We are not yet at a place in our society when I think we can under estimate the negative impact homophobia has on our lives. I write this not to provide a reason or an excuse for people to live broken lives or be as unhealthy as they want to be but as a way of empowering people to examine their lives and work towards moving forward.
Homophobia is still expressed in homes around the world and heard coming out of the mouths of religious, business and cultural leaders across the planet. Systemic homophobia still prevents people from achieving optimum health, good grades and dreams. Poverty, addiction, aging and mental health concerns are all issues that are made worse due to the discrimination felt by homosexuals of any age and gender.
Compound homophobia and all that accompanies it with racism, sexism, classism, disablism and all other forms of ‘isms’ that people live with and one begins to realize that there is little wonder why there will be choices that some people make that others will never understand.
I would suggest that it is our colonial and parental cultural instincts that inform us that we even have a right and/or obligation to understand. We are taught from an early age that understanding is a core goal of living.
With over six billion people on the planet, growing interconnectedness, and ever-evolving non-homogenous cultural influences, attempting to understand each other is futile. It is a noble pastime if done without judgment—but still futile.
What seems to me to be a better spending of time, to borrow a phrase from some friends, is seeing our diversity or diversity in general as value added to our own human experience.
As communities and cultures that make up the larger society, there are going to be choices made by people in our own communities that we don’t understand or agree with. While it may not be our place to judge whether someone’s choice is good or bad it is our place to think about how choices that other people make affect us and to think about how our collective experience influences who we are.
Last week Sun Media published a column by Mindelle Jacobs about barebacking, a term often used to describe unprotected anal sex; as well as bugchasing (the desire to sexually contract HIV), and giftgiving (the desire to sexually give someone HIV). While it is true that the phenomena of bugchasing and giftgiving exist, organizations that work with gay male populations like HIM (Health Initiative for Men) and ACT (AIDS Committee of Toronto) report that they exist more in the words of the straight press than they do in the lives of their clients.
Jacobs’ column was a disturbing piece of writing on many fronts. Disturbing because the lack of rigour with which it was written made it come across as homophobic; because there is already little room in our culture in which gay men’s sexual health can be discussed (and even less room in which to discuss lesbian and transsexual’s sexual health) and it was spent on harmful and under researched fear mongering; disturbing because it took a shitty piece of writing by someone from outside the community to spur on a conversation about what we do with our bodies within the community.
What I realized the article means to me, a week after reading it, is that 25 years into the epidemic the queer community has still not found a way to successfully discuss the lingering trauma that AIDS has left us with.
As sexual minorities we have not made significant inroads to own our diversity in the face of ongoing tragedy, instead we have spent most of our energy fighting for legitimacy.
I am not saying that securing our human rights, working towards being able to have a family and ensuring that if our same-sex partner is ever in the hospital we can visit them are not important—they are.
What I am saying is that along the way we have continued to stigmatize those living with HIV, stood by while courts attempt to criminalize those living with HIV; not yet righted the wrongs that result in people contracting HIV like poverty, lack of education, mental health issues, low self esteem and addictions; and have allowed sex to be something disconnected from our bodies and more closely linked with our class, and exclusively of our minds.
We have done all this in part because of homophobia. While HIV is not a social disease caused by homophobia, it is a fatal virus. New infections can be reduced and the quality of life of those living with HIV can be improved by healing the wounds that continue to plague the queer community.
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