Heterosexism

Introduction

Heterosexism denotes the assumption that everyone is heterosexual and the belief that people are naturally heterosexual people than homosexuals and bisexuals. In addition, heterosexism indicates discrimination and prejudice in favor of heterosexuals and against gays, lesbians and bisexuals (Rosenfeld, p. 131). As a predisposition toward heterosexuals and heterosexuality, heterosexism may be described as being "rooted and the most important characteristic of social, cultural and economic society."

Discussion

The American gay and lesbian movement, or rather gayness in general, has become increasingly visible in politics and popular culture throughout the 1990s. Enormous volumes of pro- and anti gay legislation debated, passed, and rejected mostly at the state level, but also at the national level, and the movement has continued to fight against an increasingly powerful Christian right. However, such visibility, while enormously powerful in promoting the civil rights-based agenda of the movement, has revealed the multiple factions that currently exist in the movement, most importantly, the exclusion of people of color - as well as threatened the viability of earlier liberationist aims to end institutionalized heterosexism (Weston, p. 129). While gays and lesbians may have received new prominence in national electoral politics, revealed by the 1992 presidential election and the resurgence of controversy over 'Don't Ask, do not Tell' and hate crimes legislation in the 2000 election. The movement also demonstrated its political weakness and lagging mainstream cultural acceptance at the national level by its inability to achieve a full lifting of the ban on homosexuals in the military, its failure to secure passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) in 1996, and its inability to secure federal hate crimes legislation (Robinson, p. 224).

Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, the struggle for gay rights viewed as a primarily white male movement. The concerns of women and people of color were never foremost on the gay agenda. The essential 'whiteness' of the movement became startlingly visible as gay African-Americans, Asians, and Latinos established separate sexual minority rights and AIDS organizations to help members of those particular ethnic minorities cope with both civil rights violations and the illness. The establishment of the Latino/a Lesbian and Gay Organization (LLEGO), the Native American AIDS Task Force, the National Gay Asian and Pacific Islander Network, and the National Black Gay and Lesbian Leadership Forum revealed that mainstream gay and AIDS organizations failed to recognize internalized elements of racism and sexism (Rothenberg, p. 268).

Queer Nation attempted to overcome internal division within the movement and set forth a new seemingly post-identity-based agenda in which all elements of the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community could come together under a single unifying banner.

The 1992 election found the incumbent Republican President Bush battling an economic recession, a gay minority and its straight supporters increasingly disillusioned with the Republican response to AIDS, and an increasingly powerful Christian right which aimed to revive 'traditional' family values. AIDS and the Right's negative response towards the disease brought homosexual issues to the forefront of the election forcing each Democratic contender to take a stance on gay rights ...