Tag Archives: Tolerant

How Tolerant are Those Who Aren’t Tolerated?

In almost every culture throughout history LGBTs have suffered discrimination, bullying and worse. As a result, the gay community today likes to think it is tolerant of all kinds of people. But is that really true? Are there not instances of casual racism within the LGBT world just as there is in the straight world?

By casual racism we mean a number of issues: anti-homophobia campaigns that fail to include LGBT people of colour, the fetishisation of black men by homosexual white men and the ways in which Asian men are stigmatised by gay men who belong to other ethnicities, to name but three.

We present some tips on how to keep LGBT places as open and tolerant as possible.

Two wrongs don’t make a right : Some LGBTs feel that, given the amount of discrimination they have suffered, they are somehow immune to acting in an intolerant way towards other groups. By taking that position it’s easy to devalue the experience of both gay people and people of colour.

Stay aware of the subtle differences : Just because you are LGBT and white it doesn’t mean you automatically understand what it’s like to be, say, LGBT and Latino or LGBT and Asian. We must all be aware that gay people who belong to ethnic minorities can suffer double discrimination.

Know casual racism when you spot it : There’s a difference between the full-scale racial hatred of a Hitler or a KKK member and the kind of subtle ignorance that we define as casual racism. LGBTs can be just as guilty as anyone else of exoticising “other” ethnicities, thinking that Asians work hard and believing in all kinds of other nonsensical stereotypes. Another form of casual racism is ‘trophy hunting’ in which white LGBTs deliberately try to date people from other cultures or creeds just to be able to say that they’ve done it. This, obviously, is deeply patronising.

How Tolerant Are They? I Mean, Really?

How accepting are straight people of LGBTs? And just because they say they’re tolerant, do they behave in a tolerant fashion? “Beyond the Box”, an eye-opening new study from Belgium has tried to answer these tricky questions.

The study was commissioned by the State Secretary of Brussels, Bruno De Lille, and took six months to complete. It concluded that sexist and anti-LGBT sentiments are deeply-rooted in Belgian society, despite recent advances such as the legalisation of same-sex unions.

Myrte Dierckx, an academic from Antwerp University, believes the findings show that straight people will say they are welcoming of gay, lesbian and transgender people, while secretly harbouring discriminatory views. Furthermore, older heterosexual men were found to be more resistant to equality while those respondents who had a diverse range of friends and family members were more likely to support LGBT rights.

Worryingly, the study also showed that a number of young heterosexual Belgians have bullied, harassed or in some other way exhibited inappropriate behaviour towards gays and lesbians. Some commentators have called for Belgium’s struggle against homophobia and sexism to be as serious and committed as the country’s campaign against racism which, in a relatively short period, has transformed popular attitudes to ethnic minorities.

Mr De Lille intended “Beyond the Box” to confront LGBT hatred in Brussels, which is one of Europe’s most diverse and open-minded cities. ‘If we can bring different people into more contact with each other,’ says Mr De Lille, ‘we will have good results in the area of homophobia and sexism, and that’s good news for a city like Brussels.’

image source – Alberto de Pedro’s website