The fight for LGBTQ equality is about more than wedding cakes, and it affects all of us, no matter how we identify.
Discrimination is about perception.
Let me say that again.
Discrimination is about perception. If you don’t believe me, think about every Black man in a hoodie who has been followed in a store or harassed by police, or every Brown man spoken to slowly, or every man near a playground who has watched children being moved away from him.
In none of these cases does the person’s reality make any difference in how they are treated, because someone else’s perception is driving the interaction.
So let’s swing this around to the LGBTQ issues.
Right now in many states, you can be fired for being gay. You can be denied housing, medical care, custody of a child.
Go ahead. Prove you’re not gay. Hopefully you aren’t artistic or overly well-dressed. Hopefully you don’t like musicals or dance music. Hopefully you are sufficiently skilled in the manly arts of home and car repair and you watch monthly minimums of college and professional sports. Oh sure, you’re married. But everyone knows that’s just a cover. Your flair for the dramatic and the fact that you think Neil Patrick Harris is a great actor and that you did theater in high school?
But those are stereotypes, you say. They don’t mean someone’s gay.
Perception.
There’s a reason that so many gay men stay in the closet and do their best to blend in and act like Generic Straight Guys. There’s a reason straight guys police their behavior if they know someone around them is anti-gay. If they are not perceived as a target, there’s a chance they might hang onto that job a little longer.
Consider this also. How many times have you heard about a guy who had sex, or even just kissed or messed around with, a guy or three in college. Not now, but then. Did you think, “Oh, he’s gay.” If you did, they you’re part of the reason that equality matters. This all-too-common perception dogs men who have had physical relationships with other men. It’s why so many hide it. Beyond fear of judgement and misunderstanding from their peers, there’s the fear of losing their livelihood over what’s become a “shameful secret.”
You can be fired for being gay. And what’s gay can be in the eye of the beholder.
Add legal protection for sexual orientation and everyone benefits. Include gender expression and identity and it gets better. While this is believed to apply to trans*people, it’s there to cover anyone who is discriminated against for failing to conform to mainstream gender ideals.
Now, maybe you think this will never affect you. And you may be right on that score.
But what about a man or woman you work with, one who is gay.
They might not be worried about keeping their job, seeing as you work for a progressive company who would never fire someone for being gay. But they might be very worried about their family…they can’t marry their partner (who is ill), so they can’t adopt the child they’ve helped raise, and if their partner dies, what’s going to happen? Their partner’s parents have already threatened to fight for custody…and they’ll win. They’re missing a lot of work, and when they are there they’re not really there. That’s hard on your whole team.
It’s nothing your company can help. These are fights that have to be won at a higher level.
Or maybe your small company’s not as progressive as you think. No one on your line seemed to have a problem with David when his hair got longer, his voice seemed a little higher and more careful, and everyone came back from New Year’s to Sarah in David’s place. But after four months she announced that she was leaving…she told several of you she hadn’t been fired, but despite being as unobtrusive as possible and doing everything she’d been asked by management, women were “uncomfortable” with her, men had been making rude comments at her, one of the bosses had tried to grab her chest to see if they were “real”. HR told her there was nothing they could do. Almost twenty years of experience walked out the door.
But equality doesn’t affect you, does it?
How about your child, or a friend with a child? Are you concerned about them? Does their well-being affect you, whether they’re eight, or 15, or 30? If they are anywhere on the spectrum of letters, would you worry if they had to live and work, concerned that they could lose what they’ve gained because of that letter and someone else’s opinion of it, regardless of who they are as a person or worker or parent?
It’s about a lot more than cake.
The wedding cake debate sounds good on the news. It’s easy to rally around, whatever side you’re on. The happy couple is being denied what has become an important symbol of the wedding celebration. The small business is being targeted by anti-Christian radicals.
You can take a stand. Let’s say you agree that they should get their cake. And they do. And you cheer. And they do get married (you’ve moved to a state that said two adults can get married, gender irrelevant).
And then you find out that one of the grooms lost his job. Turned out the school he had been working for didn’t like everyone knowing they had a gay teacher. Were afraid it might turn donors away. You didn’t realize that someone could get married and fired in the same state.
And your seven-year-old son is mad, because he really liked Mr. Lee. He said he was the best teacher ever and he never wants to go to school again.
But why does equality matter if you’re not one of them?
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This post has been republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto