The male athlet who've e out recently rerce the obv: Gay men n be mascule. But people should also be acceptg of men, gay or straight, who don't nform to tradnal genr norms.
Contents:
- 15 STEREOTYP THAT LIM OUR PERCEPTNS OF GAY MEN
- GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?
- WHAT ABOUT THE GUYS WHO DO F THE 'GAY STEREOTYPE'?
- THE GAY VOICE
- STEREOTYP, EMOTNS, AND BEHAVRS TOWARD LBIANS, GAY MEN, BISEXUAL WOMEN, AND BISEXUAL MEN
- RACIAL STEREOTYPG OF GAY MEN: CAN A MORY SEXUAL ORIENTATN ERASE RACE?☆,☆☆
- SHOULD STRAIGHT ACTORS STILL PLAY GAY CHARACTERS? 'IT'S PLITED'
15 STEREOTYP THAT LIM OUR PERCEPTNS OF GAY MEN
Stereotyp about gay men are stctive to both how society views , as well as to how we view society mak fun of and gras gay men for thgs that are patently unte, young gay men are left whout proper role mols, failed by a society that scrib them wh generalizatns. Stereotyp may be ground the tth or be plete and utter falsehoods, but they are dangero regardls of where they e opprsn and reprsn of gay men throughout history — om ancient tim and early Christiany to the morn AIDS crisis — has been rooted fear and falsi. Gay men are tryg to stroy your marriag, take the Christ out of Christmas and brg the wrath of God upon our, Rh Limbgh, but we are not tryg to value your fourth marriage (That actually might be you, Mr.
Homophobia, stigma (negative and ually unfair beliefs), and discrimatn (unfairly treatg a person or group of people) agast gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex wh men still exist the Uned Stat and n negatively affect the health and well-beg of this muny. The negative beliefs and actns n affect the physil and mental health of gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex wh men, whether they seek and are able to get health servic, and the qualy of the servic they may receive.
Enurage stunt-led and stunt-anized school clubs that promote a safe, welg, and acceptg school environment (such as gay-straight allianc, which are school clubs open to youth of all sexual orientatns). But people should also be acceptg of men, gay or straight, who don't nform to tradnal genr Los Angel Galaxy midfielr Robbie Rogers took the pch on Sunday, he beme the first openly gay man to play on a major profsnal team the U.
GAY STEREOTYP: ARE THEY TE?
(Danny Moloshok/Rters)A uple weeks ago, Mark Carson, a 32-year-old gay man drsed a tank top, cut-off shorts, and boots, was walkg wh his iend the Wt Village when they were approached by Ellt Moral. There have been 29 reported this year, up om 14 the same perd last year, even as hate crim overall have cled durg that time by almost 30 recent uptick anti-gay vlence also durg the same month that three more stat passed laws legalizg same-sex marriage and jt weeks after NBA veteran Jason Colls revealed that he is gay—and was largely greeted wh open arms by the sports world.
But Ayanbajo got to the heart of why the importance of a figure like Jason Colls extends beyond the celebry factor: "People thk gayns has somethg to do wh femy when really we jt need to erase that stereotype om our mds, " he said. And sce for women, we thk gayns "has somethg to do wh" masculy, we hold the opposg set of assumptns about female athlet: "In sports right now, there are two different stereotyp—that there are no gay male athlet, and every female athlete is a lbian, " Patrick Burke of the gay sports advocy group You Can Play explaed to the New York Tim. The news that Grer, who wore a whe tux on her 6-foot-8 ame at the WNBA draft, is gay didn't fundamentally challenge our notn that sexualy has somethg to do wh genr—and jt nfirmed the stereotyp we had about women who excel sports.
WHAT ABOUT THE GUYS WHO DO F THE 'GAY STEREOTYPE'?
In his semal 1994 article "Masculy as Homophobia, " soclogist Michael Kimmel, thor of Guyland: The Perilo World Where Boys Bee Men, argued that "homophobia is a central anizg prciple of our cultural fn of manhood.
"Homophobia, then, is not simply social disapproval and discrimatn agast gay people, but an entire cultural stcture that disqualifyg all but the "most vilent repudiators of femy" om "real manhood"— the procs upholdg genr equaly and matag a hierarchy of men based on sexualy, race, class, abily, and so 's entirely unrstandable, then, why Colls took pas to highlight his masculy his Sports Illtrated article announcg the news. About two-thirds of the public thks that gay and lbian upl n be as good parents as heterosexual upl and that they should have the same legal rights as their straight young people, pecially, anti-gay views are cidly the exceptn.
THE GAY VOICE
Ever sce we've been askg about public opn polls, men have been more likely than women to poe anti-gay views—a fact that buttrsed the theory that masculy is timately nnected wh homophobia, says Tristan Bridg, assistant profsor of soclogy at The College at Brockport, SUNY. Though homophobia is by no means eradited—after all, Bridg pots out, straight men pecially still seem be far more fortable wh gay inty than actual gay sex—the largely supportive rponse to Colls and Rogers g out would seem to reflect a real and rapid change anti-gay attus, which should certaly be 's far ls clear is whether this shift is actually changg the way homophobia is ed as a weapon for matag tradnal masculy. " Acrdg to Anrson, homophobia only serv a weapon for enforcg genr norms an environment of "homohysteria"— which there is both wispread social disapproval of homosexualy and beg gay is associated wh femy.
STEREOTYP, EMOTNS, AND BEHAVRS TOWARD LBIANS, GAY MEN, BISEXUAL WOMEN, AND BISEXUAL MEN
Anrson argu that sce sports have historilly been highly homophobic spac, other male groups are likely to be moreclive than the primarily whe, straight, middle-upper class llege athlet he has rearched. For starters, the growg acceptance of homosexualy has been slow to translate to a change for LGBT youth, acrdg to GLSEN's natnal school climate survey, which has been nducted every two years sce 1999.
And don't get much better for adults: Nety percent of the trans and genr non-nformg people surveyed by the Natnal Gay and Lbian Task Force and the Natnal Center for Transgenr Equaly reported experiencg harassment, mistreatment, or discrimatn on the job, or hid their inti to avoid . And though steppg too far outsi of acceptable genr norms is seen as a problem for everyone, to a gree, women may even be reward for distancg themselv om femy at is not to say that clg homophobia don't have the potential to lead to a ser reimagg of masculy more broadly.
" But if they still shout "cunt" and "psy" as they physilly abe their athlet, that will be superficial progrs fact, if the associatn between gayns and femy is broken whout more fundamentally expandg masculy, may even make thgs worse. Gawker's Rich Juzwiak explaed last year, "As a gay, you unrstand that while you'll always fd peers who allow you to be exactly as queeny as you are, there is still a social hierarchy that puts a premium on masculy. The global rponnts said 30 percent of such visuals pict gay men as "feme"; 29 percent show LGBTQ+ people rryg the rabow flag; 29 percent portray lbians as "mascule"; and 28 percent such visuals pict gay men as "flamboyant.
RACIAL STEREOTYPG OF GAY MEN: CAN A MORY SEXUAL ORIENTATN ERASE RACE?☆,☆☆
Reboundg om the cultural nservatism of the 80s and reactg to the burgeong acceptance of gay liftyl, the Hollywood stud system dipped a toe the realm of queer diversy wh a seri of films centered around nocuo gay leads. Even if the films have aged poorly a number of regards, they were groundbreakg at the time and orr to fully appreciate their impact and shortgs, 's tertg to look at them the light of how the matter of homosexualy film was handled up to that pot.
That's not to say homosexualy was openly weled on film, but the stigma toward on-screen affectn between two members of the same genr was ls stigmatized than pictns of men and women who acted whout the nf of their genr rol. Followg the great prsn, studs turned up the sex and sndal factor to sell more tickets, cludg salac (for the time) portrayals of homosexualy -- a cisn that pissed off a whole lot of relig groups, who boytted the morally bankpt stutn of Hollywood and their sndalo, sful films.
The pot of the Productn Co was to enforce tradnal valu, so along wh thgs you’d expect like nudy, there were a bounty of other rtrictns like ridicule of the clergy, terracial marriage, and of urse, homosexualy. Queer narrativ were famoly erased om a number of film adaptatns durg this era, cludg The Children’s Hour and The Malte Faln, and if LGBT hero were wrten out of the actn, homosexual characters were almost universally portrayed as villas, and they pretty much always died. Of urse, the portrayals of homosexualy didn’t immediately right ship and new, harmful trop evolved wh the new eedoms, most notably the jected, often suicidal queer whose entire existence was based self-loathg.
SHOULD STRAIGHT ACTORS STILL PLAY GAY CHARACTERS? 'IT'S PLITED'
As a part of an dtry-wi trend toward more provotive, challengg ntent, the 70s beme a momento turng pot for on-screen LGBT reprentatn wh films like Midnight Cowboy, Cabaret, and The Boys the Band, William Friedk's 1970 film that's regard as the first stud attempt to appeal to gay dienc. Howard don’t even realize he’s a homosexual until a former stunt announc on natnal televisn, and even then, he only to accept the tth after he endur a seri of what I n only scribe as gay tts, a sort of reverse nversn therapy; tryg to listen to the Village People whout dancg, listeng to someone sult Barbara Streisand whout gettg angry, and a groundbreakg on-screen kiss for the era, gettg smooched full-on by Tom Selleck. While pennt cema was rvg out a space for queer unterculture, where the LGBT muny uld live by s own l and fns, stud filmmakg was rvg out a very clear-cut space for homosexuals society, as long as they played by the l.
This was seen televisn as well, most notably Will and Grace which Eric McCormack’s Will — an analogo character to Howard Brackett — was long played as “My Pet Homosexual, ” Grace’s -hoe Gay BFF who was rarely afford the same level of signifint relatnship arcs or on-screen displays of affectn as his female unterpart.