On prejudice

One particular group of people that are often targeted by prejudice and discrimination are those we commonly refer to as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, intersex, and the newest category, “questioning”. Essentially it could be said that non-exclusively-heterosexual people are often discriminated against. Well, they’re not the only ones and any “minority” group within a society is prone to the effects of prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination. One thing I have found extremely interesting in the past few weeks, though, is the prejudice towards bisexual persons on behalf of exclusively homosexual persons.

I know, I know, in our personal non-politically-correctedness-contaminated dialogues we would call all people who aren’t exclusively heterosexual, gay. Whatever. Let’s not get into the semantics of these labels. However, do let me get back to the prejudice towards “bisexual” people I’ve noted in the past few weeks.

I remember an episode of ‘The L Word’ where one of the girls who was exclusively homosexual was deriding another female who was bisexual. The argument was something like ‘just make up your mind already’, ‘just decide’. Seriously? Sexuality is a choice now? I found that ironic given the common arguments homosexual persons raise in counter to the religious heterosexual calls to “be normal”.

What’s even more ironic is that a group of people who are passionate to defend from discrimination and claim their rights as the same to any other member of society can also be so equally discriminating of another group of society who face many if not all their same challenges. For example, as I pointed out above, one of the stereotypes often peddled about bisexual people is that they are ‘undecided’ in terms of their sexual preference/identity. The majority of proponents of these and many stereotypes about bisexual people are people who are exclusively homosexual. In reality, both these subsets of people form a larger group of people most commonly banded together as ‘gays’. The banding together is in fact a blessing to these same people, forming greater majorities in the fight for the things that are often fought for: freedom of speech, representation, and other basic human rights. However, once you take away the common struggle, us human beings prefer to struggle against each other, smaller minority groups, the next person lower in the rank, the poorer, the more unfortunate, the weaker in the pecking order.

Just as an educational exercise I’d like to relate some of the other prejudices I hear banded around about bisexual persons:

-They’re not really gay, they’re just promiscuous and would have sex with anyone who was willing.
-They not really gay, they’re just with a homosexual partner at the moment until they find what they really want: a heterosexual partner.
-Bisexual people are promiscuous, they have no loyalty, and they’ll always leave you for the next best thing.
-They’ll always leave you for an opposite gender person.
-They’re just experimenting; they’ll go back to being heterosexual eventually.
-They only care about sex.
-They can’t commit because they can’t even “commit” to either being gay or straight.
-They’re actually just straight people.
-They have to like either men or women MORE.... this more often comes up in the form of a question.
-They just haven’t decided (or figured out) yet whether they’re gay or straight.... They NEED to make this DECISION!
-They’re bad people who only want sex from you.
-They’re just plain bad people...

Sound familiar? Wherever a group of people congregate, smaller cliques of people will form. Why? It’s human nature. It’s part of the process of self-identity. Often we define things for what they’re not. We define ourselves similarly by what we’re not. We’re not like that other group of people, those bad people. Our own societal group is better, it’s right, it’s better than all other alternatives. As we do this we define ourselves: we’re good people, we’re consistent people, we’re loyal people, we are good and worthy human beings. We overlook our flaws: the prejudice, the discrimination, the often derogatory language we use towards the “other” groups. And yet, it is absolutely essential to form our own identity, to define ourselves, to believe we are good and just human beings. The important thing is that once we reach this level of identity we continue to challenge our perspective - to be truly open-minded!

...A quote:

"AIDS. Homosexual. Gay. Lesbian. You think these are names that tell you who a person sleeps with, but they don't tell you that. No. Like all labels they tell you one thing, and one thing only: Where does an individual so identified fit into the food chain, the pecking order? Not ideology or sexual taste, but something much simpler: clout. Not who I fuck or who fucks me, but who will come to the phone when I call, who owes me favors. This is what a label refers to. Now to someone who does not understand this, a homosexual is what I am because I have sex with men, but really this is wrong. A homosexual is somebody who, in 15 years of trying cannot get a pissant anit-discrimination bill through the city council. A homosexual is somebody who knows nobody and who nobody knows. Who has zero clout. Does this sound like me, Henry? I have sex with men. But unlike nearly every other man of whom this is true, I bring the guy I'm screwing to the White House and President Reagan smiles at us and shakes his hand."  -Roy Cohn in Angels in America, by Tony Kushner.