I'm autistic so literally cannot control my emotions... So yeah, nothing got done when I complained.)

Sadly I think it is still very much an issue. The reactions of a lot of people (mostly older tbf) to the same sex couple on strictly have been 🙄🙄. ‘It’s so inappropriate, no one wants to see two men dancing’ wtf? They’re doing a salsa not shagging on the floor, Margaret. It’s EXACTLY the same as the same sex couples and you’ve never had an issue with that before the watershed. Morons.

I think it's far less than in the past, but still there to a degree.

One of my colleagues is gay, on a works night out he had to hear another colleague rant and rave about how the bible says it's wrong. I'd already left by this point but was fuming on my (gay) colleague's part when I heard, though he didn't appear bothered.

A gay friend of mine once told me how she was angry that someone had told her she was gay by choice. She said she would never choose to be gay as there was too much discrimination.

@herroyalfattyness
Say to your colleagues 'I bet the boy's dads both had straight parents....didn't stop them being gay did it?'

Someone (a senior ex manager) actually told me it’s ok to stone gay people to death when they don’t respect other people not wanting to see it. She suggested if we did more stoning here we would have less gays. I wasn’t sure how to respond.

Oh my god, that's horrible! Did you report her?

We’re a family with two mums and get a lot of homophobia, particularly around having had the kids together. We live in a very liberal city.

My partner and I NEVER hold hands where we live - the only place it feels ok to do it in the whole of Ireland is Dublin even in Belfast (unless it’s pride week) we wouldn’t feel comfortable. We constantly hear things like “I didn’t even know you were gay” followed quickly by “not that it matters” and men,drunk,chatting every girl in the room up saying things like “no chance are you gay,why don’t you have short hair so least we would know??” Seriously 😐 or “if you are gay,prove it and kiss”

I did, but not much happened as the person I reported it to also turned to be homophobic and ‘cultural issues’ were used to justify it. I work for the NHS.

I think what a lot of people don’t get is that it is constant, like racism and sexism, it isn’t something you get a break from.

It’s something you have to think about all the time to keep yourself safe, where you live, where you walk, what you wear, where you go on a date, where you work, where you go on holiday, where your flight connections are, where you go for a night out, any hobbies you do, how you’re treated by medical staff. Having to be hypervigilant is really tiring.

I used to play rugby at a ‘normal’ team, one of the players was a homophobe and made it known, so I had to leave, the club were also worried that if I was ‘found out’ ticket sales may fall. So I had to leave and play for an inclusive team, now the KX steelers are a great team, but I shouldn’t have to play for a gay specific team.

My son does rugby tots, I’m a qualified coach and was offered someones franchise, yeah that would go down well, gay guy supervising a bunch of boys getting changed, as we know a lot of people think gay man equals sexual predator/peado.

You sometimes get people complaining about gay bars/clubs, we only have them because wankers like you exist. I can’t stand the music played in most gay clubs, but I can’t go to straight ones and be myself, being the public version of you is too hard to maintain when you’re drunk!

We're trying to plan a honeymoon now. We gave up on getting married abroad as so many "wedding destinations" still have the death penalty for homosexuality!!

@SimonJT I've dated/been out with men and women, and when I was with women I was a lot more conscious of my surroundings. My ex girlfriend was very butch and it was quite obvious we were a couple.

Gay marriage is now legal in NI. Although I don't know how it was never legal, given that according to @Thatagain homophobia isn't real.

For me the reaction to dancing on ice has really been disheartening. Im a member of some related facebook groups as used to be an ice skater, and the reaction is very common to what sort of low level homophobia i encounter.

Theres lots of stop forcing it down our throats, if they want it to be normal they shouldnt be making a fuss, it just doesnt look right. My favourite is people commenting that its already been done so why does it need to happen again or why is it noteworthy? What they are referring to is blades of glory where 2 hetro blokes dance together non romantically to bypass a ban, it a will Ferrell comedy film not some sort of landmark lgbt cinema piece

All most all of the commenters would tell you they arent homophobic because they've got gay friends, kids or gone to a gay wedding. They all are really offended that you might think that was homophobic. Theres literally hundreds of them.

I find myself constantly wanting to say to people if its not "too much" when straight people do it then not when gay people do it
People talk about it being too much when theres a token lesbian couple on tv, pr a gay kiss or when a couple hold hands.

We are so immune to hetronormality that the idea of a gay family on a childrens show or a teen identidifying as gay is seen as far too complicated for a young mind. Ignoring that young kids get put in a weirdly hetro role from almost birth from those baby grows that say "ladies man or watch out ladies', to people talking about primary school girlfriends, to pop star crushes. Thats all totally normal but can if a 13 year old kissed the same sex rather than opposite sex then they are far too young, and how could they know?

Whenever they say 'I've got gay friends', I think, 'what do you say about your friends behind their backs?'

If you say you don't have a problem with gay men but two men ice skating is too much, you're lying. If you REALLY didn't have a problem, you wouldn't give it a second thought.

Thing is, straight people don't get to say if something is homophobic or not, that's up tot the gay people to decide. Just like white people don't get to say there's no racism ( FFS!) because they haven't seen it/experienced it.
I experience awful bullying from a homophobic manager but because he didn't call me 'dyke' or equivalent in front of the whole office according to HR it was probably just 'personality clash'. It wasn't. He even told me in private he had an issue with lesbians - 'you people' as he put it.
But as no-one else experienced him being homophobic it wasn't taken seriously.

Very much agreed about Dancing on Ice and so on. It's one thing to have a half-second double-take when you see two men or two women together for the first time in your life, but if it's so important to you that you have to voice your discomfort with it, that's homophobic behaviour

It's 2020. We should be able to cope with same-sex couples dancing and skating.

Well, hopefully someone from the BBC is reading this, not sure that Strictly is so afraid of...

Of course it exists two women were beaten up on a bus ffs