No hun... I can't blame you for not knowing this since you weren't around at the time, but lesbians were JUST as "disgusting" and stigmatized as gay men were during this era. We were just as unaccepting of lesbians as we were of gay men back then. And lesbians were JUST as "singled out" as targets of homophobic ire as gay men were. I'm assuming you are less aware of this simply because a male dominated society will always prioritize male issues over female ones. That does not mean that homophobia and abuse toward gay women was any less prevalent than it was toward gay men in society, because it WAS just as prevalent (I lived through it!), and people always "minded" lesbians just as much. Also, if you haven't noticed the jokes, stigmas, and homophobia against lesbians during the 70s, 80s, and 90s, look harder. It was ever-prevalent in media, in the default mindset, in society as a whole. As someone else mentioned, Elton John came out as bisexual in 1976 and as gay in 1988, and his success and popularity was hardly affected. Ellen Degeneres, however, came out in 1997, and she immediately lost her career. She was hated by society and labeled as a "filthy queer." Despite her fame before coming out, she was struggling to find ANY work for a very long time after this. This in itself shows the struggles that gay women were facing during these times, and such treatment was regularly ignored and seen as "normal." Gay women faced challenges that even gay men were not-- while gay men and gay women were facing the same stigma, hatred, homophobia, and rejection from society, gay women also had the oppression of their issues being more widely ignored than the very same issues that their gay brothers were experiencing... because they were women. (These times were also considerably more sexist and prejudice toward women).
If you were a homosexual, you hid it. Getting outed as a gay man or a gay woman meant losing your career, possibly being disowned by your family, and being rejected by society. There is a reason that gay women were fired after getting outed, would lose child custody rights after getting outed, would be ridiculed and shunned by society for getting outed.
I recommend watching the film "Boys Don't Cry." It depicts the true, tragic story of Brandon Teena, a transgender man born in 1972, who faces endless homophobia in America because of his identity. He is constantly being threatened, beaten, and abused by hateful homophobes when people incorrectly perceive him as a "f*cking dyke," and he is shunned by society because society takes him as a lesbian. Tragically, the film ends with some of his "friends" realizing that he is, in fact, biologically a female who is in a relationship with another female. This evokes disgust, outrage, and hatred in Brandon's "friends," and in a horrific and unthinkable scene, they brutally and repeatedly rape him before murdering him. This is what lesbian women (and gay men and trans people) were dealing with during this time. These horrible, prejudice views still exist today among homophobic bigots, of course, but the fact is that in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, lesbians were deemed "disgusting and -
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freddie1768 (18)
4 years ago
- and filthy queers," and they had to hide their sexuality for their own safety and reputation. I will emphasize again, gay women were NOT anymore tolerated than gay men. If anything, they suffered double in that they faced traditional homophobia, homophobia in the form of sexual abuse, and had their struggles ignored for so long (Also don't forget that sexism was also much more prevalent in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Society was far less willing to listen to a group of "queer" women advocating for "equal rights" than they were to listen to a group of homosexual men advocating for the same thing).
Lesbians were just as hated and rejected as gay men were during the 70s, 80s, and 90s, but unfortunately lesbians had a harder time than gay men when it came to getting society to recognize the abuse they were constantly experiencing (AGAIN, because society will listen to homosexual men saying "We want change" MUCH sooner and easier than they will listen to a group of homosexual women saying the same thing.
Thus, it eventually became better recognized that lesbians were facing the same homophobia and intolerance as gay men, but that their abuse had simply been ignored because they were women. And, thus, "GLBT" was then changed to "LGBT." To finally give acknowledgment to the disproportionate and accepted abuse that lesbians were facing at the time.
Gibson's comment regarding homosexuals wasn't anything out of the ordinary at the time-- it was expected. It's nothing out of the ordinary for homophobes to say about lesbians or gay men today, either. It just wouldn't be put into a movie nowadays.
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freddie1768 (18)
4 years ago
(My own father happens to be a shameless homophobe who is the first to say "Eww that is sick, I'm gonna puke" when we are watching a movie and two women kiss. My grandma is nauseated at the very mention of two women behaving intimately or romantically together. Some homophobes get off to gay male porn or lesbian porn (LGBT people are also deeply fetishized and dehumanized while simultaneously creating a "gag" reflex in society), but they don't tolerate these people anymore in actuality. Sadly, this is just the way homophobes are). Just go look up the Youtube comments for the song "Girl Crush" by Little Big Town. The song was completely hated and boycotted when people mistook it as a "lesbian song," even though it was actually about a heterosexual woman. And yet, it got marked as a "disgusting gay song." That was 2014.
Also, like someone else said here, homophobic guys who jack off to lesbian porn still have the response of "ew a filthy d*ke" when seeing a lesbian in a normal or romantic context. Liking lesbian porn has nothing to do with tolerating homosexual women, and male consumption of lesbian porn actually perpetuates negative stereotypes and objectification of gay women.
When a homophobe jacks off to the fake lesbian porn that is made for male consumption, the context is purely: "These 2 porn stars are kissing to turn on a man who will soon enter the scene and have sex with both of the women." But when the same homophobe then sees two women kiss in a movie or setting where the context is NOT purely "hot heterosexual women performing for a male audience," their reaction is "EW gay," just as their reaction would be if it were 2 men. There is the same "ick factor" of seeing any same-sex couple to a hetero-normative society. This relates to how straight women love and fetishize gay men when it is their "ideal" context of gay men, but absolutely hate lesbians because they are "gross." Indeed, gay male porn is the most popular porn category for straight women, who often are sickened by the thought of intimacy between two women.
Society, of course, is not going to admit to this blatant hypocrisy, so unfortunately lesbians get blasted with both the same homophobia you see being directed at gay men, ON TOP of homophobia via sexual exploitation and abuse.
So it is very fair what someone else here said regarding all of this: Having lived through the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s myself, I, as well as millions of others, can testify that the same stigmas and homophobia DID exist and still DO exist toward gay women and gay men; gay women's experiences are simply undermined because society centers its attention toward men. Gay women were (and still ARE) just as stigmatized and hated as gay men... Yes, even by the dehumanizing homophobes who watch lesbian porn and then think, say, and do the worst things to homosexual women imaginable.
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