Heteronormativity is a social issue where people assume heterosexuality as the norm rather than understanding sexuality in a broader sense. This creates an uncomfortable and deeply unsettling world for people who do not identify as straight or cisgender. The U.S. social structure of marriage, until very recently, has been distinctly heteronormative. People in the LGBTQA community did not have the right to get married in many states, denying those people the legal and emotional benefits of being in a marriage. There were horror stories where people who had been together for 40 years were not allowed to see their partner in the hospital because the hospital said that they were not legally family. Additionally, there are laws in place that make home ownership and adoption much more difficult without a marriage certificate. Not being declared married legally was a huge issue in the queer community because it was denying people their basic right to happiness. In a society that supposedly highly values the idea of creating a family and stable homes, it was still a world where people could not marry the person that he, she, or they loved.
Another structural perpetuator of heteronormativity was the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Policy”. This was a very blatant rule that the people who did not identify as straight should never explain their sexuality because for some reason a person’s sexual orientation would effect their ability to fight or function as a member of the military. The patriarchal system subordinates femininity to masculinity and since being gay was attributed to being more feminine, those people who identified as gay could not possibly be considered people by the eyes of the government. This discrimination of homosexuality and the like comes from people’s fear of the unknown and much of it had to do with the AIDS crisis. Before AIDS broke out being homosexual and acceptance for such was on the rise but fear crippled the image of the gay community for many years, and continues to do so. In addition, religion is a huge opponent of people in the LGBT community. Despite the fact it never says distinctly in the Bible that homosexuality is wrong and the fact that there should be a separation between Church and state, the laws created were manifested with a heteronormative idea. These actions completely stripped the LGBTQA people of their rights as people and degraded them into a lower caste in a society that advertises itself as tolerant.
“Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum,” as Kinsey states the human mind so desires to categorize things neatly into boxes that sometimes even smart people do not take into consideration the human being in front of them is more than just one label. Every person is unique and dynamic, so taking one side of who they are and making it the whole of their person is ridiculous. One would not look at a woman who is a mother and decide that she is only a mother. She is also a friend, daughter, maybe she enjoys cliff jumping in her spare time, but each of those qualities add up to a human being with more to offer than just the traits of being a mother. However, gay people are taken as just that, gay. This limitation and the stereotypes of the flamboyant gay man, the butch gay woman, or the hyper sexualized lesbian are the main stereotypes seen in movies and television shows. Granted this is a step in the right direction to at least see people in the LGBT community in media, but the greatest win as of recently has been the rounding of these characters. By rounding, I mean that these characters are no longer flat, gay people with no other qualities. For example, in Harry Potter, Dumbledore is a gay character but it is a fairly unknown fact because it is not a part of the main plot line and it is certainly not his main contribution to the films and movies.
The privileges that accrue for people who are straight are innumerable. They never have to come out as straight. A young girl never has to just nod and smile as the family asks if she has a boyfriend yet. People who do not have to deal with this world of constant reasserting their existence by constantly having to come out are lucky. No one ever thinks about how people in the LBGT community have to come out every time they meet new people or when they introduce their significant other. In the video where gay is depicted as the norm, people are appalled by the actions taken when the girl is outed as a “breeder” (straight). However the constant social degradation is something people outside of the LBGTQA community will never feel, and just that alone is an injustice.
