Are Stereotypes Hurting Our Community?

There’s a very thought provoking post by Balaji Ravichandran at guardian.co.uk that poses the question, or rather makes the case that gay stereotypes are more detrimental to the gay community than good.

“Gay men needn’t be macho” said Omar Kholeif on Cif last week. Indeed. Stereotypes – comic routines notwithstanding – were very important for the gay rights movement, providing a collective identity with which sexual minorities could fight for their rights. They still serve that purpose around the world, and not just for those fighting for gay rights.

But the danger is that gay pubs, bars and clubs increasingly expect, and cater for, a series of stereotypical gay “types”. Tick a few boxes and define yourself, or you’re not in. Active or passive? Bear or cub? Daddy or twink? Muscled or stocky? Asian or white? Camp or butch? It’s demeaning to have to reduce oneself to a few descriptive epithets. It’s bad enough when people ask me where I’m originally from just because I’m not white; it’s worse when they go on to ask, as Beautiful People recently put it, whether I’m a bloke or a bitch. Far from allowing people to escape stereotypes, or providing platforms for a diverse expression and understanding of sexual minorities, many of these venues force young men and women to conform to these types. Enforced conformity can never be true liberation. It makes the quasi-mandatory “coming out” that much more difficult.

I don’t believe that anyone should be criticized or ostracized for being true to who they are, as long as they actually are being true to who they are, and not what they think they should be, because that’s what a culture tells you to be.

But, I also have a degree of dislike for stereotypes and I too think they have been one reason the growth of the equality movement has been stunted. The only representation of the GLBT community on TV, has largely been the more flamboyant, effeminate type. One thing people need to understand, we’re just as different as our heterosexual counterparts. We come in all shapes, sizes and colors. We come with a huge array of interest. We are only the same in that we love people of the same gender. This is what the general public needs to understand before we’re more widely accepted. Even if granted our rights, we’re still going to have discrimination to deal with that’s a fact we must face. It’s the government’s job to make sure we’re all equal, It’s our job to educate the public, and gain acceptance.

Balaji Ravichandran