Evaluate the need to consistently distance oneself from queerness

No Homo: It’s important that we question the reason as to why an individual can feel obligated to refute an identity that wasn’t mentioned in the first place. “No Homo” is propped by a need to deny something, used to dissociate oneself from the possibility of being a homosexual.

It functions on the misguided premise of the fragility of masculinity in which expression of emotion automatically translates to mean, “gay,” and implies more worryingly, that there is something wrong with being gay such that it has to be refuted and reiterated that one isn’t. 

The framework within which conventional masculinity exists is fitted with an impossibility for men to show affection towards men and so “homo” in this sense is used not just as a derogatory term to refer to gay men but also as a way to reinforce a widely held belief that gay men are less men than heterosexual men by virtue of being romantically and sexually attracted to each other.  

Never use it. 

It’s fine as long as you don’t bring it close to me: Perhaps the most worrying thing about blanket statements like this is that it weaponizes homophobia to further perpetuate homophobia and that it does all of this under the guise or camouflage of allyship.  

Acceptance that comes with a list of do’s and don’ts is not acceptance at all, but apparent acceptance that extends to creating and bolstering a stereotype of gay people as predators is in actuality homophobic. 

The notion that gay people walk around imposing themselves on others has its roots in a view of homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder and gay people as people with a sexual desire that is beyond the sphere of their control. 

Aversion therapy was born from premises like this; a practice common through the ’50s and ’60s in which gay men, for instance, were forced to view pictures of naked men while electric shocks coursed through their body so they can associate the pain of electrocution with what was considered abnormal sexual arousal. 

Shoving it down our throats: When people who sometimes think themselves allies resort to saying “homosexuality is being forced down our throats,” what in many cases has inspired this stance is the howbeit minimal representation that is just beginning to exist for queer people in media. 

This train of thought is illogical for several reasons, one of which is that for something to be shoved down your throat, it implies that it doesn’t belong there in the first place. Many allies are fine with the system as is, one where heterosexuality is the norm and homosexuality deviance which they are now graciously starting to tolerate. 

They thus feel threatened by whatever appears to distort this framework, their allyship is reserved only for queerness that knows that its place will always be outside of the norm, outside of “mainstream spaces,” they do not know what to do with a queerness that is incredibly fierce and that wants to be so included so it does not bear repeating. 

Their go-to in instances like this, therefore, is to paint a picture of an adult who might be fine with gay people but is not fine with, in their opinion, being forced to gulp “gay content.”  

You must understand nonetheless that it cannot be shoved down your throat because you should be drinking it anyway. This logic can only be possible in a mind that perpetually believes heterosexuality to be the default and there is no reasonable or sustainable form of acceptance that sprouts from viewing a person as deviant. 

You hid it so well: We hear this often when a gay person comes out. It is said as praise, to mean that the person has done something right in hiding parts of themselves so much that they have to be lauded for it. 

While it might not be said maliciously, you must recognize the way in which what you might think of as a compliment is in actual sense oppressive. 

Invisibility is a defense mechanism, not something to be praised. Never forget that. 

This post is published as part of our Abolishing Oppressive Language Series. To read more from these series,click here. For comments and feedback, email: language@minorityafrica.org.