Читать книгу The Savvy Ally - Jeannie Gainsburg - Страница 30

In the identity comparison stage the person asks themselves, “Might I be [gay, lesbian, transgender, etc.]?” and begins to look out into the world and compare themselves to what they know about these people.

Remember when professional basketball player Jason Collins came out as gay? There was a great deal of pushback from people who wondered, “Why did he have to come out? Couldn’t he just be a basketball player? Why is his sexual orientation important?” The identity comparison stage is why having a professional athlete like Collins publicly come out is so important.

Think about a teenage boy in this stage trying to figure out if he might be gay. He looks out into the world to see what it means to be a gay man, what that looks like, and how it’s received. If he looks out and he only sees negative images and stereotypes of gay men—think Axel Foley as the diseased Ramon in Beverly Hills Cop or Mr. Antolini, Holden Caulfield’s predatory teacher in The Catcher in the Rye—he will typically think one of two things. He might think, “That’s not me,” in which case he will go back into the identity confusion stage and wonder, “If I’m not gay, why do I feel so different?” He might also think, “I’m pretty sure I am gay, but being gay is clearly bad. I am never telling anyone.” And he will move into the stage of identity tolerance, feeling pretty crummy about who he is.

Now let’s think about what happens if he looks out into the world and he sees the out gay athlete Jason Collins or the out gay actor Neil Patrick Harris. Truth be told, because of all those societal expectations that he should be straight, he probably is still not jumping up and down with glee, but his journey toward self-acceptance is likely to be a lot smoother. With powerful, bright, and healthy gay role models like Collins and Harris, and better media portrayal of gay men, like Lieutenant Sulu in the Star Trek reboot, he is more likely to move rapidly through this stage of identity comparison, and also through the next stage of identity tolerance.