Don’t Ruin The Party 2: LGBT Bias In Nerd Culture
Last week I noted that letting racism and sexism into nerd/geek/otaku culture is inappropriate and the antitheses of our culture – and pretty much the antitheses of civilized behavior. I missed something very important, and something so obvious it’s easy to forget.
While I’m busy decrying racism and sexism, I forgot to address anti-LGBT attitudes in nerddom. It’s another thing that can ruin our continuous party, and it’s something easy to forget.
I actually encounter less anti-LGBT attitude in our culture than in many; that doesn’t mean it’s not there. It just means its easy to forget that it can and does exist, unfortunately.
I find nerd/geek/otaku culture is a place where LGBT bias is a lot rarer. We are people for whom slash is a point of casual discussion. We are people for whom yaoi is just a part of everyday fandom. We are people who are used to seeing same-sex couples at conventions. We have something to be proud of here people.
Except . . .
. . . except let us be honest, the bias is still there. You find it in homophobic slurs and casual bigotry. You find it in those moments where anti-LGBT bias you didn’t think was there bubbles up because you’ve been exposed to it from the larger culture. You may well find it in yourself and be horrified, especially if you take time to pick up on it.
Much like racism and sexism, it’s something to admit, not tolerate, and walk away from – but also we have to admit it and remember it’s there.
We can’t forget. Hey, *I* forgot and I consciously work to be tolerant. I just wrote a giant rant on bias and outright forgot, which is pretty sad.
So let’s remember so we can make sure we make the effort to drain it out of our culture, my nerds, geeks, and otaku.
Look, people are gay. People are Bi. People find they’re happier as another gender. It’s been that way all through history, and I’m sure you history geeks out there can point to plenty of cases. It’s that way now because we all know someone gay, bi, or transgendered.*
We know this. Again, we’re nerds. We value knowledge, we value awareness, and we’ve got fan fiction and fan art that means you can’t forget LGBT people because they’re the subject matter.
Anti-LGBT bias is just another case of primitive, unsophisticated, ignorant thought. It’s another case of weakness, the kind of weakness that leads people to be manipulated by bigots or by those playing on their foolishness. It’s not us, people.
Let’s just not forget it’s out there. It’s something we can do, even those of us who work hard at overcoming bias. It’s something we can forget, and thus we stop working on it.
It’s something a columnist can forget too.
Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.
* Think you don’t? Oh, you probably do.
