Blog 7 Sterotypes
As I was reading the text this week concerning stereotypes I could not help but think back to class a few weeks ago when my professor brought in a guest speaker from a local social service agency. As I sat and listened to him he explained his job in which he works with individuals who have been diagnosed with AIDS or HIV. He talked about the stereotypes that go along with having the disease and how people treat those individuals differently. Then he explained that he was gay and had been diagnosed with HIV 13 years ago. He was a professional looking male who looked healthy and in good spirits. I was intrigued with his story and found myself learning more in that one day than I ever had before.
The text also talked about stereotypes with gay and lesbian people and how society perceives these to be true. It is often said that gay men have good taste in clothing, are feminine, and as mentioned earlier have diseases such as AIDS. These could not be further from the truth in that there were gay men in the military and were far from feminine and surly did not have good taste in clothing. After the speaker last week he made several valid points but one that stood out the most to me was that people tend to think that AIDS is usually passed from man to man in gay relationships and this was not true. Most cases of AIDS or HIV are passed from straight individuals that have no clue they are carrying the disease and never get checked. Lesbians are thought to be masculine and are often thought to be not too attractive. One of my closest friends is in a lesbian relationship and probably one of the most beautiful and feminine individuals I have ever met.
We have all grown up hearing stereotypes about blacks, Hispanics, whites, gays, lesbians, and the list goes on. As children we tend to believe some of these until we are old enough to learn the truth for ourselves. And still there are others that even when they do go up they continue to believe these stereotypes no matter what they learn about others. Keeping an open mind and education can help remove some of these stereotypes but no matter what some people will continue to have these stereotypes and all we can do is change ourselves and how we think.