"I would have rather you come out as a lesbian."
Compulsory homosexuality, from what I understand of it, is the cultural tendency to abide by the hetero/homo binary. In this case, homosexuality is an identity that is expected and no other identity is considered besides its binary partner: heterosexuality. It is an erasure of outer or “other” sexual identities. I have personally come in contact with this compulsory homosexuality with my dad. When I came out to my dad as bisexual, I believe the fact that I was not homosexual bothered him greatly. I remember laying on my bed and trying to keep calm as he walked around my room and angrily perused my all-male band posters on the walls. “What about all this? What was that about?” he said as he looked at it. I was upset and confused as to how he was not understanding what I was telling him. Before going on a engineering education-based rant about what he unknowingly described as binaries, he told me, “I would have rather you come out as a lesbian.” I will never forget that statement. Now with this perspective on compulsory homosexuality, I can understand his perspective a little bit more. I only hope that he is now perceptive of non-hetero and non-homo identities, putting to rest his explicit compulsory homosexuality perception.
- Allie M.
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