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"Who Cares" that people are gay

Discussion in 'Family, Friends, and Relationships' started by Geek, Oct 17, 2019.

  1. Geek

    Full Member

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    Location:
    Hawaii
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Questioning
    Out Status:
    All but family
    I'm out to my siblings, but not my parents. They've laughed in the past when they found out someone was gay, laugh at stereotypical gay guys, and for years were against marriage equality. Fast forward to the last year or so and I've noticed that my parents seem to be less homophobic than they used to be. It honestly got to the point where I thought my siblings outted me or that they suspect that I'm not straight. Anyways, a while I mentioned a gay couple that attended my mom's church and my mom went total ally saying "what's wrong with them being gay".

    Tonight my dad mentioned that California textbooks mention the sexuality of people in their biographies. His argument was that "who cares if their gay, what does that have to do with them being an astronaut". I tried to explain to them that it's no different than simply referring to Martin Luther King as "a pastor" or that Amelia Earhart was "just a pilot". They were extremely dismissive. I'm glad they claim not to care about someone's sexual orientation, but that's hard to believe if they're against teaching LGBTQ history.

    To me it comes across as "we don't care if someone's gay, but let's just pretend that you don't exist" or people who say "why isn't there a white history month". Am I reading into this too much or is this truly a microaggression showing their true feelings towards the LGBTQ+ community? I'd like to know your thoughts and if anyone has any similar experiences, how you handled them. Honestly for me this is a red flag that they aren't as open as they say they are. Every year around NCOD I want to come out, but it's stuff like this that keeps me from doing so. I should also mentioned that they denied having a problem with marriage equality for years, and are trying to pretend that they were never homophobic.
     
    #1 Geek, Oct 17, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 17, 2019
  2. Bolt35

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    Location:
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    Out to everyone
    It sounds like they might have an idea or two about your sexuality though it doesn't seem clear whether or not your siblings have outted you or not. It's pretty much common, that I find in my experiences, that people who are opening up to the idea of LGBT in general, are usually going to say stuff like " who cares if they're gay" or "it doesn't matter, as long as you're not feeling me up" or "don't flirt with me". They're not aware that it's a type of micro aggression that can be contributing to homophobia, and it's more of a reflex that says "I'm not comfortable with this at all". They're not sure how to approach a conversation like that without having any repercussions they might get from the person they're talking to, who knows.

    It's a long conversation that needs to be talked about every day and it can be hard to convince people that an issue like this, is a big thing. It does matter because we are often discriminated against. It takes time, a lot of explanations and examples to show that the fight for LGBT rights does matter. It does get annoying but paitence is another factor in fighting against the hetero-normative standards of society.

    In my honest opinion, they're not comfortable with it, because it doesn't contribute to what they have. It could also be because of the way they were raised, they're not used to seeing it so out in the open.