This is really not funny: 3 things not to say to gay people

The word gay comes from English and means "happy," but that doesn't mean gay people can't encounter unfortunate or truly inappropriate comments about themselves. So what should we not call them and why?

1. "So you hate women?"

Let's start with the definition of gay: A gay is a man or masculine person who feels sexual attraction only to men or masculine people. While this implies that he will not be sexually attracted to women, it does not mean that he will necessarily feel hatred towards them.

We can like other people even if we are not sexually attracted to them, for example, parents, siblings, friends, comradeship... and even partnerships (as is common among asexual people). By the way: even heterosexual men are not assumed to dislike men if they are not sexually attracted to them.

Of course, this does not mean that misogyny (i.e. intolerance towards women) or sexism do not occur among gays. In English, there is even an expression platinum gay or gold-star gay for gays who were born by caesarean section, because they have supposedly never come into contact with a vagina in their life. This is very insensitive towards people with a uterus and at the same time it says nothing about anyone's sexual orientation. (Regardless of the fact that even a gay can become a gynecologist...) However, it must be said that not every gay approves of such thinking and many gays also face prejudice, hatred and condemnation because they do not meet the ideal of the so-called right man.

2. "I'll be afraid to bend over for a pencil in front of you."

Well... this is probably going to really hurt.

First of all: not every gay man commits sexualized violence. What's more, not every man who commits such violence against another man has to be gay, bisexual, pansexual, or anyone sexually attracted to men. Such acts have more to do with the need for dominance and humiliation.

We should also not forget that gay men also become victims of sexualized violence. In the Czech Republic, we do not have figures available to tell us how often this happens, however, for example, in the United Kingdom , one in four gay men and one in four lesbians over the age of 16 report being a victim of domestic violence.

3. "You don't look like it at all."

No gay person is the same, and none of us have our sexual orientation written on our foreheads (that is… unless we actually scribble it on them). There are gay people who appear very feminine, and there are gay people who appear very masculine. Even though they only make up a few percent of humanity, there is a similar diversity among them as there is among heterosexuals and other people.