I think in many circles of modern society there is a perception that it is no longer acceptable to openly express overtly racist sentiments, meaning that it’s now seen as impolite to openly verbally express racial prejudices without trying to camouflage it in other terms. Of course people are still just as racist as ever, there’s no denying that, they can and do talk about how many “black friends” they have while working day in and day out to screw over communities of color. In the case of homophobia, however, in many of those same circles of society it is still seen as acceptable to openly verbally express hatred of GLBTQ people. This is gradually changing, thankfully, but I can personally testify that many people have no problem telling me to my face just what they think of me as a gay man, no matter how many people are around.

Late last Friday night, a man came up to my boyfriend and me on the train here in Phoenix and told us we were sinners, he then proceeded to threaten us with violence. He then called his girlfriend on his cell phone and told her he was about to kill some faggots, that he was going to follow us after we got off the train and kill us. It was not just us 3 on the train, but everybody else just pretended not to hear or pretended they were asleep. So please don’t use the tired refrain that an oppressed group of any kind whines too much, it’s just not true. 99.9% of the time oppressed people “complain” about prejudice, we are not lying, we are not whining, we are not blowing it out of proportion, we are exposing the truth and forcing people to face the sometimes uncomfortable fact that prejudice of all kinds “still” exists in our society and is just as powerful and just as damaging as ever.