40 Myths, Busted

I thought today I might make a short list of things that expose the shaky foundations of most stereotypical anti-gay myths being peddled by anti-equality groups. In doing so, I found a list, upon which I based my list. (You can view the original here.)

1) Being gay is not natural. Good, moral people and God-fearing Christians always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.

2) Being gay is un-African. Real Africans obviously reject unnatural un-African things like clothing, shoes, cars, cell-phones, soccer and of course, Christianity.

3) Marriage equality for gay people will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall - or hanging around politicians will make people like Juliaaas smart.

4) Marriage equality for gay people will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even want to marry their pets or underage children because everyone knows dogs and children have legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

5) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, men can still marry as many women as they like, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.

6) Gay marriage is a new invention, no matter what the ancient histories of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Japan, China, Africa, Medieval Europe - and Wikipedia say about it.

7) Straight marriage will be less meaningful because marriage equality for gay people is allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears's 55-hour just-for-fun straight marriage would be destroyed.

8) Gay people shouldn't be allowed to marry because then we can't go on criticizing them for living together "in sin".

9) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.

10) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children. Duh.

11) Marriage equality for gay people is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country, no matter what people believe. That's why we have only have one religion in South Africa.

12) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.

13) Gay people shouldn't be allowed to adopt, teach or look after children because gay people are pedophiles and pedophiles belong in institutions - like the Catholic Church.

14) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, air-travel or cellphones.

15) Gay marriage shouldn't be allowed because the sanctity of straight marriage would be threatened by gay divorce.

16) Because gay marriage is now legal, it means straight people will have to get married to same-sex partners too. It's all part of that terrifying homosexual agenda to turn the whole world gay and latch onto our children.

17) Gay people shouldn't be allowed in churches because God - and the liars, hypocrites, gamblers, alcoholics, philanderers and adulterers - who outnumber them ten to one, would be offended.

18) Gay people are not born that way, they choose to be gay - just like straight people choose to be straight.

19) Like everything sinful, being gay is way too much fun. They must really enjoy getting beaten up and victimized - because we all know how much fun it is to be picked on, isolated and miserable - when they could simply choose to live the straight lifestyle, conform and fit in - which shows just how messed up they really are.

20) Homosexuality is a suicidal lifestyle choice - and we will keep on making their lives as miserable as possible, so that they go on proving us right.

21) Gay people commit suicide because their lifestyle choice makes them miserable and unhappy, not because of the social pressure to conform, rejection, persecution, criticism and victimization forced upon them by straight people who are simply using these methods to try to correct them.

22) HIV/AIDS is a gay disease, and that is why so many straight people pass it on and die from it each year.

23) Gay kids "come out" just to get back at their parents for revenge or spite. That's right folks, as always, it's all about you.

24) If kids are gay, it reflects on the parents. Parents of people like Adam Lambert, Martina Navratilova, Jody Foster, Caroline Cossey, Oscar Wilde, Alan Turing, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Alexander the Great should be ashamed.

25) To prevent your children from turning gay, it is important to raise boys as boys, with discipline - and girls as girls, to know their place - and that is why today there are no gay people - or women, in the armed services of the world.

26) What consenting adults do behind closed doors and in the privacy of their own relationships, IS everybody's business because it affects us - and let's face it, a good deal more interesting than anything we see in public.

27) Gay men are not REAL men, and gay women are not REAL women - which is precisely why human rights and equality do not apply to them. Only REAL men and REAL women qualify to be regarded as human enough for human rights to apply to them.

28) Gay and trans people are simply "confused" because they haven't found the "right one" yet. Once they do, they will stop this silly nonsense, settle down and have children like everybody else.

29) The only purpose of life, love, sex and marriage is to make lots of babies because in 2010, the world is still so incredibly underpopulated. The only purpose of having a good career, is to have the money to pay for it all.

30) A transsexual woman is not a REAL woman - everybody knows it takes a uterus and ovaries and having been raised wearing frilly pink dresses since childhood to make a REAL woman, which is why we treat women who have had hysterectomies, or women who cannot birth children, like men.

31) A transsexual may look like a woman, sound like a woman, feel like a woman and have female documentation, but will always be a man because he was born with male equipment, even though none of it is there anymore. For this exact same reason, any man who has lost his testes because of illness or accident is no longer entitled to be treated like a man.

32) Transsexuals should not be allowed to marry because they are neither REAL men nor REAL women, no matter what their identity documents say. Allowing this would severely undermine the sanctity of Elizabeth Taylor's eight marriages.

33) Transsexuals threaten the family and society because they reject the Patriarchy, blur the gender lines and confuse people with a low IQ. And besides, the Pope says so.

34) Transsexuals are perverts in women's clothing who prey on little boys - because we all know that gay people are pedophiles and REAL, straight men are expected to defend weak, vulnerable women against them.

35) Allowing transsexual women to use the ladies room will expose REAL women to sexual harassment, because transsexuals are all into women, are that desperate, and have nowhere better to find dates.

36) God hates gay and trans people, that's why He made them gay and trans - and all those gay animals on Discovery Channel too.

37) The Christian bible is the "inerrant" word of God - that is why it has been changed, edited, mistranslated - and had whole books ripped out of it in the last 2000 years because they were "heretical" and not truly written by God. (Oh, the irony!)

38) Changing your gender is a sin and it says so in the bible - because we all know they did gender reassignment surgery 2000 years ago.

39) The book Leviticus describes homosexuality as an "abomination", and we should stone and burn these people along with all those who eat pork, shellfish or get tattoos. The minor detail that Christ scrapped these laws, should not be seen as relevant to modern day Christians who follow every Old Testament law religiously.

And lastly,

40) "The army will make a man out of your gay son" - which is quite amusing, considering how I came out of my time in uniform to be the woman I am today. Haha.

While my version of this list is largely sarcastic, tongue-in-cheek and satirical, it is in fact quite serious in challenging exactly what many people actually believe about gay, bi and trans people.

Most anti-gay and anti-trans sentiments seem to make some sort of sense, until you start looking deeper and seeing between the lines which people who support this sort of rubbish like to draw. Pretty soon you see this garbage for what it is - garbage. The scent of what you thought was truth turns out to be a stinking morass of rot and decay, the appalling stench of bigotry, lies and deceit.

I hope, whether you are GLBT or I, or not, that you will see the funny side of this - and that it will make you think, and see the lies people present to you dressed up as cold, hard facts, for what they are.

Malicious.

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If you would like to know more about Christina Engela and her writing, please feel free to browse her website.

If you’d like to send Christina Engela a question about her life as a writer or transactivist, please send an email to christinaengela@gmail.com or use the Contact form.

All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2019.

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