“Rainbow crossers” are playing with their own most feared idea: the fluidity of gender and sexual orientation. Their premise is that heterosexuality is superior to homosexuality, and that it is possible to change sexuality, which could very possibly lead to the argument that there is a better alternative.
It might sound as if they are all about kindness and freedom. However, in the end, regardless of whether the argument is that “there is nothing wrong with being homosexual, but the lifestyle homosexual people lead is bad” or that “we are not opposed to homosexuality, it is just that there is a better choice,” it is all based on the idea that homosexuality is worse than heterosexuality.
To be blunt, it is about homophobes trampling on the lives of homosexual people, telling them that they must change.
No one would stop someone who wants to choose what they think is a better life, but if that person claims that one group of people is worse than another group of people, they are discriminating.
A homosexual person could of course also become a homophobe. There is no question that the rainbow crossers’ arguments and behavior are homophobic: They fear the lives of homosexual people and their own lives as homosexual individuals, and they also fear their desire for people of the same sex.
They claim that they have “changed” and now see eye to eye with their former oppressors — who are not necessarily heterosexual, as there are many friendly heterosexual people — and agree with the idea that it is better to be a heterosexual person than a homosexual one, as they have successfully obtained “heterosexual” status.
Once they have changed, they turn around and become abusers and bullies promoting “free choice” to cover up their own fears.
These arguments, on the surface, do not appear to be ill-intended: “I am doing this for your own good,” “I have come this far along the same path” and “We will be there for you as you change.” Yet, the questions remain: Why should a homosexual person have to change? Is it a good thing for a homosexual person to “cross over” and become a heterosexual one?
They do not think of themselves as being discriminatory and they say that everyone has a right to choose how to live their life.
Why, then — as gender diversity is added to gender equality education and they say that “being different is just as good” — do they have to stress that “it is better to be heterosexual”? Why not open their minds and accept that they are heterosexual or homosexual? And what do rainbow crossers think about bisexual people?
That someone would be concerned over not being heterosexual is a concrete expression of the heterosexual hegemony.
A person can suffer without discriminating against homosexuals and, conversely, they can turn around and become bullies that oppress others.
This is also the reason why conversion therapy — which attempts to convert a homosexual person into a heterosexual one — has been banned. Fear and rejection of a homosexual person is an illness, homosexuality is not. Providing conversion therapy and promoting the view that it is better to be straight contravenes medical ethics.
When rainbow crossers say that it is better to be heterosexual than homosexual, they are using society’s deepest, but also gentlest and perhaps most sincere disgust of homosexual people, draped in a cloak of kindness.
Lee Yun-yueh is a personal care assistant.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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