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There are many laws out there that asset that GBLT people are less than a full person. Some of them are obvious and repellent like the laws criminalising homosexuality in many nations, including horrendous penalties like life imprisonment and execution or criminalising trans people or refusing to acknowledge them or treating them as mentally ill.. Some of them are much milder but still pernicious - denying GBLT people full rights and positions, creating lesser rights and lower status for gay and trans people.
We can see the obvious damage these laws do. We can see the lives ended in executions and life imprisonment. We can see the GBLT people locked away. We can see the rights denied and the consequences of those rights being stripped away. We can see lives ruined and people forced into hiding. We can see the harm not having those rights can have. We can see the harm caused by GBLT people fleeing official persecution, hiding from the authorities that would ruin their lives. It’s obvious, it’s blatant and it’s disgusting.
But it is not the whole story. The legal and “official” effects, even at their most abhorrent and damaging, do not come close to covering the full damage these laws impose.
I’ve spoken before and again and again and again about the damage that the message of homophobia and transphobia can give - about how hatred happens because we tolerate and encourage it. Box Turtle Bulletin also has a great post on the damage the message of hate from Evangelicals causes (personally I’m less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. The “Love the sinner hate the sin” crap is an attempt to try and make their hate seem palatable, not in any way sincere). If homophobia and transphobia in the media, in preaching and in general hate speech adds to the climate of hatred in which our lives are devalued, how much more so does the message of hate coming from the government itself?
When the government and law of the land is enshrining homophobic execution is it any surprise that you get “vigilantes” attacking and hurting gay people?
On a less horrific but still awful note - when you endlessly present gay as being a bad thing worthy of any number of legal denials and discriminations, is it any wonder that the accusation of being gay is used as a weapon? Is it any wonder that people use both the fact and accusation of being gay as a slurs, and insult and one of the most destructive forms of sabotage you can use against someone's career - when it is used in political campaigns against actual gay people and rumoured gay people as some kind of way to discredit them?
And that’s a self-perpetuating cycle. Constantly using “gay” as a weapon - treating this as legitimate and effective (and it BEING effective) feeds more and more into the idea of gay being a negative thing - into people believing gay is negative and treating us like shit. This is what feeds the idea that we can be attacked with impunity - that it’s not just acceptable to attack us - but even laudable.
Whether it’s DC gaol guards beating a gay inmate, a man in Chicago being badly beaten or a man in Blackburn attacking gay teens, from gay bashings to gay murders it happens because of the endless, unrelenting message that our lives are not worthy. That being GBLT is a bad thing. That being GBLT is deserving of this treatment. This is why gay and trans people are victimised - because our culture encourages it, tolerates it and continually cheer leads for it. And one of the loudest, most powerful, most official voices behind this message is government and law itself.
Our very existence is considered shameful in so many ways. From bloggers who are unhappy that Martha Stewart dared to include a gay couple in her marriage mag, to Virgin mobile adverts with couples kissing in Canada - gay is unacceptable, straight is fine to the whole Adam Lambert double standard to David Letterman’s disgusting transphobic “joke” to a college newspaper treating the most serious kind of anti-gay violence as a JOKE - we’re told that we should hide. That we are unacceptable in public. That we’re dirty or shameful and belong in the closet
This is why even today it is a considerable act of courage for people to come out of the closet. That being open and public subjects you to utterly vile bigotry just for existing and doing a job well!
It is an act of heroism to dare to exist publicly. And how horrific is that?
This is the message sent by every homophobic slur and biased screed in the world. But it is reinforced, invigorated and made ever louder and stronger by every prejudiced law, every right denied, every piece of discrimination written into the law books and the constitutions and allowed to pass in the courts.
And worse, because of the hatred out there, at the highest level, so many of us don’t seek help. We fear to be outed when we report abuse. We fear to be shamed in the media or even lose our jobs if we complain. We fear the prejudiced police force won’t care or won’t help and the courts will be indifferent.
I don’t want to be a hero. I don’t want to be brave. I don’t want to rise above the odds. I really do wish there was no need to be an activist for GBLT issues. But until society stops treating us as less, merely existing and demanding basic humanity is activism. Until our governments recognise that we are citizens - people - too, we have to be. We don’t want much, but we still have to fight for it.
We can see the obvious damage these laws do. We can see the lives ended in executions and life imprisonment. We can see the GBLT people locked away. We can see the rights denied and the consequences of those rights being stripped away. We can see lives ruined and people forced into hiding. We can see the harm not having those rights can have. We can see the harm caused by GBLT people fleeing official persecution, hiding from the authorities that would ruin their lives. It’s obvious, it’s blatant and it’s disgusting.
But it is not the whole story. The legal and “official” effects, even at their most abhorrent and damaging, do not come close to covering the full damage these laws impose.
I’ve spoken before and again and again and again about the damage that the message of homophobia and transphobia can give - about how hatred happens because we tolerate and encourage it. Box Turtle Bulletin also has a great post on the damage the message of hate from Evangelicals causes (personally I’m less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. The “Love the sinner hate the sin” crap is an attempt to try and make their hate seem palatable, not in any way sincere). If homophobia and transphobia in the media, in preaching and in general hate speech adds to the climate of hatred in which our lives are devalued, how much more so does the message of hate coming from the government itself?
When the government and law of the land is enshrining homophobic execution is it any surprise that you get “vigilantes” attacking and hurting gay people?
On a less horrific but still awful note - when you endlessly present gay as being a bad thing worthy of any number of legal denials and discriminations, is it any wonder that the accusation of being gay is used as a weapon? Is it any wonder that people use both the fact and accusation of being gay as a slurs, and insult and one of the most destructive forms of sabotage you can use against someone's career - when it is used in political campaigns against actual gay people and rumoured gay people as some kind of way to discredit them?
And that’s a self-perpetuating cycle. Constantly using “gay” as a weapon - treating this as legitimate and effective (and it BEING effective) feeds more and more into the idea of gay being a negative thing - into people believing gay is negative and treating us like shit. This is what feeds the idea that we can be attacked with impunity - that it’s not just acceptable to attack us - but even laudable.
Whether it’s DC gaol guards beating a gay inmate, a man in Chicago being badly beaten or a man in Blackburn attacking gay teens, from gay bashings to gay murders it happens because of the endless, unrelenting message that our lives are not worthy. That being GBLT is a bad thing. That being GBLT is deserving of this treatment. This is why gay and trans people are victimised - because our culture encourages it, tolerates it and continually cheer leads for it. And one of the loudest, most powerful, most official voices behind this message is government and law itself.
Our very existence is considered shameful in so many ways. From bloggers who are unhappy that Martha Stewart dared to include a gay couple in her marriage mag, to Virgin mobile adverts with couples kissing in Canada - gay is unacceptable, straight is fine to the whole Adam Lambert double standard to David Letterman’s disgusting transphobic “joke” to a college newspaper treating the most serious kind of anti-gay violence as a JOKE - we’re told that we should hide. That we are unacceptable in public. That we’re dirty or shameful and belong in the closet
This is why even today it is a considerable act of courage for people to come out of the closet. That being open and public subjects you to utterly vile bigotry just for existing and doing a job well!
It is an act of heroism to dare to exist publicly. And how horrific is that?
This is the message sent by every homophobic slur and biased screed in the world. But it is reinforced, invigorated and made ever louder and stronger by every prejudiced law, every right denied, every piece of discrimination written into the law books and the constitutions and allowed to pass in the courts.
And worse, because of the hatred out there, at the highest level, so many of us don’t seek help. We fear to be outed when we report abuse. We fear to be shamed in the media or even lose our jobs if we complain. We fear the prejudiced police force won’t care or won’t help and the courts will be indifferent.
I don’t want to be a hero. I don’t want to be brave. I don’t want to rise above the odds. I really do wish there was no need to be an activist for GBLT issues. But until society stops treating us as less, merely existing and demanding basic humanity is activism. Until our governments recognise that we are citizens - people - too, we have to be. We don’t want much, but we still have to fight for it.