Dear Gay Men, Let’s Stop Hating Each Other!

By Dear Straight People in Dear Gay People, Food For Thought, Homophobia, LGBT Culture, LGBT Issues on July 28, 2015December 2, 2015

Dear Gay Men,

Let’s face it, we hate a lot of things. We hate homophobic people. We hate ourselves. We hate each other. In fact, I don’t think any other gifs sums up gay people quite as perfectly as this one does:

But since I’m feeling pretty lazy today, I am only going to address one of the things gay people hate in this post; the fact that we all seem to hate one another.

Homophobia within the gay community is a longstanding issue, one that is often swept under the carpet. Instead of addressing the homophobia prevalent within the gay community itself, we often rather focus on the hate coming at us from the straight community because that seems so much more easier to deal with.

Homophobia from the heterosexual population is largely due to religious or traditional societal values. The cause of homophobia from within the gay community itself however, isn’t as obvious. Despite the fact that gay activists regularly preach about the importance of love during their campaigns, their message of love seems to have gotten lost within the gay community.

I mean, homophobia within the LGBT community is rampant! There are the gay men who taunt the fat ones. The gay men who detest the feminine ones. The gay men who ridicule the closeted ones. The gay men who only talk to other gay men of a certain race or ethnicity. The gay men who get labelled sluts after having sex on the first date. The gay men who get labelled sluts after having sex on the fifth date. The gay men who get labelled sluts after only having sex once. I could go on and on but I am sure you get the picture by now.

-cough-slut-cough-

Why then do gay men all seem to hate one another so much? The answer lies in the fact that gay men, me included, are generally pretty narrow-minded creatures.

You see, the heavy irony of the gay community is the strong notion of conformity. Each gay person has his or her own perception of how a gay person should be like. We expect other gay men to be as masculine as us. We expect other gay men to look a certain way like us. We expect other gay men to be as fabulous as us. We expect other gay men to only have sex after a certain number of dates like us.

It seems like after being ridiculed from the heterosexual community for being different while growing up; gay people now feel the need to carry on the vicious cycle of bullying by bullying other gay people whom they perceive to be different or inferior to them. Gay people who do not adhere to our notions of how a gay person should be like are deemed to be inferior to us, and thus deserving of the hate that we throw at them.

The problem with the notion of conformity within the gay community is the fact that there is no such thing as a typical gay person. Just like our straight counterparts, gay men come in all shapes and sizes. Some of us are fat, some of us are thin. Some of us are young, some of us are old. Regardless of how each of us turns out to be, the point is that our superficial differences should not be the cause of our animosity towards one another.

Similarly, the problem with the notion of conformity is that gay men often expect other gay men to behave like them. The problem with this is that there is no such thing as a universal code of conduct established for the gay community. One of the main reasons why gay men hate other gay men is because the other gay men don’t behave in a way they deem to be appropriate.

What we often forget is that the principles and morals that we have drawn for ourselves is an entirely personal choice. It’s unfair to impose whatever values and rules we have set for ourselves on other people. If someone has sex on the first date, what gives us the right to label them as a slut? If you only sleep with your date after 5 dates for example, good for you. That is your personal choice based on the principles and morals that you have chosen to live by. To impose them on other people and expect them to adhere to your principles doesn’t make sense on any level. So if someone chooses to have sex on the first, second or hundredth date, that is their choice to make.

So at the end of the day, it really boils down to the fact that we all need to start broadening our minds a little bit. If we want others to accept us for who we are, we need to start accepting each other first. The only way for all of us to truly be comfortable in our own skin is for us to embrace the diversity within the gay community. It is time we all let go of whatever preconceived notions of how gay people should look and behave like.

So while it may seem like a bit of a stretch… Dear gay people, let’s all stop hating on one another shall we?