Tuesday, June 8, 2010

THE ATTEMPT TO JUSTIFY SOME FALSE STEREOTYPES HELD ABOUT GAY PEOPLE

This article confirms some of the destructive stereotypes about Gay people: that Gay people are predators, that one isn't naturally Gay, and that being Gay is a perversion of the "normality" of being Straight.

Those are the arguments that most religious and other homophobes use to justify their venom against same-sex marriage and Gay people generally.

Here's an excerpt from the above linked post:

In a dramatic twist to the tale of Malawi’s convicted but pardoned gay lovebirds, the man, Steven Monjeza, has dumped his homosexual ‘wife’ Tiwonge Chimbalanga to marry a Blantyre-based woman. Twenty-four-year old Dorothy Gulo on Monday confessed her love for Monjeza whom she described as “a real man capable of doing to women what other men ably do in bed.” She was explicit about the issue and said she had nothing to hide....

According to The Nation, Monjeza now claims that he was never gay, and that his recent press conference came about because he was kidnapped by three unidentified men and forced to attend a “drinking orgy.”


Obviously I don't know what machinations occurred to cause this turn of events. It might well have been a deal struck between one of more of the men in that couple with the government of Malawi. Or, it could well be that Monzenga couldn't take the venom and social and legal threats visited upon him anymore.

But this is a tragic state of affairs when a woman has to state that Monzenga is "a real man capable of doing to women what other men ably do in bed."

Just this statement alone shows the culture of machoism and misogyny (Yes, even by a woman!) that reins both in Malawi and in all cultures, including that of the United States, that see LGBT people as pejoratively "deviant."
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3 comments:

genevieve said...

Jerry, this why you have boys pumping themselves up with steroids and anorexic girls. All to try and fulfill an image that most don;'t ever attain. This is murder to me-trying to make someone they aren't.

Jerry Maneker said...

Great point, genevieve! And the murder is both physical, emotional, and spiritual.

To try to be something you're not is a recipe for disaster, both to the person involved and to those who are in his/her orbit.

When Jesus says we are to live an "abundant life," He is not telling us to be inauthentic, either to others or to ourselves!

The only way we can live that abundant life is to be authentic; all that macho nonsense and misogyny, a large part of the roots of homophobia, are recipes for disaster for all people in any society. Best wishes, Jerry.

DC HAMPTON JACOBS said...

Jerry,

Steven Monzenga had plenty of time to spin this abduction story when he was in prison. Why didn't he? Because it's false. Nobody gets tricked into marriage in the way he describes. I believe both he and Tiwonge Chimbalanga were physically threatened, pressured to end their relationship on pain of death. Steven, whose behavior is masculine, will be left alone if he marries this woman, sires children and toes the heterosexist line. But what of Tiwonge? I fear for her life; her perceptible effeminacy ensures that she will be treated cruelly. She is in great danger! Somehow, she must leave Malawi as soon as possible. Ideally, both she and Steven would leave, but Steven's spirit of resistance has obviously been broken. It's horrendous! We in the West really have no concept of what it's like to be an LGBT person in the developing world.