“Homophobia is far less about the irrational fear of gay people, or the fear that one might actually be gay or have gay tendencies, and more about the fear that heterosexuals have that others might (mis)perceive them as gay. The terror that others will see one as gay, as a failed man–the fear that I call homophobia–underlies a significant amount of men’s violence.” – M. Kimmel, “I am Not Insane, I am Angry”

This entire article made me do fist pumps because it articulated everything I’ve been trying to tell people for years. The first time I came across this was in undergraduate, when I told my mom I was thinking of joining the GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance). Her response was, “But won’t people think you’re gay?” I remember at first thinking, “Oh yeah, you’re right,” and then halting and thinking, “So?! What would be wrong with that?” That moment had a huge impact on my relationship with gay rights and being a proper “ally.” 

With this in mind, I increasingly noticed the lengths that men go to avoid appearing “too feminine.” The hatred of all things “girly” (colors like pink and purple, chick flicks, flowers or flowery patterns, etc.) is clearly a social construct, not a biological preference, taught to men to preserve their masculinity. I like that Kimmel uses the strong word choice terror, as it captures what “the Twitter population” now labels #FragileMasculinity. In posts tagged with this label, users (often women) showcase various male-targeted products, male-written Tweets or statuses, or other images that highlight their fear of appearing gay.

For example, Twitter recently changed its “Favorite” option (symbolized by a star) to a “Like” option (symbolized by a heart). Twitter exploded with men Tweeting their complaints about the “gay heart” and how they were now uncomfortable to give “gay hearts” to other men’s Tweets.

Although many of these men may assert that they do not hate gay men (at least this is what I’ve observed in my personal conversations), their fear of being perceived as gay shows a clear perception that homosexuality is an inferior state of being. I tried to counter this in my classroom in both implicit and explicit ways. In my writing classroom, I constantly used every opportunity to say “he or she” when referring to romantic relationships, disrupting the automatic assumption that every relationship is with the opposite gender. In my sentence examples for grammar instruction, I portrayed boys and girls performing a variety of tasks that often went outside of gender expectations. In the anonymous writing samples I gave students, whenever a student critiqued the paper by saying what “he” did well (or what “she” did well), I always called them out on their assumption of why they thought it was a “he” (or “she”), and they consistently attributed the assumption to whatever topic the author was writing about.

More explicitly, because I had the life-changing experience of teaching a critical media literacy course, I was able to spend an entire unit analyzing gender in the media with my students, and after discussing gender stereotypes, roles, and expectations for a few weeks, we then dedicated an entire lesson specifically to homophobia. I tried to convey several ideas: 1) it’s okay to be gay, 2) it’s not okay to hate someone for being gay, and 3) it’s okay to break gender expectations, and doing so does not make you gay. The most satisfying moment was when a boy told the class that many people often call him gay, and he said he always responds, “First of all, I’m not, and second of all, who cares if I am? There’s nothing wrong with that.” To know there are middle schoolers out there believing and saying that gives me hope for the future.

(My apologies for the long post.)