[NonIndigenous]

Originally Posted by Marguerite

A couple of tv producers didn't decide a few decades ago that from then on they would start portraying gay people with all these kinds of personality traits and then gay people started adopting them. Stereotypes are just labels born of generalisations, simplifications and exaggerations, however, as much as we all hate to admit it, often times they do come with a grain of salt.

How many gay people you know personally? And how many come across as stereotypical?

I know a lot, and I only really know two (including the one I mentioned) that you would be able to tell was gay straight away. But the others, you'd never really know unless you asked them or they told you. So if you're looking around and saying "Huh, look at all these gay people liking X, X and X... they can't all like that, must be faking it" you're totally missing the point. If someone acts in a stereotypical way of course you're going to know they're gay, but you're ignoring all the people around you who are gay but you don't know because they're not stereotypical. So maybe you encounter 85% non stereotypical gay people and 15% stereotypical gay people... but because you don't notice the 85% you just think that the 15% is representive of the majority.

I'd put that down mostly to differences between our countries. You're from Australia, I'm from UK. I generally hear that Australia is a much more "healthy" country in terms of almost everything, so I'd expect gay people over there to be on average more "normal".

As for how many gay people I've "known", either as a friend or a friend's friend, or not even a friend etc... enough to base my judgements on I think. Honestly, if I was to count, maybe around 30 since I started paying more attention to it when I was about 13. It's very difficult for me to just come up with a figure though, I never counted. Plus some are bi.. I don't know if they're included or not. But I can comfortably say that a majority of them had at least some stereotypical traits... as in I was pretty sure they were gay before anyone even told me.

As to the whole gay stereotype arising... I don't bloody know where it came from. It must have come from somewhere. I never blamed the TV producers, but my guess is that some prominent gay figure in the past perhaps had a lisp, was dramatic etc... and that's where all this crap may have originated from. Probably not just one person, but maybe several. The roots of such things are usually quite difficult to trace. It just spontaneously picks up.

Originally Posted by Marguerite

I agree we pick up things we watch from tv, but I don't agree that it's that severe, that someone who would otherwise hate musical theatre or fashion or assless chaps would suddenly decide to LOVE them because gay people are 'supposed' to act that way. You can't go around telling people that it isn't their personality just because you think it's stereotypical, even if it is 'learned' and not natural, it's still their personalityl That goes for everyone, not just homosexuals.

You're oversimplifying it. Rarely does someone decide like that to suddenly act stupid. It takes time. Someone might not even realise they're gay until they're 13 or 14, but they would have seen how gays are portrayed on TV from a much younger age, and it'l click with them. They might suddenly think they're so different from everyone else, become insecure about it, and just lunge for the stereotype in attempt to identify with a crowd they think is more similar to themselves than the average person.