Sarah Guerra – Director, Diversity & Inclusion
Have you heard the one about the Diversity and Inclusion Director who fell flat on her back when she made an automatic, heteronormative assumption about the gender of a friend’s new flame?
February is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender (LGBT) History month in the UK. Its aim is to promote equality and diversity by increasing the visibility of LGBT people, their history, lives and their experiences in the curriculum and culture of educational and other institutions, and the wider community. The whole month is geared towards raising awareness and advancing education on matters affecting the LGBT community, working to make educational and other institutions safe spaces for all LGBT communities, promoting the welfare of LGBT people by ensuring that the education system recognises and enables LGBT people to achieve their full potential, and so they are able to contribute fully to society and lead fulfilled lives.
LGBT history month a good time to remind myself of my own fallibility and my journey in training myself out of heteronormativity, that is ‘denoting or relating to a world view that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation.’ Basically, assuming that people are straight (as the norm) until proven otherwise.
Heteronormativity is what tripped me up that day talking to my friend. He had previously had a girlfriend and on that day he was telling me he was seeing someone new. My assumptions were that any subsequent relationships would also be heterosexual.
Would I have considered myself bi or homophobic? No! Of course not – I devote my life to equality, I have gay friends and family members…. But that lazy – ‘I know people’ therefore I have no prejudices or bias’s type of thinking is the issue.
What happened in this moment were my default settings kicking in. assuming everyone – he was like me, – he would fit what my deep brain told me was the social norm around relationship patterns.
All my relationships have been heterosexual. Does it make me a bad person? Not on the face of it, but to be truly inclusive, I need to question my privilege and learn from it, question what is normal and check myself. To pretend that being heterosexual doesn’t come with a set of social privileges would see me guilty of ignorance. Reflecting at the time and since I had to think about what it was like for him – knowing that he was going to be telling me something unexpected and that rather than just being able to say he was seeing someone new he had to manage my reactions and surprise to it being a same sex partnership. How that is not something I as a heterosexual person ever have to consider in a heteronormative world.
LGBT History Month is an excellent time to remind everyone, not least myself that quite simply, heterosexual or not, love is love. Relationships come in all shapes, sizes and structures.
This month, we recognize and celebrate the multiplicity and fluidity of sexual orientations. So, happy LGBT history month – we have lots going on here at King’s so do join in.