Hello everyone, I have been asked to help writing a series of " blog articles" for an LGBT related project. The idea is to choose a concept that it is relevant for LGBT people and post your thoughts on it. I am choosing the first one and I have decided to start with what, in my opinion is the big bad wolf: Prejudices. Eventually more topics will come out but i thought I would post my thought on here and hopefully get some feedback and ideas to complement, enhance or challenge mine. I have decided to post it in this section "later in life" because I would really want to read the input of the people who usually post here. It is not a definitive version and I have decided to approach it from a funnier metaphorical point of view, let me know what you think please! Thank you in advance! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On mushrooms and prejudices. In my experience it is very easy for people to create prejudices that allow us to make quick judgement about things. From an evolutionary point of view (kind of) this makes complete sense. Assuming all mushrooms are poisonous will protect you from being poisoned, even though it is not true. The easiest way to challenge prejudices and misconceptions is to experience the opposite. Let’s get back to our mushrooms example: I don’t eat mushrooms since I think they are poisonous (that’s what my family and friends told me), but one day a very big rock falls over while I am doing an speleological trip and leaves me trapped in a cave where mushrooms are the only thing I can potentially eat; because there is nothing else around. So I eat mushrooms, which in fact are quite nutritive, and allow me to survive for weeks until someone finds me and helps me to get out of the cave, or allows me to survive long enough to dig a tunnel that gets me out. So now I know that mushrooms are not always poisonous and that that kind of mushrooms in particular is a nice thing to eat. That could make me create a positive prejudice in favor of eating mushrooms but most likely it won’t since my previous prejudice against mushrooms, even though it is based on second hand evidence, tells me that some people at some point probably have been poisoned by mushrooms. That was a pretty silly example but I think it is quite helpful to understand my point. Prejudices, usually only hide a lot of ignorance since, as thing are never as simple as they seem. Many times Truth lies on a middle ground, while sometimes the general interpretation is based on a flawed logic that makes it seem true when it is not. So, in my book, prejudices equate to ignorance. Yes I am prejudiced and ignorant too in many aspects but I have made my life philosophy to never refuse to be open to hearing different point of views and acknowledge that I was wrong whenever logic or experience proves it. Life is way more interesting and intense that way. By now you probably know where I am heading with that reasoning. I want to talk about that metaphorical closet, which I see as the darkest (irony kicks in) and most terrible aspect of living as a gay person. Don’t take me wrong, I know I am talking from a privileged position, as where I live not being straight is not judged as harshly as it was some years ago or as it is in other parts of the world. In my opinion these metaphorical closet walls are built and reinforced with prejudice. The prejudice comes from the outside world and creates the walls. But our own prejudices reinforce them. This last thought may seem weird but I can see two different ways of making this reinforcement happen: The first reason are the echoes of other people prejudices (often people who are very important for you) that have never experienced not being straight. It is easy to make this prejudices yours since if everyone says so, and then it must be truth. If non-straight people are so horrible why on the earth would I want to join them? As I said earlier, prejudices are wrong most of the time, but it is difficult to defeat them if you do not experience the opposite if you refuse to follow your heart because of your prejudices you probably won’t do it and neither those around you will. The second kind is more subtle. It is the anticipation of other people reactions. Many times we assume that some people are going to react badly, and many times we are wrong (at least in the long term, if not in short term). The thing is that most of the people require long time to challenge what they believed to be truth and embrace the possibility of being wrong. I also know that the sad reality is that many times we won’t get the reactions we have wished when we come out and that sometimes there are very harsh consequences to coming out. This is why it is so important to question whether if you are ready to face the consequences of coming out and to challenge other people prejudice. However there is always going to be people out there that will accept you. The thing is that sometimes it is not obvious, and sometimes it is not easy to find them. There are people who would refuse to be logical and change their views, you should fight for that to happen if they are important to you, but if there is no way to win that battle, it is absolutely not your fault and they are the ones who are wrong and missing having you in their lives. I would encourage everyone to fight prejudice as much as possible. As with everything else in life usually the way to go is to pick your fights wisely and aim for short term goals, but don’t get the wide picture out of sight and you won’t be wrong. Less prejudices and more mushrooms!
I agree that anticipation of reactions is a factor to consider in the decision to come out, I'm just not sure I understand how you're trying to relate it to prejudice. Are you saying that the anticipation of other peoples' reactions is based on their prejudices or based on our own prejudice of how we expect others to react? Remaining in the closet because of other peoples' prejudices I think would be accurate but you indicate that this is a form on one's own prejudice which is confusing. On the other hand if you do mean remaining in the closet because of anticipation of others' reactions because of one's own prejudice then it's not clear how that is the case. A prejudice is a existing belief regardless of whether or not it's true as you've indicated, but there is no prejudiced belief on how people will react which is why making that decision is so difficult. We know it can go well and there are beliefs that certain factors such as living in an urban environment, educated, less conservative, etc will have a better chance of a positive reaction and the opposite for negative, but that's not always the case. I think it's difficult to say there is a prejudiced view of how others will react when we come out because reactions are known to vary.
Wow, thanks for that comment, the last thing I want to do is to sound confusing. To answer your first question, yeah I meant the later that we prejudge people, "predict"their reactions and scare ourselves into not coming out. Again you are right about what I was trying to say, I was trying to speak about those people in environments such as a religious household, parents on the military, rural areas etc... They may not come out because they think they know how they beloved ones/people around them are going to react. I was trying to explain that that is another thing that can scare you into not leaving the closet but is not necessarily true (That was my case but one of the aims is not to make the logs personal or avoid it as much as as possible). Now, not being able to anticipate how other people is going to react at all being an scary prospect too is something I had not considered. I was only basing my opinion in what I experienced without realizing it. I think I need to reconsider and rewrite that part completely. I am glad I shared it. Thanks a lot HTBO! Everyone's suggestions and criticisms are still welcomed
