For some time now, I have wanted to write a Wespeak concerning the LGBTQ community, but have resisted, for fear of being publicly vilified and branded as a homophobe. (Whoa! A white male afraid to exercise his freedom of speech for fear of being attacked? Crazy!) Nevertheless, I can’t take it anymore. We have recently heard through the Argus from more than a few members of the LGBTQ community who commented on gay radicalism. It’s time we heard from a straight guy too.
I’m trying to speak to those members of the LGTBQ community who feel that your current radical tactics are propagating some kind of change. I believe that I represent a large number of straight and gay students here when I ask, “Why?” Your chalking of obscenities, “kiss outs,” in-your-face attitudes and actions actually anger me, not because I am a homophobe, but because you are absolutely obliterating the hope you have of fostering some kind of dialogue or understanding between the LGTBQ community and the straight community here at Wes. These actions serve only to alienate straight people and isolate the LGBTQ community. Although I’m not entirely sure what you hope to accomplish through these actions, I believe it is to somehow teach people that we are all deserving of equal respect and understanding, no matter what your sexual orientation or gender. If this is not your goal, then why isn’t it? If this is not your goal, then what are you trying to accomplish?
If spreading a mutual understanding between the LGBTQ community and the straight community is your goal, then I suggest that you find a new means to your end. Although I am pretty liberal, I am disgusted and ashamed when I see obscenities like “Wesleyan is a hotbed of dripping wet hot gay and lesbian fucking” or “I genderfucked your little brother” scrawled across the sidewalk in fluorescent chalk. As Dave Knappenberger said in a Wespeak he wrote about a week ago, if I saw those kinds of things written on the sidewalk as a prefrosh, I wouldn’t want to come here. Allow me to make my point as clear as possible: I’m not asking you to stop what you’re doing just because it makes people uncomfortable; but I am telling you that deliberately shocking people and putting them in awkward situations, you will never end homophobia.
The line between obscenity and self expression isn’t always clear; in this case it is. If you offend someone like me, liberal as my beliefs are, you are never going to teach anyone who is uncomfortable around an openly gay community anything at all, other than to avoid gays, lesbians and transgender or bisexual people. If your goal is to teach understanding, you will never do it by resolving to make anyone feel unnerved. However, if your goal is to offend, shock, alienate and intensify the feelings of awkwardness or dislike some people may feel, then you have two problems: One, you are preaching the hate you seek to avert, and two, you’re being an idiot.
You need to understand that by constantly and consistently throwing your sexuality in our faces, you force us to define you based only upon that sexuality, instead of as a multifaceted person who is engaging and welcoming, who shares with us some common interests and who happens to be gay. Wesleyan prides itself on accepting students who display a wide variety of interests and talents, so I’m sure there’s much more to you then your sexuality. Highlighting only one of the facets of your personality turns people off and makes them much less likely to become accepting or understanding. Why do you choose to highlight only one aspect of your personality? Why not highlight our similarities instead of our differences?
My gay friends know that I don’t care whether they’re gay, straight, lesbian or asexual; they’re my friends because I enjoy hanging out with them. They also know that if they had stressed their sexuality upon meeting me that it would be much more likely that we wouldn’t be as close as we are, simply because it would have created the impression that all they cared about was their sexuality. We probably wouldn’t have become friends, not because they’re gay, but because they would have shown me that their main interests were different from mine. In terms of creating understanding and tolerance, giving us a chance to get to know you without having you push your sexuality in our faces would go a long way.
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