Heterosupremacism

While often described as fear or hatred of homosexuals, homophobia can be more accurately and more literally be explained by the word heterosupremacism. Further it may be useful to introduce the word heterosupremacism into our conversations about homophobia, in order to break through some of the avoidance and denial that homophobia often seems to evoke. The word “homophobic” in particular seems to clam up straight people, at least in my experience. When straight people feel homophobia is being attached to them or their actions, they tend to shut down and stop listening. (If they are conservative, they shut down because they are angry at being held to an expectation they do not agree with. It’s nonsense! If they are liberal, they shut down because they are making a leap in their own mind from homophobia to being a bad person, and if there is one thing a liberal cannot tolerate, it is the suggestion that they are not a good person. It just can’t be!) My hope is that if we start a conversation about the social phenomenon of heterosupremacism, straight people will be able to stand to stay in the conversation.

A lot of radical queer discourse criticizes assimilation, but my current interests are the multitude of phenomena around straight people’s homophobia. I want to start using the word heterosupremacism to encompass and better explain all the homophobia I encounter. I am present in the straight world and I love my straight people. And while I am constantly disappointed with queers who aspire to little more than assimilation, my personal revolutionary impulse is to challenge our whole culture not just other queer people. Gays who want to blend in to straight culture and leave it more or less unchallenged perpetuate homophobia. But they didn’t invent it.

The word homophobia resists clear definition because almost every available definition fails to capture its scope. The word is used for everything from violence against queers to straight men’s fear of expressing their love for their male friends. Heterosupremacism better captures the enormity of the context in which so many permutations of homophobia flourish. Homophobia itself is an ever-expanding and self-sustaining set of harmful, violent, insidiously soul-crushing activities that arise from heterosupremacism. Heterosupremacy is a close collaborator with the behemoths patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy, and may in fact be considered a bloated appendage of patriarchy that has taken on a life of its own.

For the time being, here is a working definition of Heterosupremacism:

1. Belief in the moral superiority of heterosexual people, families and lifestyles, along with a corresponding belief in the moral inferiority or defectiveness of queers and all others who deviate from heteronormativity in expressions of gender, desire, and/or kinship arrangements.

• Politicians or other authority figures opportunistically positioning themselves with their families in order to be seen as morally good, upstanding and virtuous. He’s a “family man.”
• Congratulatory discourse characterized by heterosupremacist approval code words, such as “family values” and “Main Street.”

2. A worldview that does not include the queer and is perpetually startled, surprised, shocked, and/or disgusted by the appearance and presence of that which is queer. Failure to see or notice all that is queer, and statements of disbelief, skepticism or obliteration that separate the queer from the real.

• When people do not acknowledge sexual orientation, or say it does not matter, thereby literally diminishing the importance of your identity and simultaneously ignoring the differences you are expressing.

3. A form of sexism/patriarchy that applies specifically to valuing heterosexuality, praising it, lauding its various expressions as valuable in and of themselves, and treating it as universal and normal.

• Gay marriage as a normalizing movement where differences are denied, almost a form of “sexual orientation blindness.”
• The absence from public sight all the single parent families, communal living households, multi-generational households and families where there are no blood relations, all of which have existed throughout history and continue to exist and flourish.

4. Discourse that affirms traditional gender roles regardless of whether or not it specifically pertains to sexuality.

• The assertion that the patriarchal family is somehow “natural.”
• Retrograde explanations of gender-conforming behaviors in terms of biological functions designed to perpetuate the species, evolutionary biology, and/or references to oppressive behaviors as being “hard-wired.”

A straight friend told me about his homophobic mother. A lesbian couple moved in next door, and she got to know them. Eventually she came to think that they were nice and normal and not so bad at all. My friend cited this reduction in her homophobia, and noted the importance of becoming familiar in order to reduce fear and hate. Yet thinking the lesbians next door are normal does not decrease homophobia. She simply moved them from queer into not-queer. This change of heart does not move any actual beliefs or assumptions about those who are queer. It merely permits one set of (wealthy, white, Massachusetts married) lesbians into the concept of normal, and maybe primed that barrier for another homo to make a similar move in the future. If we understand homophobia as an activity of institutionalized heterosupremacism, it would be much easier for me to explain to my friend that sadly, this change of opinion is not so earth shattering as he believes. His mother’s exceptional neighbors drive home the reality of heterosupremacism. Heterosupremacism is so firmly in place that while these two women can change their status within it, the change does not dislodge the system in which our whole conversation is happening.

Heterosupremacism is hegemonic, and what I mean by that is it doesn’t have to be articulated belief in order to be present. In fact it derives some of its power from being unstated, from seldom being named. By not being named, it is perpetuated not as an ideology, but as simply the agreed upon “the way things are,” which provides it with protection from criticism and opposition. The uniqueness of our humanity is ignored when we frame everything in terms of heterosupremacist standards for our appearances, gender expressions, relationships, sexuality and identity. No one is spared from the pressure to conform, and gender and sexuality benefit from a world-wide voluntary police force maintaining the status quo (Your parents, teachers, neighbors, boss, etc.) We skip the step of forming an opinion about heterosupremacist standards because they have already colonized us all and set up shop in our minds and bodies. Consequently we have a responsibility to name this colonizing power as accurately and as often as we possibly can, in order to regain some of our freedom. Queer, straight and otherwise, humans will breathe easier when heterosupremacism can be named, discussed and diminished in its tight grip over how we understand each other and ourselves.