I’ve been interested in writing down my feelings about specific topics for a long while now. I wanted to use a video platform but there’s something about writing down my feelings that calms me in a way recording a video cannot.
The first post I want to make has to do with a topic that always hurts me when I think about it. It’s inspired because a young 5-year-old in my life made a comment that triggered me. And it is something that I was worried would happen no matter how much my family avoided creating such a space. She was watching TV with me and two men kissed on screen and her reaction was “eww, that’s disgusting.” Now she usually hates it when two people kiss in general but to make sure I asked her why it was gross and she said “my friend told me it’s wrong for two boys to kiss. Only a man and woman can kiss.” I explained to her that it wasn’t true but she continued to close her eyes and make noises of disgust. I know she’s not completely aware of why her friend thinks it’s wrong but along the way she will start to see any Queer relationship as wrong.
It hurts me to know that our generation has failed the young children so much and created a world where they still think like our parents and grandparents. We’ve been educated and knowledge is more accessible. However, people are still openly and proudly homophobic with no shame about their irrational thoughts on queer people, they teach their children to think like them. On top of that, why do gay people concern straight people so much to a point where they discuss it with their 5-year-old child. What exactly bothers homophobes about other people’s lives that they dedicate so much thought into how unnatural they find it. I find it unnatural that they have nothing better to do with their supposedly righteous lives.
Another problem are the schools. They do not normalise that these relationships exist in the world. They avoid talking about the possibility of people of the same sex being together because in the minds of parents its inappropriate to mention such topics; however, it’s okay to joke around and say Ntombi and John could one day get married. But if we said the same about Ntombi and Sarah/ John and Muhammed then it’s problematic. A school probably wouldn’t mention that a child has two dads as easily as it would say someone has a mommy and daddy. Avoidance equals ignorance which equals homophobic irrationality.
So homophobes…what is your actual problem?
Juliet and Her Words 