恐同、柜子及出柜的障碍
智利驻华大使馆外交官
曽著Homofobia El límite de la razón y la falsa promesa igualitaria
对于那些刚刚开始探索自身生活方式的同性恋人群，负面的社会认知和刻板印象是一项难以承受的沉重负担。其他人不仅假装了解我们的自我认知以及由来，也认为他们理解我们的行为、愿望、外貌甚至人生抱负。实际上，我们的确能感受到来自他们的那种我们难以达成的期望。
同时，我们还不得不忍受恐同群体施加于我们的暴力。也许我们看到了很多因为公开出柜而备受折磨的同性恋者，可我们中的很多人也或多或少地听过父母对于子女不是性少数者感到庆幸的声音。
所有这一切都足以让我们产生恐惧，害怕让别人失望，害怕辜负家人的期望甚至被排斥在外。
恐同暴力是我们，LGBT社群中的每个人，都会遭受的暴力。这种暴力滋生恐惧和愧怍，并在很多时候让我们认为自己是残缺的，需要得到治疗和修正。
考虑到社会环境，固化的负面印象和普遍存在的暴力，全部或部分地隐藏真我，也就成为了一个合理的替代选项。我们可以首先认可一个前提：没有人想让他人失望，被排斥或者让自己陷入孤立或危险。
换个角度而言，出柜的条件还不够成熟，不够友好和安全。
在LGBT群体的语境中，“柜子”被用来比喻这样一种情景：我们隐藏着真我，秘密地生活着。“柜子”存在的唯一原因仅仅是恐同风气。
需要强调的一点是留在柜子中的人们无可责难。因为在恐同的社会环境中，保持沉默和隐秘生活是无可厚非的。没有人主动选择呆在柜子里，只是周遭的恐同暴力让柜子成为了我们的次优解。
我们不能忘记：异性恋者可以走到阳光下并且向所有人坦陈他们自己。他们无需冒着辜负他人期望的危险，仅仅因为他们是异性恋者。与之相反，LGBT人群无法享有与之对等的宽泛环境。
LGBT群体中的每一个人都会在某个时侯需要决定是否公开自己的非异性恋身份。不幸的是，社会仍预先假定每个人都是异性恋者，因此LGBT的存在对于我们周围的其他人来说是异常的、期望之外的。这就是为什么成为LGBT会让家人和朋友感到失望。
许多LGBT人士都认为，来自外界的期望是我们必须承受的最沉重的负担。出于这个原因，很多人害怕出柜，不敢承认内心隐藏的自己，而决定守着秘密生活。但是，这种隐隐藏藏的生活会让我们所有人在心理上承受高昂的代价，使我们无法摆脱内疚或羞愧，无法自在地生活，尽情享受生活的一切。
被排斥的恐惧太过强烈，以至于许多人选择过双重生活，在公共场合伪装成异性恋，而私底下是同性恋。
许多LGBT人士是如此强烈地恐惧被排斥，以至于他们最终付出了巨大的努力来满足别人的期望。因为承受不住这样的压力，不少人试图改变他们的LGBT状况，开始调整自己以顺应异性恋的态度和行为。
这里必须谈到这种恐同暴力的另一方面。恐同群体对同性恋群体的刻板印象从来都不是正面的。相反，他们将性少数者的生活方式视为一出荒诞剧，一场倒错复制着异性恋的两性角色和生活方式的模仿。这些刻板印象还形成了一套由LGBT的一些姿态和说话习惯特征组成的识别系统。所有这些都是他们对LGBT群体施以暴力，把他们推进柜子里的手段。很多待在柜子里的LGBT都会避免任何招致性取向怀疑的行为，就因为害怕被发现不是异性恋者。
这种刻板印象有两种必须特别提及的影响。一种是对个人的，许多人为了避免作为LGBT被污名化，倾向于表现得和异性恋一样。另一种是对群体的，这种影响产生了社群的分裂，因为许多人不想成为被污蔑被鄙夷的群体中的一员。
当我们考虑到前述的所有内容时，我们很容易理解为什么这么多LGBT人士变得畏缩、胆怯或者脆弱，同时内心满是恐惧和愧疚。这些情况不过是生活在抱有敌意的恐同环境中的结果。
对于所有致力于帮助LGBT社群的人来说，一个重要的结论就是我们必须创造一个友好的环境，以确保我们未来的LGBT人群能够健康成长。与此同时，提升人们对于恐同影响的认知是至关重要的，它能帮助那些一直在自我接纳问题上苦苦挣扎的人减轻恐惧和愧疚，让他们作为LGBT人群能享受更加幸福快乐的生活。
一个更有益于健康发展和增强自我认同的环境，将为LGTB社群的每一位成员打开一扇通往更好生活的大门。
现在让我们回到这些刻板印象所带来的严重后果。
当我们看向镜子中的自己，我们会看到一个与恐同者想要强加于我们的形象截然不同的人。我们会发现自己和他人眼中的自我有多么不同。
毫无疑问，这种形象的扭曲是一种暴力。我们必须明白，它只是对我们这些真实的、有血有肉的人的一种错误的臆想。
当我们回想过去的经历，我们会发现当情感和欲望第一次在我们心中萌芽时，我们中的绝大多数人的第一反应都会觉得它们是本能的、自然而然的——而这就是事实，也是我们能够接受的唯一解释。不要忘记，只有当我们面对他人和他们的想法时，我们才开始觉得这些情感和欲望有什么不对的地方。
那之后我们将面临另一个挑战，即用语言表述我们具体的情感和欲望。作为一名男性，这就意味着说出“我是男同性恋者。”纵然这句话的发音无比简单，说出这句话对很多人来说却无比艰难。我们在这时意识到，生活远比单单将自己的经历转化为语言难得多。
是的，当我们这些LGBT人群看向镜中时，我们会发现无视围绕在我们周围的恐同行为并不是一件容易的事。对我们来说，最大的挑战就是不让自己和自我认知被这些对事实的歪曲掌控。我们绝对不能用恐同群体的度尺来衡量自己人生的价值。
在通往健康与幸福的路上，我们的第一个挑战就是接受真实的自我。只有当我们接受了自己，才能面对他人。
首先让我们澄清一点：出柜这个过程是LGBT群体所独有的。异性恋从不需要出柜。我们都被默认为了异性恋，所以需要对亲友表明自己的特殊性，这才有了出柜的需要。
LGBT群体在这方面的例外性归咎于我们周围人的一个带有强烈恐同色彩的想法，即异性恋是唯一正常的生活方式。不幸的是，这反映了我们生活的大环境。
我们都知道，我们生活在一个相对恐同的环境里。这迫使我们谨慎权衡出柜是否可能或安全。我们清楚出柜有时可能会引发周围人激烈的反应。我们每个人都有出柜或不出柜的权利，我们不能替他人决定是否出柜，我们无权这样做。
我们必须理解那些还未出柜的人，只有他们自己知道他们面临着多大的挑战。他们不出柜并非因为他们是软弱的懦夫，而是由于恐同所带来的沉重负担与棘手的后果。
与此同时我们还面临着另一个难题：我们的日常生活都是在不同情境中展开的。每一个情境都有其独特的价值体系。由于LGBT无法在所有地方被接受，这就使得出柜成为了一个具有选择性的举动。有些人只对朋友出柜而没有对家人坦白，也有些人选择不在职场出柜。同样地，这并非投机取巧，而是因为恐同在我们生活的不同情境中的表现形式和影响程度不尽相同。
最后，我一定要再次强调，挑战和困境不应该成为我们责备自己的理由。恰恰相反，我们在恐同的环境中仍然认真对待生活，彰显了我们的努力和力量。
最后，我一定要再次强调，挑战和困境不应该成为我们责备自己的理由。恰恰相反，我们在恐同的环境中仍然认真对待生活，彰显了我们的努力和力量。
LGBT组织一项最重要的工作就是，给还在苦苦挣扎的性少数者以支持，帮助他们从一无所知到最终接纳自己，并且勇敢而坦荡地生活。
此外，我还想再补充一点。
恐同情绪是客观存在的，与之伴生的暴力也深刻地影响着我们。我们应当谨慎应对，并设计出足以保障自身安全与尊严的行动预案。但我们绝不应该被社会刻板印象束缚，也绝不应接受恐同人群的无理指摘。
我们应当主张，做自己是一项固有权利，换言之，去塑造我们的自我认知——这是肯定自己和悦纳自己的关键一步。
译文：
Infamous representations and stereotypes are a heavy burden to deal with, specially for those who are beginning to live their own and intimate homosexual experience. At this point, we find out that others pretend to tell us who we are and why we are so, but also they think they know about our behavior, desires, looks and even our aspirations. As a matter of fact, we become conscious of all the expectations that are upon us and that we are not fulfilling.
At the same time, we have to deal with all the little acts of violence that homophobic people impose on others like us. Probably, we have seen many men and women suffering because they decided to live openly. There is also a chance that many of us heard in our own homes parents giving thanks for not having LGTB sons and daughters.
All of this is enough to give birth to fear inside ourselves and make us afraid to disappoint others, to break our family’s expectations and to be rejected.
Homophobic violence is a kind of violence to which all of us, men and women of the LGTB community, are exposed. It creates fear, guilt, and many times makes us believe that we are defective and that we must be repaired and corrected.
When many of us consider this context, featuring infamous representations and repeated aggressions, to stay more or less hidden might seem a very reasonable alternative. And let us be honest on this point: No one wants to be a disappointment, to be rejected or endanger him or herself.
Now if we look from another point of view, we can say that there are not conditions friendly enough, or safe enough, to come out of the closet.
For all of us in the LGTB community, the closet is a metaphor that we use to refer to this situation of living hidden, keeping our lives in secret. And the only reason for the existence of this closet is homophobia.
One important thing to emphasize is that those that remain in the closet are not guilty for it. They cannot be guilty for choosing to remain silent or hidden when outside there is this homophobic environment in which we are all expected to live. No one chooses the closet voluntarily, because there is always some kind of violence around that suggests it as a better alternative.
Let us remember that heterosexuals are not expected to come out and confess to others that they are so. They do not risk to break others expectations based on the unique fact of being heterosexual. On the contrary, they enjoy a comfortable environment not available for LGTB people.
Every LGTB man and woman has to face at some point the decision to declare or not that he is not heterosexual. Unfortunately, the initial assumption is still that every one is heterosexual and, therefore, LGTB conditions are considered exceptional, not expected for the rest of the people around us. This is why to be LGTB creates the feeling of being a disappointment to family and friends.
Many LGTB men and women have shared that expectations are one of the heaviest burdens that we must bear. For this reason, many LGTB people fear to come out and confess to others what they have reserved inside, and they decide to live hidden lives. But this living in secret has a high psychological cost for all of us and forbid us to live in freedom and enjoy all the experiences of life without guilt or shame.
The fear to rejection can be so intense, as to lead many to choose to live a double life, heterosexual in public and secretly homosexual.
Many LGTB men and women feel with such an intensity this fear to rejection that they end up investing huge efforts to comply with the expectations of others. Broken under these pressures, not few decide to change their LGTB condition and begin to adjust to heterosexual attitudes and behavior.
And there is another aspect of this homophobic violence that must be touched upon. Stereotypes of LGTB people born on homophobic ideas are never positive. Instead, they represent the LGTB experience as a caricature, emphasizing inversion on the expected heterosexual “sexual roles” and daily behavior. These stereotypes also set up an identification system that makes of some gestures and speech habits symptoms of an LGTB condition. All of these are ways to violent LGTB people and push them inside to the closet. Many LGTB men and women in the closet would avoid any kind of suspected behavior only because of fear to be recognized as a non heterosexual person.
Stereotypes have two effects that must be specially mentioned. One is upon individuals, many of which tend to behave in a straight way only to avoid the stigma of being LGTB. The other is collective, meaning that creates dissociation because many do not want to be part of a group of people that is stigmatized and despised.
When we consider all the previously described, we can easily understand why so many LGTB people become shy, timid or fragile, feeling fear and guilt all at the same time. These features are just a consequence of living in a hostile and homophobic environment.
An important consequence for all those that work giving support to the LGTB community is that we must create a friendly environment in order to secure a healthy development of our new generations of LGTB men and women. At the same time, it is important to promote a better understanding of the effects of homophobia in order to help those that already have struggles accepting themselves to release fear and guilt and enjoy a more satisfactory and happy experience as LGTB.
An environment able to promote a healthier development and to strengthen self- esteem will open the door for better conditions of life for every member of the LGTB community.
Let us go back now to the violent effects of the stereotypes.
When all of us look ourselves into a mirror we see someone totally different from the stereotypes that homophobic people want to apply to us. We discover then that there is an enormous difference between what we see in ourselves and the image drawn by others.
Of course, we must consider this distortion as an act of violence and understand that it only creates a fiction, a fallacious representation of the reality of us, people of flesh and bones.
If we remember our own experiences, we can agree that most of us one day began to see feelings and desires awaking inside ourselves. Our first impulse was to experience them as totally spontaneous and normal. And this is the reality of them, the only representation we must accept. Let us not forget that only when we face others and their ideas we began to sense that something is out of place with these feelings and desires.
Then we must face another challenge. This is to be able to say the words that describe the specific way in which we feel and desire. In the case of a man, this could mean to say “I am gay”. And though it sounds very easy to pronounce this sentence, the fact is that for many this is extremely difficult. We understand then that to live is not as easy as to verbalize our experience.
Yes, when we LGTB people look into the mirror, we discover that it is not easy to put aside all the homophobia circulating around us. Our greatest challenge is to avoid that these misrepresentations get a hold on us and determine our relationship with ourselves. We must never value our lives in accordance to the precepts of homophobic people.
Our first challenge in the way to live healthy and happy lives is to accept ourselves just as we are. Only after this first acceptance we can face others.
Now, let us be very clear about this: coming out is a process exclusive to LGTB people. Heterosexuals have never been in the need to come out. And this need to come out is based on the fact that we are expected to be heterosexual and, therefore, we are declaring something exceptional to our families and friends.
This unexpected character of LGTB conditions is consequence of the fact that people around us believe that heterosexuality is the only normal way of life. And this is an extremely homophobic idea. Sadly, it reflects the circumstances in which we are supposed to live.
As we all know well, we live our lives in a generally homophobic environment. This imposes the need to choose whether it is possible or safe for us to come out. For we are aware that coming out can mean an extremely violent reaction from people around us. And there lies the right of each of us to come out or not. We cannot decide for others and take someone out. It is not our decision.
But we also must be empathic to those that have not come out yet, because only they know what challenges they would face. They are not in the closet because they are weak or coward, but because homophobia is a terrible burden and it is not easy to deal with its consequences.
And there is still an additional complication. We all deploy our daily activities in different scenarios. Each one of these holds its own set of values. This makes the coming out a selective process, because our LGTB condition will not be welcome in all of them. Some people might be out to their friends and not their families, while others might choose not to be out in their working places. Once again this is not because of an opportunistic approach, but because homophobia threats our lives in all of its scenarios in different ways and with different levels of consequences.
I cannot end this remarks without reaffirming that we are not to blame ourselves because of the challenges we must face. On the contrary, our lives are an example of effort and strength as we are always striving through a homophobic environment.
One of the greatest works that LGTB organizations do is to provide support to those struggling in their first steps towards self acceptance. They are also helping them to live without guilt and fear.
Now, there is one last idea I would like to present.
We know that homophobia is over there and that many of us have been deeply affected by its violence. We should be careful, of course, and take as many steps as are necessary to secure our safety and integrity. But we do not have to believe the representations and accept the judgments of homophobic people.
We should reclaim for us the exclusive right to represent ourselves, in other words, to build our own self-image. This is an important step to self-assurance and affirmation.
著作封面
撰稿：César
编辑：关关
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