Living under the shadow of false and misleading stereotypes is nothing new to those of us in the gay community; we have been doing it for years. While it is true that in recent times there has been slow but steady progress toward eliminating these negative images, too many of them still remain in the collective consciousness of our society. There is still much work to be done before these offensive caricatures of gay people will finally be a thing of the past.
As a gay person, I am very thankful for the opportunity to write on this topic, and hopefully help to educate along the way. I believe that before we can truly eliminate the stereotypes and all of the negative connotations that they carry with them, we must first have an understanding of how they came into being. We must look at the sources from which they originated, so that we can come to an understanding of how they were shaped, and why they continue to hold true in the minds of so many people, even to this very day.
When I began writing this, that was my reason for doing so. However, the process of writing this article taught me something. Although I researched the subject at some length, I discovered that it would probably be extremely difficult...if not downright impossible...to trace the exact beginnings of any particular stereotype. While the Internet appears to be filled with information that convincingly refutes the validity of such beliefs, there is virtually nothing on their origin. Therefore, it would seem that the best explanation for stereotypical beliefs that anyone can offer would amount to nothing more than speculation or personal opinion...and since opinions differ dramatically from person to person, it's not likely that there will be much agreement on the subject. Discussion of the topic can offer a few plausible possibilities, but nothing more!
So, after my research showed me that I was going to have to take a different approach to this subject, I spent a great deal of time thinking about how I personally would explain this. So far, the most logical explanation that occurs to me is this: it is common knowledge that most people have a great deal of fear and hatred toward things that they do not understand, and people that are very different from them. Therefore, as a blanket theory, it is reasonable to assume that in nearly every case, these stereotypes were created out of these types of fear.
I will undoubtedly take some heat for what I am about to say next, but I'm going to say it nevertheless. Most people are really afraid of living outside of acceptable societal norms, and need to reassure themselves of their normality. In order to do that, anything or anyone that is different from them becomes a target for ridicule. I believe that when gay people started living more openly, and the rest of society began to see how many of us there are, they so feared us that they picked up on certain traits of gays, and built these stereotypes around those traits in order to separate themselves from their own fears, thus preserving their illusion of normality.
While it may seem that this simple realization is an inadequate explanation for these behaviors, it is actually of great value. Understanding that these ideas are based on fear should lead any rational person to conclude that they are incorrect; no concept or idea that is based in fear should ever be followed. The problem is that the subject of homosexuality makes most people so uncomfortable that they just refuse to examine this issue closely enough to question the validity of stereotypical beliefs. They don't want to get close enough to those fears to really get a good look at them. Instead, they are perfectly content to take the easy way out by making excuses to validate what they have been programmed to believe since childhood.
The sad truth of the matter is that society uses these stereotypes as a defense mechanism to reassure themselves of their own superiority, and of the inferiority of everything that is in their minds "abnormal." As I stated earlier, we have been making significant progress toward breaking the barriers created by stereotypes, and I still have hope of seeing a day when hatred is no longer an issue. But for now, unfortunately, there is still a long, slow climb ahead.
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