Homophobia in Society

Years ago you used to keep your real self in the closet and not reveal who you really are to the parent today there are seniors who are coming out after years of remaining silent because their significant other has passed and they hear that children old enough to be their grandchildren are coming out at schools. The situation is not as taboo as it once was but this does not mean you can walk down a couple of streets in the city while holding the hand of a same sex person and not get jeered or ogled at. So what has changed and what has stayed the same?

well the jeering is still around but what has changed is that through an initiative of a McGill professor who has trained social workers on dealing with homophobic issues is that there is a crisis point that a young person will be most likely to want to commit suicide if he is gay and cannot see himself beyond telling his parents or who is his guardian. This is because it is very difficult for them to see beyond the abyss that lies when they value the acceptance they have had until then but shudder at the prospect of being ignored and rejected after the truth comes out.

This is why their elders have had a difficult time to come out of the closet. They too wanted to be accepted even if it meant creating a semblance of being heterosexual. There are many assistance groups that can help the youth of today in the city deal with crisis situations such as a potential suicide or inform the young adult what he can do to avoid depression and how to avoid abuse because of the intolerance of people who see them as leaving a norm they are expected to fill or for other reasons.

Actually the reasons have been studied to be different towards lesbians as opposed to gays where the gay is seen as wanting to leave the norm that male society has set for male behavior. This means that there are stereotypes which hetero males still use and when another male who does not have as much masculine traits as are expected he is likely to be chastised and intimidated. For a girl she will be harassed for wanting to succeed in the “male” dominated world. In other words the female who is more butch in a relationship is not harassed for her sexual preference but because she is seen as wanting to compete for status in the male world and move ahead.

These are some results of recent studies that have been provided to social workers in the city in order to help gays and lesbians deal with verbal or physical abuse they go through when they are not accepted for the sexual choices. One hopes that the problem will disappear but there will always be ignorance and intolerance as many will doubtlessly still have preconceived notions of how men and women should conduct themselves. And the fact lies in the relationship between racism, sexism and homophobia as the McGill Professor pointed out where in societies where women do not have equal rights and they still have to walk behind their spouses, there is a severe intolerance of gays or lesbians. If one can work to correct the relationship towards how women are still seen as inferior then one can also deal with those that prefer to live with a same sex partner, he admitted.