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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It’s odd that one can think oneself as enlightened and educated but then find that one still carries prejudice. I’m in my mid sixties so I grew up in a very different world. A world where not only could same sex couples not marry, but homosexual activity was actually illegal in most states in America. We were always taught that homosexuality was bad. I’m glad things have changed but I’m having a hard time keeping up with it. I keep coming across new words I don’t know referring to different sexual preferences I’d never heard of. Just yesterday I first read the term “scoliosexual” which I’m not sure I understand. New letters keep getting added. I had finally memorized “LGBT” when they added “Q.”  I must admit I don’t understand what the Q adds. But now they’ve added “IA.”  I don’t even know what those letters stand for. But I’ve recently realized that I still carry prejudice. My son is 14 and has no interest in girls. This seems odd to me because we were all girl crazy at that age. To me this seems weird. But my son thinks it’s weird that I was so interested. To him that seems incomprehensible. I’ve asked him if he’s interested in boys and he says no. DW doesn’t think he’s gay. But what concerns me is that this concerned me. I guess when for so many years one is taught that something is bad, you can’t just wish the prejudice away. But maybe that’s the problem. Telling people that they should be ashamed of being prejudiced doesn’t make anyone less prejudiced; it just makes them deny that they’re prejudiced, even to themselves. And that only makes it worse because any problems like addiction or racism can’t be corrected if we refuse to admit that we have the problem. We shouldn’t be telling people prejudice is something to be ashamed of. We should be treating prejudice like a disease which should be cured. [/quote]

This resonates with me a lot.  So thank you.   I feel similarly.  I have realized I have a lot of ingrained prejudice from my childhood and the thoughts can still pop up at moments of personal stress or tension, even though I genuinely disavow them at this point in my life and don't agree with any of it.  And then you feel guilt and shame.  And the fear of someone finding out or saying/doing "the wrong" thing.

We also worry for our kids.   It's different for them now, but it's hard to let go of the fear that being at all "different" will lead to a harder life and just general challenges.   In our day, life was not kind to people outside the heterosexual norm.  Hard to shake those memories.[/quote]

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