Members
of the LGBTQ community have suffered many injustices throughout history and,
though society has made strides in civil rights for the LGBTQ community in the
last 40 years, instances such as hate crimes and harassment are still prevalent
today. This was exemplified recently, when on January
1, 2012, two men were attacked by three other men as they were seen leaving a
bar in downtown Santa Barbara. “Police
are calling it a hate crime as the suspects perceived the victims to be gay and
the three men could be heard using derogatory slurs,” (New Year’s Day
Hate Crime Reward Set at $7,500”, kcoy.com). These bouts of brutality can be
attributed to compulsory heterosexuality, our society’s perception that
heterosexuality is the ‘default’ and therefor the only right and moral way to be sexual. Using Nan Stein’s article, “Bullying, Harassment, and Violence among
Students”, and Theo Van Der Meer’s “Gay Bashing—a Rite of Passage?”, I will express
how compulsory heterosexuality in our society has caused violence against the
LGBTQ community.
Steins article focused on the harassment
of students; she pointed out that although schools attempt to stop ‘bullying’, “gender
is… missing from the dominant construction of school safety and violence” (Stein
2007, 32). Every student has the right to go to school and live in a safe,
harassment-free environment, but, unfortunately this is not likely for most LGBTQ
students—“gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students report daily
harassment, sometimes rising to the magnitude of assault and/or grounds for
federal civil rights lawsuits”(Stein 2007, 32). The need for a safe environment or ‘safe zone’
in schools, as in life, is apparent, as Stein points out. “Results from
educators showed that 73 percent of them felt that they had an obligation to
create a safe, supportive learning environment for LGBT students”(Stein 2007,
33). It is possible that if schools were successful in creating safe spaces for
LGBTQ students, violence against the LGBTQ community would be far less
prevalent, as children would learn to coexist at an early age. This disregard
for the incorporation of sexual, gender-related, and LGBTQ-focused harassment in
schools is just another facet of our society’s notable compulsory
heterosexuality. Society considers straight ‘normal’ and LGBTQ ‘different’, so they assume that the harassment will be inevitable, keeping the problem undetected
and unresolved. “Most researchers of
bullying have failed to consider the ways in which adolescent boys (and adult
men) police each other with rigid and conventional notions of masculinity and
the imposition of compulsory heterosexuality, the need to define oneself as “not
gay”” (Stein, 2007, 32). Compulsory heterosexuality seems the basis of all violence
or inequality bestowed onto the LGBTQ population.
This
conjecture is also explored in Theo Van Der Meer’s article “Gay Bashing—a Rite
of Passage?” in which Van Der Meer profiles young men in Holland who have been
arrested for hate crime violence against homosexuals. It became evident by the
interviews that “fear of being considered homosexual by their peers or by
others played a role” in their violence. “They felt a need “to create a ‘hard’,
‘strong’ image for themselves” (Van Der Meer 2003, 161). The young men felt a
need to create the ‘masculine’ image that had been fed to them all their lives
through compulsory heterosexuality. This masculinity brought respect from their
peers, but their constant fear of being ‘considered homosexual’ shows how
fragile this sense of masculinity, that society imposes on these young men, can
be. In the study it was found that “gays represent everything that these
perpetrators of anti-homosexual violence considered to be dishonourable.
Because all gays are effeminate, they flaunt their lack of honour” (Van Der
Meer 2003, 159). Homophobic violence
became a rite of passage—a way to attain the crucial ‘masculinity’, which, for
young men in a compulsory heterosexual society, seems to be the only choice
when it comes to gender roles.
The three perpetrators on January 1 seemed
to fit this profile well. In addition to yelling derogatory phrases, they were
described as ‘skinheads’, known for gay-bashing to assert their dominant ‘masculinity’.
Hate crimes such as this have the ability to remove power away from an entire
community, in this case, the LGBTQ community. In order to hinder these
ignorance-based injustices, we must end our compulsory heterosexual way of
thinking and transition into a society of acceptance.
Bibliography
Stein,
Nan. ““Bullying, Harassment, and Violence among Students” in Radical Teacher,
No. 80 “Teacher Beyond Tolerance” Winter 2007 30-35.
Van Der
Meer, Theo. “Gay Bashing—a Rite of Passage?” in Culture, Health and Sexuality,
Vol. 5 No. 2 pg 153-165.
“New Year’s Day Hate Crime Reward Set at
$7,500”, kcoy.com
If you have any
information about the suspects or the incident, call Detective Claytor at 805-897-2346
Santa Barbara does not seem like the kind of place where a hate crime, especially gay bashing, would occur, but it did recently. This is beyond terrifying since I have close friends and family members who frequent gay/gay friendly bars in Santa Barbara. In her blog, Kaily Burton discusses how hate crimes could be lessened by not making heterosexuality the compulsory sexuality in our society.
ReplyDeletePart of not making heterosexuality the compulsory sexuality in our society could start in our schools. Many gay children and teens are bullied, teased, and even assaulted during school. However, a lot of this abuse goes unnoticed or unpunished. Nan Stein believes this is because schools implement “zero tolerance” instead of “zero indifference.” Stein writes, “But sexual or gender based harassment rarely show up in any of the standard analyses of school violence. Gender is missing” (Pg. 30). Kids who bully other kids because they’re gay obviously have not seen the character Omar from HBO’s The Wire.
Stein goes on to list some things schools could do to make schools more of a safer and welcoming space. One of her best ideas is to train all school staff on the issues of gender based bullying, making it easier for students to come forward and report abuse. Her other good idea is to have students be educated on matters or sexual harassment, the material would be age appropriate of course.
There is still a lot of ignorance about LGBTQ issues, which leads to hate crimes and intolerance. Generally however, society is becoming much more aware of the issues and are not tolerating such hate anymore. Washington State just legalized gay marriage yay!
Stein, Nan. "Bullying, Harassment and Violence among Students." Radical Teacher 80 (2007). Print.
I agree with you that compulsory heterosexuality needs to be eliminated because, in my opinion, it is one of the most severe forms of oppression in our society. I'm glad that you mentioned Stein's article regarding bullying and harassment in school environments- if we want to put an end to compulsory heterosexuality, then we need to start to do so by educating the future generation about the idea that queer people are just like us, too. Factors such as race, class, and gender should not be able to prevent people from sharing the same rights. If we can infuse these ideas into the minds of developing children, then they will learn to accept and tolerate from an early age, as you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteA conspicuous effect of compulsory heterosexuality can be seen through the phenomenon of the “down low.” According to Barnshaw and Letukas, “the down low...[is a] phenomenon where men have sex with men (MSM), but identify as 'heterosexual' or 'straight” (Barnshaw and Letukas 79). Apparently, these men refrain from disclosing information about engaging in homosexual activity because they fear that society (which, in this case, could be represented by their spouses, girlfriends, etc.) would not tolerate this kind of behavior. I think that the average female would imagine her ideal partner to be tall, buff, and most importantly, masculine. Women usually wouldn't envision their ideal partners to be gay. Therefore, males who engage in homosexual practices tend to mask these encounters from the sight of their female partners because they want to fulfill the image of the “model man,” as dictated by society. Not only is their identity suppressed, but there is also higher risk of STD's for both themselves and their heterosexual partners. The consequences of compulsory heterosexuality are all too evident in today's society.
Barnshaw, John, and Lynn Letukas. "The Low Down on the Down Low: Origins, Risk Identification, and Intervention." Health Sociology Review 19 (2010): 478-490.
Stein, Nan. ““Bullying, Harassment, and Violence among Students” in Radical Teacher, No. 80 “Teacher Beyond Tolerance” Winter 2007 30-35.