Holiday celebrations adjusting to 21st-century romance
By Forest Lassman
While Valentine’s Day is a celebration of romance, for some in the LGBT community, it can serve as a reminder how parts of their relationships can still feel taboo.
A majority of the promotions and products for the holiday focus on heterosexual couples, which can lead some in the LGBT community to feel left out. While many might not notice, this can make the simple task of picking out a card a difficult one.
“It definitely can feel awkward at times,” said Jacob Fischer, president of the college’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance. “My partner … is transgendered and agender, and so when I go shopping for Valentine’s Day cards, they’re not really an option … Whatever I pick would be wrong.”
Even with things like this, Jared Mnich, secretary of the organization, thinks that society is learning to be more open. There have been some moves toward making the holiday more inclusive, with companies like Hallmark featuring a lesbian couple in a recent commercial. This advertisement is part of an overall move toward a more accepting society, Mnich feels.
“I appreciate that society, for the most part, is making somewhat of the right strides in the right direction,” Mnich said.
Sam Huntington, a student at the college, also finds these changes promising.
“People have been less likely to use offensive words like ‘tranny,’ but I don’t know if they really knew they were offensive in the first place … I think people are being more open-minded. Not so much as accepting yet, but I think they’re at least [trying] to learn about us … [and] what our identity really is.”
Even though these strives for sexual equality have been made, Mnich still feels some societal stigma directed at those with different sexual orientations.
“We’re moving in the right direction, but it’s still awkward because it’s still not comfortable to go out and hold your same-sex significant other’s hand or kiss in public without somebody chastising you for it or telling you that you’re wrong or making a huge ordeal out of nothing,” said Mnich.
Overall, many in the LGBT community just want to be better accepted. It shouldn’t feel special when an advertisement features someone who is gay; it should just feel like a regular part of life.
“I think some of the changes I’d like to see happen is I’d like to just see it be more acceptable for things to be outside of the hetero-normative viewpoint that culture has,” said Fischer. “There are obviously gay people, there are lesbians, there are transgendered people. We don’t have to pretend like everyone is heterosexual, and it shouldn’t be a big deal if you see two guys holding hands or two girls giving each other a goodbye kiss.”