So apparently this month is LGBT Pride Month. I therefore snagged this from ontd political which gives the info that it was first put together by students of Earlham College and the poster added the links. Do I have to mention the part where ‘phobic assholes of any kind will be summarily deleted and banned? Oh who am I kidding? Homophobic, transphobic, any ‘phobic assholes of any kind will have their comments summarily deleted and be considered for banning depending on the severity of the offense. That having been done…on with the show.
- I can be pretty sure that my roomate, hallmates and classmates will be comfortable with my sexual orientation. (Example: “Gay bulling in schools ‘common’” – BBC | Campus Climate for LGs – The Task Force).
- If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented. (Example: More gay characters on TV now than before – Variety | LGBT Character Shows May Lose Tax Credit – SD G&L News).
- 03. When I talk about my heterosexuality (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I will not be accused of pushing my sexual orientation onto others.
- 04. I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my sexual orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences. (Example: PFLAG Rejection Statistics – PFLAG)
- 05. I did not grow up with games that attack my sexual orientation (IE fag tag or smear the queer). (Example: From Bullies to Heroes: Homophobia in Video Games – Student Pulse.)
- 06. I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my sexual orientation. (Example: “Camp that ‘cures’ homosexuality” – Times Online.)
- 07. I can go home from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling excluded, fearful, attacked, isolated, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my sexual orientation. (Constance McMillen Wanted to Take Her Girlfriend to the Prom, So the School Board Canceled it – CBS News.) It’s also worth noting that CBS probably chose the worst picture of her to pair with that article. It’s hard to say if that was motivated or not.
- 08. I am never asked to speak for everyone who is heterosexual.
- 09. I can be sure that my classes will require curricular materials that testify to the existence of people with my sexual orientation. (Example: Banning Gay Books – Alternet).
- 10. People don’t ask why I made my choice of sexual orientation.
- 11. People don’t ask why I made my choice to be public about my sexual orientation.
- 12. I do not have to fear revealing my sexual orientation to friends or family. It’s assumed.
- 13. My sexual orientation was never associated with a closet.
- 14. People of my gender do not try to convince me to change my sexual orientation.
- 15. I don’t have to defend my heterosexuality.
- 16. I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me for being heterosexual. (Example: Homosexuality and Religion – Religion Facts).
- 17. I can count on finding a therapist or doctor willing and able to talk about my sexuality. (Example: Rekers and the Barbarism of Anti-Gay Therapy.)
- 18. I am guaranteed to find sex education literature for couples with my sexual orientation.
- 19. Because of my sexual orientation, I do not need to worry that people will harass me. (Largest Ever Study on Anti-LGBT Harassement – GLSEN).
- 20. I have no need to qualify my straight identity.
- 21. My masculinity/femininity is not challenged because of my sexual orientation. (Examples: Are Gay Stereotypes true? – ABC).
- 22. I am not identified by my sexual orientation.
- 23. I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my sexual orientation will not work against me. (Example: ‘Doctor Shock’ – Huffington Post.)
- 24. If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has sexual orientation overtones.
- 25. Whether I rent or I go to a theater, Blockbuster, an EFS or TOFS movie, I can be sure I will not have trouble finding my sexual orientation represented. (Example: Before ‘Bruno’: A brief history of gay characters in movies and TV – NY Daily News).
- 26. I am guaranteed to find people of my sexual orientation represented in the Earlham curriculum, faculty, and administration.
- 27. I can walk in public with my significant other and not have people double-take or stare. (Example: Kiss Off: A gay couple cited for holding hands on Main Street Plaza – Salt Lake City Weekly).
- 28. I can choose to not think politically about my sexual orientation.
- 29. I do not have to worry about telling my roommate about my sexuality. It is assumed I am a heterosexual.
- 31. I can remain oblivious of the language and culture of LGBTQ folk without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
- 32. I can go for months without being called straight. (I suppose this depends on where you are and who your friends are.)
- 33. I’m not grouped because of my sexual orientation.
- 34. My individual behavior does not reflect on people who identity as heterosexual.
- 35. In everyday conversation, the language my friends and I use generally assumes my sexual orientation. For example, sex inappropriately referring to only heterosexual sex or family meaning heterosexual relationships with kids.
- 35. People do not assume I am experienced in sex (or that I even have it!) merely because of my sexual orientation. (Example: GLBT Stereotypes – GLBT Social Sciences).
- 36. I can kiss a person of the opposite gender on the heart or in the cafeteria without being watched and stared at. (Example: Is Main Street USA Ready For Gay PDA – ABC News).
- 37. Nobody calls me straight with maliciousness. (Example: John Mayer’s Apology Wanted for Use of Gay Slur – Aceshowbiz).
- 38. People can use terms that describe my sexual orientation and mean positive things (IE “straight as an arrow”, “standing up straight” or “straightened out”) instead of demeaning terms (IE “ewww, that’s gay” or being “queer”).
- 39. I am not asked to think about why I am straight.
- 40. I can be open about my sexual orientation without worrying about my job. (Example: Bias in the Workplace: Consistant Evidence of Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Discrimination [.doc download] – UCLA).”
Can you add more?
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Linkspam: Unpacking the invisible knapsack Straight privilege edition
I thought of these in the context of BDSM, but I think they apply still better to straight privilege, which unquestionably exists (I am explicitly not derailing; I am only bringing these up here as being applicable to mainstream categories of sexual orientation and to straight privilege):
* It is assumed that I have sex only with consenting adults
* My sexual tastes are taken seriously; it is assumed that I really am interested in what my behavior suggests I’m interested in and what I say I’m interested in.
* Particularly if I am in a relationship, I am assumed to feel some affection for my partner, and to respect him or her.
* If seeking a partner, I needn’t worry about whether I’m doing so in forums in which my sexuality is welcome.
And one that may be covered by the Earlham list, but put differently:
* I can be certain, if I seek psychological counseling or psychological treatment, that the professional’s efforts will be devoted to helping me with my problem, whatever it is, even if my sexual orientatoin is unrelated or tangentially related.
And five hours later I see I fucked up that last one. I was going for “no one will try to ‘cure’ my sexual orientation” but I don’t think that’s clearly written.
I understand the significance of this for highlighting heterosexual privilege, but I think it’s also worth noting that it applies in other situations too. Interracial couples, or couples in which at least one member of the couple is visibly disabled, for example, may encounter double-takes and staring in public settings.
Good list.
–IP
I’m actually have trouble with a few of those, and the attitudes they embody. For example:
I�m not grouped because of my sexual orientation.
I’m not entirely sure what it’s supposed to mean, but it seems to imply that being “grouped” is a bad thing. But straight folks do occasionally experience being grouped, as do white folks. They don’t like it, probably because heterosexual and white privilege usually ensure that they will usually be “unmarked” human beings, rather than members of a subgroup. Maybe we need more grouping of the ingroups, rather than try to stop grouping of outgroups?
I’ve been meaning for a long time to write a blog post about the word “marginalized,” which annoys me for similar reasons. Everybody can’t be in a mythical mainstream. If there’s a mainstream, there have to be people who are outside it too. The phenomenon reminds me of sled dogs who sleep together in a group, trying to work their way into the center where it’s warmest, and gradually being nudged out to the colder edge. All of them can’t be at the center. All of us don’t want to be at the center.
There are other statements in the list that imply being in a numerical minority is inherently a bad, painful thing. We’re a social species, so we want to belong, but belonging is not always a good thing. I don’t feel injured by being asked to explain why I choose to be openly gay, for example — and being openly gay is a choice, though that reminds me that a lot of the supposedly positive language I encounter about glbt issues is chosen on dubious assumptions, such as that it would be bad bad bad if being gay were itself a choice.
I don’t mean to downgrade the impulse behind the list, to get straight kids to think about the speedbumps that they don’t encounter. I’m just wary of some of the assumptions that underlie some of its examples.
Duncan, the thing about privilege lists — indeed, one of the things privilege lists are often criticized for by people who aren’t bigots — is that there’s generally no intention to suggest that these are all things that should or could be changed, or that are anyone’s fault. So while I’m not sure I would agree that the existence of a mainstream logically necessitates the existence of people outside it, even if that is true, noting it on a list isn’t positing some conspiracy of straight people.
Though, that said, there’s a difference between being in a numerical minority, which is often largely a function of chance and history and genetics, and being marginalized, which is something people do to you. Gay men and lesbians* are a numerical minority, and that’s not likely to change in the near future, but we should stop ganging up on them, and dismissing them as unimportant or irrelevant or deserving of opprobrium because of this demographic fact.
*I’m not sure how well this checklist even addresses other people who are, well, out of the sexual mainstream.
“People do not assume I am experienced in sex (or that I even have it!) merely because of my sexual orientation.”
Wait… isn’t that something that’s automatically assumed about most straight people, too?
What about bisexuality and asexuality? A lot of these apply to them as well, but they also have their own relationship to straightness that is just as important.
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While the list as a whole looks pretty good, there are a few that don’t quite ring true to me.
I suspect I’m misinterpreting this one; if so, then apologies in advance. If not: I guess this would seem true, to anybody who’s never heard someone say that all hetero-sex is rape, or that all men are potential rapists, and has never heard the word “slut” or “prude.” I rather suspect, though, that all of these things are expressions of discomfort with a given sexual orientation.
Except straight men often feel excluded/isolated/attacked (and demonized, especially in any discussion of gender), to say nothing of stereotyped and feared, and I suspect women have similar experiences to almost everything listed, though I’ll grant that I think that’s probably more about gender than about orientation. Though words like “slut” seem to be an attack on a woman’s sexual orientation, don’t they? (And the culture that uses words like that seems like one that attacks straight people for their orientation all the time.)
This whole list seems to’ve been written by somebody who’s never heard the word “slut” or “prude,” and who’s completely unfamiliar with the assumption of male sociopathy.
As mentioned above, biracial couples know what this is like, as does anyone with a SO who’s significantly more attractive than they are. I’ve got a suspicion that this is more a matter of conforming to expectations than about orientation specifically, but that’s a larger topic, I think.
I would agree with you, if nobody had ever said “all men are potential rapists,” and if nobody ever became a misogynist based on being rejected by one straight woman. I think straight men and straight women get grouped all the time, and the behavior of a few used to tar the whole group.
Full disclosure: My sexuality, while broadly “straight,” is fairly non-standard; I’m mostly speaking from observation more than from personal feelings, in that sense.
Rereading the above, it comes across as a bit more strident than I’d intended, sorry. I seem to be assuming a level of familiarity that isn’t there.
So I’ll attempt to state up front here that I agree with most of this, and am just being a bit nitpicky.