Photo of military participants in a the 2012 Knox Pridefest parade by Flickr user Wyoming_Jackrabbit.
Used under a Creative Commons license.

At least here in the West, homophobia-phobia has long been of the most oppressive, coercive, corrosive, behavior-distorting blights on human male behavior. Homophobia-phobia being the (sometimes well-founded) fear of being mistakenly identified as a gay man when you're straight. My favorite example is men being paralyzed when asked to carry their wife or girlfriend's purse.

Because, you know, touching a purse might make you gay. Or, worse, look gay.

Because, you know, all gay men carry purses.

Or something.

Anyway, I say homophobia-phobia is a well-founded fear for straight men because... of the verbal and too-often physical bashing actual gay men have too-often had to face.

Too often at the hands of...

Straight men who themselves were...

Terrified of themselves being identified as...

Gay.

As George Carlin (in)famously put it while discussing macho in the tough ethnic-Irish neighborhood he grew up in, "A fag was a guy who wouldn't go downtown with you beatin' up queers."

Bingo! Nobody wanted to be the "fag" who wouldn't beat up "queers" because, well, then the guys wouldn't have to go downtown to find someone to beat up. If you weren't willing to go they could save a bunch of time by just beating you up instead.

So?

So, kudos to DailyKOS founder Markos Moulitsas for nailing this little sea change:

Marines and Navy personnel march in last year's Gay Pride Parade in San Diego. If wingnuts want to confuse me with these guys, why would I get upset?

One of these days, dumbass conservatives will figure out that calling me gay is not an insult. It's a compliment.

And no, they'll never really figure that out.

Source: Daily Kos

I think that's about as good as it gets.

Aside: This is a bit off topic but I didn't use Markos's original photo. Instead I used one from a recent Pride parade in my hometown of Knoxville, TN. Because another consequence of the decline of both homophobia and homophobia-phobia? The main street of town, the named in the 1890s, the one that's been blighted since the early 1970s by its name to a point where nearly all the business on the streets moved out and the ones that couldn't move started using the street addresses of the alleys behind them in a veritable orgy of homophobia-phobia? That street? Gay Street? It's having a renaissance like you wouldn't believe. The beautiful old stores, banks, and office buildings are being restored. The preserved-through-neglect nearby old city is awash in night clubs, coffee shops, and startups. And the nearby Market Square is alive at night -- verged with restaurants, ice-cream shops, boutiques, and fountains and filled with students, families with their children, the young hip and alive as well as the old and crusty -- in a way I've only seen in plazas in Greece. There aren't a lot of places more genteely homophobic or homophobia-phobic than east Tennessee so I'm thinking if it can start there -- even in a tiny area, even in a tiny way, then it can happen anywhere.

Finally!

Image from Someecards.com.

I've joked in the past about the unreflective fear that touching his wife's purse might make him gay. Or even just the fear of lookinggay (which, in too many sub-cultures, amounts to the same thing.) That's just funny in a sad sort of way. This comic reminded me that there are other scenarios where the consequences of homophobia and homophobia-phobia can be more dire.

Note: I'm giving this post a "no-sex" class tag because I think part of the flip-out about homophobia-phobia is tied to the dominant paradigm's conviction that (heterosexual) men are all and always reflexively and obligately sexual who are therefore incapable of resisting any potentially sexual activity. And thus must studiously police themselves in order to resist "turning gay."

Photo by Flickr user sparrow611. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Jeana of My Sex Professor says

A lot of advertising is, no surprise, rather sexist and regressive when it comes to gender roles. But if the advertising demonstrates an awareness of sexist tropes, is it still sexist?

Source: My Sex Professor

Her answer, and mine, is yes. As she puts it in her title "Being Ironically Sexist Is Still Sexist"

And while we're at it, using "that's so gay" when you mean "that's so uncool" is homophobic, even if all the other kids are saying it. Even when you "know" you're cool with gay people and you're just being ironic about it.

Calling someone a "dick," a "bitch," or a "cunt" when you mean uncouth, aggressive, or ruthless is also sexist. Even when you mean it ironically.

It's not a matter of knowing what it means so it's ok to use it. It's that intentionally or not, imitating such tropes and stereotypes nevertheless flatters them.

Note: Trigger warnings are in order for this post about a potential hate crime with an uncomfortable twist.

Photo of graffiti at Ballard Skate Park by Flickr user Great Beyond. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Bad news from one of my local neighborhood's news blogs, My Ballard:

Just about two weeks ago, Tad and Cindy Anderson’s daughter, Tiva, was attacked with a baseball bat near the skate park at Ballard Commons Park. She suffered a serious head injury, but Tiva is expected to make a full physical recovery. However, her parents say she’s emotionally fragile since the attack.

...

“She has learning disabilities that can make it hard to interact with her, and she is transgender (biologically male but considers herself female and sometimes dresses that way),” the parents write in an email to neighbors. “It probably should have been obvious to us a long time ago, but this turns out to be a dangerous combination. Transgender people are the most likely to be harassed and Tiva is particularly vulnerable due to her limited social skills.”

...

The only thing the parents know is that the attacker is a white female, and they believe she may hang out around the skate park. “The female came up along side [of her] and told her, ‘I don’t want to see you around the skate bowl anymore,’” the police report states. “The female then struck [her] on the right side of the head with the baseball bat.”

Source: My Ballard Blog

The police aren't certain the attack was specifically because the victim is transgender, and in our neighborhood it's entirely possible it wasn't. In which case it would be, what? "Regular" bullying not of a trans kid but of a developmentally disabled girl? With a baseball bat? Either way not so great.