SOME CONSEQUENCES OF INTERNALIZED HOMOPHOBIA

I feel that this post of a few weeks ago is very important and deserving of being posted again:

All too often, many if not most LGBT people are either uncaring about gaining full and equal civil and sacramental rights or allegedly seek to gain those rights by tactics designed to stick a finger in the eye of potential Straight allies.

The horrific treatment of Gay people by many others, not the least of whom are "Christian" clergy, has created a mind-set among many Gay people that reflects the internalization of those hateful messages, resulting in terribly damaged psyches that don't have the time or even the inclination to fight for equality.

Most of LGBT people's psychic energy is geared toward seeking some level of peace in a world that treats them as second-class citizens; engaging in diversionary behaviors, such as preoccupation with socializing, that helps foster needed in-group feelings on the one hand, and also helps take their minds off of the fact that they are treated as second-class citizens in a country that prides itself on its Constitutional mandate for there to be equality under the law on the other hand.

There must be a transformation of consciousness, not only of most Straight people, but of LGBT people themselves, for there to be meaningful activism that assures the goal of LGBT equality for those of us who give a damn about equal rights for everybody.

My good friend, Don Charles, has the following to say on this matter of non-meaningful "activism":

In "March Down Babylon", a three-part call to action originally published at my old blog Christ, The Gay Martyr, I drew a distinction between productive and counter-productive Gay Rights demonstrations. The very first thing I cautioned against was protesters turning out in drag(recognizing, of course, that clothing which expresses a Transperson's gender identity is not drag). Over many years, cross-dressing has become linked with Mardi Gras revelry and Pride parade excesses; Gay activists done up like refugees from a production of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert are simply not going to be taken seriously!

The second (and also third) thing I cautioned against was LGBT folk publicly using pejoratives in reference to themselves. Regardless of how many deluded folk believe otherwise, the hate-inspired epithets of our oppressors can never empower us! On the contrary, they weaken us while heightening the ignorance those evil names were born of. What good will heightened ignorance do for our movement? Has it done us any good in the past? When both Gay Rights demonstrators and anti-Gay bigots describe an act of civil disobedience as "queers blocking traffic", how can anybody in his right mind argue that consciousness has been raised???

My belief is that so much psychic energy of most Gay people is geared toward struggling with their own internalized homophobia, whether they are out or not, that they are neither politically interested in gaining equality and/or engage in frivolous activities, under the guise of "activism" or not, that takes their minds off of the fact that they are viewed as second-class citizens, if not pariahs, in our society.

Until that transformation of consciousness that eradicates, or at least transcends, that internalized homophobia occurs, that light of full equality at the end of the tunnel will continue to remain elusive.

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