Homophobia /Microaggression

The anatomy of a homophobic microaggression.

I was at a meeting of the local senior center photo club and I was showing sunset pictures. I was showing among others these two pictures and one of the members asked where they were and I said Fire Island, another member commented… “Oh, I would never go there!”

My response was to become defensive, a little puff of adrenalin we pumped into my blood stream. I knew what he was hinting at, Fire Island = GAY and my response was this is Fair Harbor by the National Seashore.

The day before I was giving culture competency training, one of the things that I have in my presentation is microagression and this is a perfect example of microagression.

First off he had no idea what he just did and the effect it had on me. He did it as a reaction to homophobia, he did it because he wanted it to be known that he would never go to “a place like that” meaning a place that is known as a gay beach. He did it to indicate that he disproved of anyone who went there (or at least that is how I read it).

The message that I got was that this was no longer a safe place, that at least one member is homophobic to some degree. I don’t think the other people in the room even picked up on his comment; they were focused on the photo.

I found this about microagression on a sociology websites,

Microagression: A New Way of Thinking About Racism

The concept of microaggressions redefines racism and makes room for racism, prejudice, and discrimination that is unintentional and/or subtle. “Microaggressions are subtle verbal and non-verbal insults directed at non-whites, often done automatically or unconsciously” (Solórzano et al. 2002, p. 17). We might think of microaggressions as everyday-racism. When someone locks their car door as a black man walks by the crosswalk in front of their car, that’s a microagression. When someone tells a Hispanic person, “You are so well spoken for a Mexican”, that’s a microagression.

Microaggressions are a new way of thinking about race and racism. Instead of seeing racism as something overt and intentional people do to harm other racial groups, microaggressions allow space for good, well intentioned people to say or do something hurtful that’s out of character.

Microagressions is like a window into our souls, we might never do anything that is overtly homophobic and we might not even thing we are homophobic but it is like locking our doors; he subconsciously locked his doors against gays.