Over the past two weeks, Channel 7 has graced our screens with a new and controversial television concept known as Bride & Prejudice. The series tracks the lives of several couples wishing to get married, with the key conflict that their families do not approve, each couple challenging their families' perceptions on age, sexuality, religion and race.
One of these couples is an Australian man named Chris and his American partner Grant. In Monday nights' second episode, Chris confronted both his parents and requested their attendance at his wedding – which both of them refused.
His mother cited religious beliefs as her reasoning, while his father made vague disavowals hinting at homophobic "old-school values".
Not only did Chris' parents reject the concept of his marriage, but they went on to reject his very being – decrying his sexuality as a tragedy. The scene had audiences shaken, with dozens of commentators leaping forward on social media to defend Chris' decision to marry, and to express their anger at the sheer burning dismissal that his parents made clear.
To heterosexual audiences, and particularly to parents, this rejection might seem like an impossible affront. How could a mother, who gave birth to a child, and a father, who together with her raised that child to adulthood, go on to reject their flesh and blood because of who he loves? My own aunt – bless her - cried, "How could a mother be so bloody cold?"
Of course, you wouldn't do that. You would love your child no matter what their orientation, and embrace them no matter whom they loved. To you, this might seem utterly unreal.
Yet to people like myself, and so many gay viewers across the country – this scene was far too real, and represented a burning fear come to life before our eyes.
It's a panic that resides in the heart of every single homosexual, bisexual or transgender person ever born into a family unit. That our families will reject us should we choose to live openly, and that the strength we've gained from familial bonds will wither away and leave us to fight life's battles on our own.
As we grow up, we're taught very quickly what a man should be – and what he shouldn't. A man can never be feminine. He can never prance, never show emotion – above all, he can never be gay. From when we first begin to comprehend the world around us, LGBT people are caught up in the homophobic bigotry that our society has instilled in us all.
And because of that, the very moment we figure out what we are – homosexual, gay, faggot – we descend into psychological self-torment, terrified of what it means, and what kind of life we would be met with should we ever choose to embrace it.
We understand that some people hate us, and that some even want us dead.
Our forefathers had it worse than us – the AIDS crisis associated gayness with death and disease, stirring up existing homophobia until families the world over disowned blood relations in fear and disgust. In this time, in this decade, we think we've moved beyond seeing parents disown their children over their sexuality. But it's still going on, and most never surface in either viral videos or on television.
Even suspecting disapproval from your family is to feel like a black sheep, reading hostility where there may be none. It's to live in trepidation that the penny may one day drop – that your own blood will run cold in the veins of your parents; that they'll reject you over a crucial part of your humanity that you simply cannot change.
And it is crucial. We haven't grown up in a world rife with homophobia only to devalue our sexualities as of no importance. We understand that some people hate us, and that some even want us dead.
Our sexuality is nothing, because it should never be a reason to hate – but it is also everything, because of the pain we have suffered. We carry it as both a burden and a strength, built from weathering a lifetime of homophobic abuse. We gain empathy from our struggle and use it to love more passionately.
Nothing, no-one, could harm us more than our families – the ones who swore they'd love us forever, no matter our ills – spurning us because of who we are.
Heterosexual families might view this all as a morbid impossibility, the rejection of their child utterly implausible. But when Chris in Bride & Prejudice sat in stoic silence as his parents rejected his plea for their blessing, it was a stab in the gut for every gay person watching; a realisation of the sickly fear each of us have held in our hearts since the moment we knew we were different.
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