scissortailedsaint:

asleepingwindow:

The idea that the shooter must be gay because he was scoping out his target makes me so fucking angry. I came home last night from the Boston vigil and my mom was saying how it now seems like he was gay because he was at the club, and I’m like no, he was scoping it out. That answer was blatantly obvious to me, but now I know straight people are going to convince themselves he was because the self loathing gay person is a story they would much rather have. “It wasn’t us, it was one of your own” and absolves themselves of the homophobia they are complicit in, of the homophobia that created the atmosphere for this horrible shooting to happen, of the homophobia from straight people that leads some gay people to be in fact self hating and campaign against equal rights. Like even if the shooter was gay, though I do not believe it for a second, he would be a product of the homophobia started and perpetuated by straight people. 

This is a huge problem in battling homophobia. Too often I see straight people mock homophobes as if they must be secretly gay, because being gay is a punishment rather than an identity to take pride in. I see them wish they have a gay child, because punishing a homophobe at the expense of an lgbt child is so awesome! I see straight people claiming that the real homophobes are the closeted gay people, because it helps them absolve themselves of homophobia and it is disgusting. 

Straight people are the culprits here, straight people and their homophobia are to blame. A man doesn’t get enraged at seeing two men kissing because he is secretly gay. And considering how many people he was able to kill on his own, it’s no surprise he scoped out the place before hand. 

The whole “homophobes are all secretly gay" thing seems like a way to say that only gay people really care about being gay. That if someone is making a big deal about gay people they’re either a self-hating closet case, or an out person who is ~excessively in-your-face~ about their sexuality. (I’m thinking of that comment someone made about how their reaction to a person coming out to them was to ask if the gay person was flirting with them, because ~why else would it matter that you’re gay~.)

And then straight people get to say that ~nobody cares if you’re gay anymore~ and pretend homophobia among straight people isn’t a concern. Or they position themselves as tolerant and "not hateful" toward gay people, even if they are openly "against homosexuality.” Because ~of course their stance is just a neutral, dispassionate opinion, it’s not like they would ever ‘get in anyone’s face’ about it.