General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Did you hate, fear or dislike gay people at one time? [View all]qwlauren35
(6,155 posts)There have been gay people in my family for my entire life and I was always taught to accept them. So I did. When my great uncle died, his partner was given complete respect. And that was 40 years ago.
My mom (89) had an unpleasant incident when she was young and never got over her aversion to lesbians. When she found out that one of her friends was a lesbian, I had to get very stern with her. Eventually, she invited the woman and her partner over for dinner. I was very proud of her. But I can't get her to accept same-sex marriage.
I think it's how you're brought up, and changing what you've been taught is very hard. Please don't beat yourself up over the paradigm shift you have to experience to go against what you're taught.
There are some black people who never learn to stop hating themselves because we are surrounded with hatred. And the suicide rate in the LGBTQ community is frighteningly high. Learning to love yourself when you are surrounded with hatred takes great courage. I wish you all the best.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have edited the post after reading through and realized that when I was in elementary school, the word "fag" was tossed around constantly. Being the dummy I was, instead of asking my parents, I looked it up in the dictionary and was told that it was a British word for cigarette. So then I was TRULY confused. Why would you call someone a cigarette. Eventually, I found out that it meant "gay" which I still didn't understand because I didn't understand sexuality. When people were "couples", I knew about love, but not sex. That came MUCH later, and it wasn't until high school that I could imagine that people actually LIKED sex! I remember that there were homophobic jokes, and I may have gone along with them out of ignorance, but I also remember seeing La Cage aux Folles, and getting the message. Sometimes men loved men. And it didn't go over well with everyone.
So, that's some more. Again, I am sorry for what you went through because it must have hurt deep.