Defining "Normal"

Last but not least in the realm of "gay-related-things-that-tick-me-off," I was reminded again today that no matter how much political progress we make/have made recently, we are still a long way from the majority of straight people realizing that we are "normal." That we want lives and careers and families just like them, and that it is entirely realistic and logical to hope to establish these things in the near future (and, my dear straight friends, I use "they" as a term of differentiation, but not as a term of alienation; I love you all). I think that all too often hetero people see themselves as the "norm," and everyone else as "other," rather than recognizing that they, too, have a sexual orientation, that they're not just the "default." I think the same thing happens to white people... sometimes we forget we have a race, and that white skin was not just the automatic setting from which everything else diverged. I see the orientation-related version of this most often when approaching a bar/club situation with a group of people of varying orientations. I understand completely that many of my straight friends experience a certain level of discomfort in a gay bar. Often it is completely unrelated to any kind of homophobia or fear of being hit on by a member of the same sex, but instead a matter of "how am I supposed to conduct myself in this situation?" or "it's not fun for me when there is no one I can hit on/dance with/talk to, etc." But what I suspect they don't think about or realize, is that that's how I feel in a primarily straight bar. I feel that same sense of discomfort, of not knowing how to interact with those around me, of not knowing who in the crowd is "safe" to interact with, who will "get" me. Even though I have many straight friends, I think they will agree that in a bar situation it's... different. That having gay friends may make them more comfortable in a primarily gay bar, but it by no means makes them feel "at home," or like they are on their own "turf." And I generally feel the same way in a hetero bar. I also feel similarly about being hit on by members of the opposite sex as my hetero friends might feel about getting hit on by gays. Anyway, my point here lies somewhere along the lines of considering our positions as members of various majority and/or minority groups, and giving some thought to whether or not we frequently behave as if our orientation/race/religion/whatever is the "norm" or the default, and that everyone else is "other." I know I have frequently been guilty of treating race this way, and it's something I've really been giving a considerable amount of thought and expending a considerable amount of effort to change.

Another example related to sexual orientation happened in one of my classes today. It was a 4th/5th grade class, and we were working on vocabulary relating to members of the family. The students' assignment was to read a description of a family and match the appropriate first names with the appropriate titles in the family (Mary is the mother, John is the father, etc.). One of my students, having misunderstood the gender of a name (Lindsay, I believe it was), accidentally placed the name in the "father" spot, next to the mother, Camille. I simply asked the student to try again, but the classroom teacher, a girl about my age, stopped to explain that you can't have two women as the parents because that doesn't make sense. And my students all giggled about it, finding the prospect of two female parents to be completely silly. And I know it was all innocent, and that no harm was meant by it, but that didn't stop my stomach from dropping a little bit when it was said. I'm not "out" at work here in France, and I didn't say anything, in the interests of appropriateness and professionalism, but I think situations like this are just another example of the majority group's assumption that they are the norm. And I hope that will change someday.

Ok, that's the end of my big fat gay rant. Hetero friends, what do you think about all this stuff? Gay friends, what do you think? I'm not trying to frame this as an us-vs-them situation, but rather an opportunity to compare notes on our perceptions of each other, and maybe have some productive discussion about it?