Thread:User talk:Nebuchadnezzar/Heteronormaitivity/reply (19)

I think not being heteronormative goes further than just a passive acceptance of GLBT people in the community or of legal equality for them.

It also comes down to a more personal level. Someone has children. Do they do anything to show them the reality of GLBT people? Or "oh no, they are too young for that". But they aren't too young to be fed a constant diet of Barbie&Ken heterosexuality. Yeah, so this person could support marriage equality, etc., but they haven't really got heteronormativity either in my book.

Do they tell their children, "when you grow up you could have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, a husband or a wife (or two boyfriends, or two girlfriends, or one of each, to throw a polyamorist angle in there)"? Do they say, "Sometimes people who are born boys feel like they are really girls inside, or people who are born girls feel like they are really boys inside, and if you ever feel like that, that's a perfectly valid way to feel..." Or do they think, "oh, my children will not be like that" (only other people's children are gay/bi/trans). Even if someone's parents aren't actively homophobic, there is a sort of passive homophobia/transphobia which is harmful to GLBT children/adolescents too.

Only when we overcome in raising children the default assumption that everyone is cisheterosexual (and the mainstream media we feed children, storybooks and barbie dolls and Disney Princesses pining after their Prince, assumes everyone is cishet and has almost zero representation of GLBT people), then we still haven't overcome heteronormativity.