From the other side: Are you heterophobic?
They’ve been kicking him for so long now that the pain no longer seems real: dull, thudding impacts on flesh so bruised that it’s lost the capacity to feel. Or maybe that’s his mind, retreating into blessed numbness. Hiding until the ordeal finally ends, or until he dies. He gave up on fighting what felt like hours ago, even if it’s only been a few eternal minutes. Fighting only makes it worse.
Fighting only makes them hurt him more.
Cold pavement against his cheek, gritty and damp, the street at the back of the bar. That he can feel, something to grasp onto gratefully. The stink of asphalt, mingled with the scent of his own blood and the sweat of aggression, permeates his nostrils. He knows they’re still calling him names, three harsh and angry voices, but the dull roar of his pulse surging in his head like a train wreck screaming down the tunnel drowns it out. Another impact, and his body rocks, and curls on itself. That one was harder, different, colder, struck a whole new pain that tried to sizzle through his already-fried nerve endings. A bat, maybe. They’re beating him with something. He doesn’t care anymore. He just wants to pass out. Maybe when they get tired of trying to make him scream, trying to break his pride, they’ll quit and leave his broken body in the gutter to die.
He knows why they’re doing this. He’s heard stories on the news, of this sort of brutality - knows that just by being who he is, he faces danger every time he’s in a public place. You never knew when a situation would turn ugly; you never knew when a single sign that gave you away might draw the attention of the wrong kind of people, make you a target. It happens to men like him all the time; sometimes they survive, sometimes they don’t. He isn’t sure which one he’ll be, yet. Isn’t sure which one he wants to be. Another statistic; another victim of a hate crime. Just another story of another poor sod unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There’ll be an uproar in the community, a call for better legislation, better protection. Some people will offer sympathy; others will say he got exactly what he deserved for being so obvious and forcing his lifestyle on others.
In the end, nothing will change. It’s that, more than the pain racking his body, that makes him want to weep. Nothing will change; he’ll be another name, another number, and it will happen to someone else, for all the same reasons. All the wrong reasons.
He’s too broken to even feel it by the time that they finally grow bored with him, finally get tired of punishing him for the crime of existing, finally sweat enough of the alcohol out of their systems to realize they’re committing assault and battery and should probably get the hell out of there before the cops come. Blessed relief. Blessed mercy. He’s alive, even if he’s not sure how long that will last, how much damage they’ve done to his body and if it will ever recover. Maybe he’ll be able to drag himself somewhere to get help; maybe he’ll hold on long enough for someone to find him, take him to the police, take him to a hospital.
He can’t even see through the blood streaking his vision, can’t even focus well enough to know that they haven’t all left, not yet. So when he tries to push himself up on trembling arms, he doesn’t expect the last kick that sends him crashing to the pavement once more, and now it is shock rather than pain that finally tears a cry from his throat.
Contempt laces the voice that snarls at him - contempt, and hatred. “Stay down,” his assailant snarls, kicks him one more time, and then spits on him before turning away to escape with one last disdainful utterance.
“F*ckin’ breeder.”
Weren’t expecting that, were you? It’s a story you’ve heard a dozen times, but with a different ending. Tennessee Williams. Matthew Shepard. Charlie Howard. Aaron Webster. Richard Jefferson. Ryan Smith. We know these names the way Christians know the Psalms, take their stories to heart, swear retribution, swear remembrance, swear that we will make a change for the better. We will make sure that their deaths were not in vain, even as we curse those who caused them and the hatred, the phobia that laces our community sinks deeper, becomes more firmly entrenched.
Can you imagine the situation if those victims had been straight rather than gay, and yet still persecuted for their sexuality?
It’s a dramatic stretch to make, especially with such a graphic tale; members of the GBLTQ community aren’t exactly famous for going out for a wild night on the town that ends in huntin’ down some heteros and kicking the crap out of them just for being straight. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t still be just as hurtful, just as hateful, and just as hypocritical in judging straight people by their sexuality as they can be in judging us.
We call them breeders. We curl our lips at them in distaste if they dare to exchange a quick kiss with their opposite-sex partner in our presence. We seek to exclude them from gay-only venues not out of a sense of safety and solidarity, but because they just aren’t good enough to be there. We disdain their friendship, even their support, just because they couldn’t possibly understand what it means to be gay. And we do it because we think we’re justified, because of what we have to endure simply for being gay.
It’s a broad and sweeping statement that doesn’t assume this behavior from everyone in the GBLTQ community, but it’s a trend that I can’t help but notice, and a trend I sure as hell don’t like. I’ve seen enough of it - and embarrassingly participated in enough of it when I was younger and more angrily reactive - to wonder just what gives us the right to this hypocrisy. Yes, we are treated like pure and utter crap by a percentage of the heterosexual community. We are reviled, our icons defiled, our rights contested and stripped away anywhere they can be. We’re the freedom fighters of the twenty-first century, struggling to follow the same path taken by women fighting for equality, African-Americans fighting for freedom and recognition as human beings. Some of us take it as an unfortunate necessity, and strive our best to be a positive example to try to sway those against us with persuasion and arguments for our validity as human beings.
Some of us only take the hateful behavior and perpetuate it by returning it not only to those who condemned us, but to everyone who shares a single trait with those people.
So I wonder…are you heterophobic? Do you mock all heterosexuals as cruelly as some of them mock you? Would you perpetuate violence against them simply based on their sexuality? Do you stop to think that every time you call them breeders and every other derogatory sexuality-based term you can think of, every time you mock their way of life as opposed to ours and deride their right to be who they are in your presence…you’re only demeaning yourself by being everything that you claim to hate about them?
Or do you advocate tolerance, and remember the do unto others rule? Eye for an eye won’t get us anywhere; all it will do is deepen the hatred on both sides until both are willingly advocating a segregated society. I know we’re a minority. I know we have a right to be frustrated, a right to be angry…a right to fight back. But we can fight back without lashing out against those who don’t deserve it. We can fight back without absorbing the ugliness thrown at us. We can rise above, lead by example, and avoid creating a double standard by being prejudiced against those who are prejudiced against us.
So ask yourself, next time you’re pissed off and feel a snarky comment hovering on the tip of your tongue: are you heterophobic?
And how would you feel if your behavior was turned back on you with a homophobic slant?
homophobia, heterophobia, gay bashing, straight bashing, hate speech, hate crimes, breeders, prejudice, persecution, anti-gay, anti-straight
May 28th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
*was expecting it, but only because the title of the article*
Err, sorry. It’s another tough topic, and despite the myriad examples of similar occurances, some part of me dies a little more every time I read a new one. People are violent, combative creatures, eager to avenge hurts on them, driven by that kill-or-be-killed instinct. The bullied become the bullies.
The wheel of hatred turns and turns, and the most we can do is jump off, and grab it. But how many people willingly spin it themselves?
It’s hard to see anything one can do–I guess that’s why you’re the blogger and I’m the smart-ass in the corner.
May 28th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
It -is- embarrassing - but unfortunately, I’ve seen this kind of behavior from the more militant “everything must be rainbow!” gays and lesbians. Me, I’m more laidback when it comes to my sexuality, and I really don’t care what other people do, whether gay or straight or in between, because it’s none of my damned business what -anyone- does in the privacy of their own home.
May 29th, 2007 at 11:03 am
[...] heterosexuals? Sounds like a case of heterophobia to [...]
July 17th, 2007 at 11:10 am
[...] the other day, when I said that I couldn’t really see gays forming roving gangs to assault people? Okay, I’m eating my words right now. And they taste damned bitter. [...]
December 26th, 2007 at 8:46 am
[...] as a thought exercise, I wrote a post about heterophobia quite some time ago. This situation wasn’t as extreme as the one described, but it was one in which a [...]
December 26th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Damn it, but I’m totally going to start stalking you, reading all your archives, sending you obsessive emails….
You up for it?
If I might continue this little outpouring of love, dear Adri, what I like about you is how much your writing makes me think (whilst all the while entertaining me AND amusing me - no small feat).
This was interesting for me, because I’ve lived 32 years as a heterosexual, and have only been gradually coming out over the last five months. It’s odd for me, not knowing exactly where I belong.
I remember just a few weeks ago walking through the mall, looking at all the holiday shoppers and thinking - “I’m not one of them anymore. They aren’t like me. It’s different now, I’m different now. I don’t fit here anymore” Honestly, there was a bit of disdain to the tone of my thoughts, a little bit of that exclusionary, set myself apart mentality that can become a very slippery slope. Not sure how to explain it, but I think I was patting myself on the back a bit for stepping outside the cultural norm, for escaping the blend-in-and-be-like-everyone-else mentality that defines (confines?) our culture. I’ve noticed the same sort of feeling creeping in when I’m with my straight girlfriends lately too…and am not sure where it comes from or what to do with it.
And then - looking over at my two children and my husband (who had come along for the annual trek to see Santa) and thinking “DAMN! I am kinda one of them.”
(boy - do I know how to ramble)
All this to say that if I, clearly a breeder myself, can feel myself thinking these thoughts or having these feelings - I can understand how easy it must be for someone who has been out for years, living in a mainly gay community, etc. This whole us. vs. them mentality is so prevalent in our society - it’s hard to escape. You’re right thought, it’s dangerous.
As always, you’ve given me lots to think about. Thanks.