Before anyone asks, this is not a hypothetical, but based on a real life conversation.
Recently a friend of mine and I were discussing an acquaintance of ours who is, to my mind at least, inappropriately pressuring his child to be straight. The friend does not events either fear or hatred of gay persons; he simply says, sincerely I believe, that the child’s life will be inordinately difficult if she “chooses” to be a lesbian. Thus, if his daughter can be straight, he was her try that.
I call this behavior homophobic. Perhaps BENIGNLY homophobic, but I’m not even sure of vet. Where at the acquaintance’s words & actions hurt his child are obvious, and that hurt is no less because his motivations are born of igmmnorance rather than malice. So I call his actions homophobic.
My friend disagrees. She breaks the word HOMOPHOBIA down into its constituents morphemes. Since the friend is clearly not frightened by gay person’s, homophobia is not the right word to describe it. Furthermore, since no one can be expected to know everything about everything, it is not unreasonable for this man not to know that homosexuality is not truly A choice. Why she disagrees with the behavior of the acquaintance, she thinks it needs a better label than homophobic.
So I have given my thoughts and my friend’s. Which would you say is closer to the truth, NY? ne’s.
I’m not even sure what that would be called, other than wrong.
I get the idea. Hell, when my sister went out on one date with a black man in high school, my parents freaked the hell out and tried to schedule a conversation between her and the only mixed race couple at their church to hear about how difficult her life would be. Fortunately, they weren’t having it and my sister’s reaction was “I’m only dating him, I’m not marrying ANYONE right now.”
My older sister had come out as a lesbian a few years earlier. My parents first kicked her out of the house and made her go live with some even stricter parents until she walked out on that arrangement.
But both of those were in the late 70’s.
These days, the opinion that a young woman will have a harder life being a lesbian in America is just plain wrong. Depending where she lives, she might have to put up with a lot of stupid assed people making unwelcome comments, so perhaps that would make her life harder, but I’m going to say it again;
Which is better for us as individuals and for society?
That we should be who we are?
Or that we should be forced to be who we are not,
for the benefit of the small minded?
Your friend is wrong on a technicality. “Homophobia” is the commonly used term for a wide range of negative reactions to homosexuality and LGBTQ people. It includes but is not limited to fear. While the meaning is not entirely consistent with the sum of its parts, to argue that it’s therefore an inaccurate description of certain behavior is pedantic and rather dodging the question. It’s like saying an Arab can’t be anti-Semitic because Arabs are classified as Semites.
If this question is about more than the fine points of language, I wouldn’t call the father’s attitude homophobic. Ignorant, definitely. If he is exposed to better information and gets out into the world a little more and still insists his daughter can choose to be straight, I’d revise my opinion.
There’s no such thing as benign homophobia. All homophobia is malignant.
Yes it’s both homophobic and stupid. It is not ignorant. This is 2018. No one in the United States can believably claim ignorance of this issue, so stupid is the correct term.
…Except that, for some, being homosexual is indeed a choice.
Cites here:
That being said, the father does not know whether his daughter is one of those lesbians who can choose to be straight, or cannot make herself straight, so he should not presume that way.
This. The word “homophobia” originally derived from fear but has evolved, as words often do. If your friend clings to the outdated and obsolete earlier sense of the word, what should still be more important is that this behavior is poisonous in society, especially to people who happen to be gay, but generally beyond that too.
If the daughter does turn out to be gay, she’s welcome at my house!
Oh, there is no suggestion that the acquaintance would make his daughter unwelcome in his home. It is more that he seems to think that, since there are inarguably others who would not, she should choose an easier path if she can. That is why the friend says that if the father’s attitude is homophobia, it is supposedly BENIGN.
I dispute that it’s a choice, even if it may change for someone throughout their life. I don’t think you can choose who you fall in love with, everything else follows from that.
I can’t think of a word right now to describe that behavior. I’ve known a few people in the LGBT community who have sometimes said “I wish I was straight; life would be so much easier” or words to that effect. Not as much now as 40 years ago but thoughts like that sometimes pass through our brains. I don’t like the concept and I can see the day when it will be so rare as to be almost unthinkable but for now its one of those things we can’t change.
I am curious; just how old is the father? I may feel different if he’s 40 as opposed to say 20. Which in a way says something about me.
I’d say he’s ignoring a risk here. Yes, in a mathematically modeled universe where there’s homophobia and where sexual preference is 100% a choice, it’s advantageous to choose to be straight.
But that’s not where we live. In our universe, homophobia is decreasing rapidly. At the same time, the consequences of living a lie–of pretending to be straight when you’re really not–is staying the same.
If dad is pressuring the kid to be straight, and that results in her living a lie, she’s gonna be miserable.
We have a word for people who can choose whether to have straight or gay relationships. It’s “bisexual”. And if you believe the Kinsey scale, there are folks sorta between, who could maybe look harder and find an opposite sex person who turns them in, even though they are mostly attracted to the same sex.
But really, in this day and age, I’d trust a young adult to figure out what works for them. And disapproving of your child’s choice in partners is a high stakes game, and one you don’t want to play unless there is real danger in the partner.
We have a word for people who can choose whether to have straight or gay relationships. It’s “bisexual”. And if you believe the Kinsey scale, there are folks sorta between, who could maybe look harder and find an opposite sex person who turns them on, even though they are mostly attracted to the same sex.
But really, in this day and age, I’d trust a young adult to figure out what works for them. And disapproving of your child’s choice in partners is a high stakes game, and one you don’t want to play unless there is real danger in the partner.
I think it says you don’t know how old “old” is. I’m 40 . . ish, and my generation grew up with plenty of opportunities to understand that homophobia is wrong.
I’d add to this–the dad is also risking losing his relationship with his kid. Those old people that no one visits in nursing homes or calls on the holidays? Sometimes there’s a reason. This is the sort of thing that can lead to permanent damage–if not total estrangement, a permanent distance.
I have met several gays who have said they wished they could take some sort of pill to make them straight or else said something to the effect “do you really think I would WANT to put up with this crap?”.
Homophobic, I don’t think so. Certainly even a decade or so ago many gays would have agreed that they would not choose to be gay if they could choose … that being gay made life more difficult than being straight. Saying that at that time was not self-hate, it was recognizing the world that existed. (And still does to a lesser degree.)
Wrong, ignorant, dumb, stupid, harmful to his child and to his relationship with his child … all of those.
I think the “potentially homophobic” part is where he thinks now he can force/coerce/manipulate her into being straight, and that it’s okay to do so because he knows what’s best for her better than she does.
The idea that he can is so willfully ignorant that it seems homophobic to me. It’s like really, really not wanting it to be true when your kid reports they were molested, so you try to convince them that they were confused/misunderstood. In that case, it’s completely true that it would be better for them if this hadn’t happened, but it serves no one to deny the truth.Being gay isn’t being molested, obviously, but I think this sort of parental reaction is in the same category–see also, refusing treatment for autistic kids because you don’t want anything to be “wrong” with them.
The second part–thinking he knows better than she does what will make her happy–also seems pretty homophobic to me. He’s deciding that being gay is going to make her more miserable than she understands. That shows a pretty negative idea about what it’s like to be gay.
Homophobic and ignorant. Nobody makes anybody straight, gay, bisexual or asexual.
Lattie McGee, a little 4 year old boy was tortured to death because his mother’s live-in boyfriend thought he was gay. You can google it, but it’s not for the faint of heart or stomach.
I agree with Chimera, I don’t know what I’d call it, but I’d call it wrong. A lot of parents who send their children to gay conversion therapy have similar ideas, that their child’s life would be easier and better if they were straight. Someone can want the best for their children, but be ignorant and blinded and do unimaginable harm.
Also without knowing this person at all, I’m skeptical that they are not at all homophobic in general. They might not be calling people homophobic slurs, but I’d be a little surprised if they have many or any gay friends, and treat gay and straight people the same, and vote for gay rights.