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Ted woke up this morning with no intentions of having a scarring experience. But for this “33-year old white, gay man who worked as a lawyer.”, he was about to have a day that was anything but normal (Meyer 968). His day, in essence, was entirely normal, until, while he was walking back to his car after a long day of work he was mugged and called a ‘faggot’. This experience, to most would be entirely unacceptable, so Ted decided to tell his mother to gather some well-needed emotional support. But when approached, all his mother had to say was that it was not truly that severe due to the fact that her “gay friend had “almost [been] mugged” (968). I wish I could tell you that this man’s ordeal of a loved one completely downplaying his experiences is a one time event, but in all reality it happens more often than not.
In today’s society, there is a hidden dilemma, one of intense underrepresentation in all aspects of society (i.e. media, schools, government, etc.). This in turn has lead members of the LGBT community who have been personally affected by violence, to believe that it is unnecessary to worry, due to their experiences being downplayed by loved ones, and a lack of support from the surrounding community , and a lack of support from the surrounding community. This issue is hate-based violence and abuse against members of the LGBT Community.
Following the 2015 Supreme Court decision, legally banning the discrimination of marriage based on sexual orientation, our country has taken big strides in a more progressive direction, bringing more media attention to all things LGBT. But it has not been anywhere near sufficient. With a clear lack of LGBT sex-ed and basic health needs taught in health classes today, a school culture that creates anti-gay curriculum laws (Rosky 1475), and the term ‘gay’ becoming synonymous with stupid in young children’s vocabularies; our society will only continue to take steps backward in this progressive movement. These fundamental failings in our own society will only lead to an extreme growth of these hate-based attacks on members of the LGBT Community as well as a increase in the already great misunderstanding of these events.
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Violence: Downplaying
This issue of LGBT violence can be summed up by two main occurrences: downplaying the severity of an violent experience by family members, and our heteronormative culture only allowing someone who is the right kind of gay (i.e. someone who is white, masculine, and is easily able to hide in a heterosexual society) to slide by unscathed in the world of LGBT violence (Elliot 161). In a study done by Doug Meyer on the severity of LGBT hate crimes, he interviewed a 33 year old African-American gay man named Jayvyn.
Jayvyn had experienced a hate crime in which he “was called a ‘punk faggot’ and had several glass bottles thrown at him on the street” but when he told people close to him they often would say something along the lines of ‘Well, you weren’t hurt, you weren’t killed, like so and so’ (985). This extreme downplaying of the severity of Jayvyn’s experience is typical of experiences had by other members of the LGBT Community especially, those who are people of color or are poor and working class. These experiences are not only degrading to the specific members targeted but the entire community as a whole
Another form of underrepresentation found in the life of a person of the LGBT community is school culture and how it caters to a right kind of gay. In her study, Kathleen Elliot describes the everyday life of students at a high school called Midwest High. The LGBT students at MHS, when asked about the LGBT tolerance of their school, would often say that they were very -tolerant, even though when asked if they had experienced some sort of abuse,almost all of them had said yes.
The disparities in their statements are clearly shown by a student interviewed by Elliot who said, ‘Everyone always says, oh, it’s really tolerant. Well, it’s really tolerant in that . . . well, as long as you keep it to yourself it’s tolerant”(163). And apart from this, Elliot commented on her time at the school saying… making my way through the crowd of students moving from one side of the building to the other, I could clearly hear it all around me. ‘You’re such a fag!’ a white male student yelled at another as they passed each other. ‘That’s so gay,’ another student exclaimed in response to her friend’s story. (159)
This blatant use of derogatories even if it is not centered directly at students can only result in a hostile uninviting environment for LGBT youth.
In the LGBT Community, violence can come from many places, but the reason that it goes unchecked is a completely separate affair. Most times violence appears it is swept under the rug. People in homosexual relationships are at a one on four chance of experiencing domestic violence, but due to various fears, only one in two hundred will report it. (Naidu 35). These fears include “ further abuse and ridicule by the police; torture by authorities; potential abuse and neglect by medical practitioners; and various myths surrounding domestic violence between partners of the same sex”(Naidu 35).
Another cause of LGBT violence is the systematic disapproval of same-sex marriage in cultural consciousness from a very young age in the school system. Especially in the South, there are quite many legal regulations that either second-handedly discriminate against LGBT students. Out of twenty Midwest and Southern states, eleven had anti-gay language ingrained in the regulations of state education system, and eighteen had “effectively excluded LGBT identities by failing to include any non derogatory references to sexual orientation, gender identity, or same-sex relationships”(Rosky 1509). This obvious systematic discrimination against LGBT youth is not only a horrible thing but is easily a main cause for much LGBT violence concerning people bot of schooling age and above.
To find solutions to this problem of against the LGBT community we must understand the the consequences that will be present in the future. When dealing with violence in the LGBT Community, and for that matter any other hate-based violence, it is easy to chalk those experiences up to singular events that are unconnected, but in reality they are anything but. When more and more acts of violence are wrought upon members of the LGBT Community, the eye of the community begins to understand its severity less and less.
As seen through a study of Doug Meyer’s, most all participants shared an experience of violence brought upon them and a person they care about telling them that the violence was not really that significant because ‘it’s just something that happens’(991). Another common occurrence when dealing with LGBT violence is that after seeing and hearing about violence against other people, members of the LGBT Community begin to downplay the severity of violent events put on to themselves. Meyer interviewed many varying people from the LGBT Community about their experiences with violence. One of those who were interviewed was Tamika.
Tamika, a 53 -year-old african American lesbian woman who lived in a homeless shelter, expressed little surprise at being assaulted for revealing her sexuality: ‘I wasn’t surprised, I almost expected it to happen. Most of us have to go through something like this, I think … Most of my friends have had similar experiences.’ response was common among low-income people of colour, many of whom expected to encounter anti-queer violence because their friends had already experienced it. (987)
The fact that Tamika was not even surprised that that she was to have some act of violence brought upon her is clearly, consequence enough. The experience of an act clearly directed violence towards someone based on their sexuality, will only result in towards persons involved and the LGBT Community at large. If a solution is not found there will be no way to go but down, ultimately ending in a world not too different than what the LGBT Community has already faced in the past, before this modern progressive movement has started taking it’s strides.
Violence: Solutions
In order for our society to take these steps to rid itself of the illness that is hate-based violence, our first step must be to represent the real hardships that members of the LGBT Community must undergo on a daily basis. These hardships include the fact that they are surrounded a by a wholly different type of people on a daily basis, and that their needs are different than a person who is cisgendered(the same gender as assigned at birth) or heterosexual, and that they are in entirety different people. But that does not in any sense mean that they are lesser, their differences are to be celebrated. These hardships need to be represented two main ways: media and schooling.
Representation through media will look like a more integrated view of people who don’t fit the cis-heteronormative envelope (i.e. more LGBT couples in TV ads and health products being advertised on TV(i.e. PrEP, an HIV preventative)), as well as media itself showing more news coverage of LGBT events (i.e. pride festivals, health seminars etc.). On the other hand, representation in schools will look like an appeal of laws common in many of the more conservative states in this country, which are No Promo Homo Laws.
These laws prohibit the ability for a teacher to talk about LGBT matters to their students in any way shape or form, in essence completely barring any LGBT students in these states from getting the necessary education they need about themselves. Another way to raise representation in schools is to add more fully encompassing materials into health education classes (i.e. safe sex for homosexual relationships, how to get proper medical attention if you are transgender, basic ideas of sexuality etc.). Without these steps to raise representation and awareness in our society we will never reach this state of diminished violence against members of the LGBT Community.
Before a recent 2017 Supreme Court Case (Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission) about a bakery denying the creation of a cake for a gay couples wedding due to it severely interfering with his religious beliefs, an amicus curiae brief was admitted by the group, Concerned Women for America.
