The Lies About Gay Men That Refuse to Die
How straight supremacy repackages old lies about gay men
The conference room went quiet when Jake* mentioned something about his husband's job transfer. Thirty seconds of awkwardness before someone changes the subject to quarterly projections. Later, by the coffee machine, a coworker sidles up: "So you’re gay. Funny, you don’t act gay." Jake's tongue presses against his teeth. Does he educate or evaporate?
This is 2025, and we're still here.
Still having to explain why these misconceptions about gay men are wrong.
These aren't harmless stereotypes, they're built from lies that serve a purpose. Every. Single. One. Keeps us in our place, justifies treating us badly, maintains the fiction that straight is normal and everything else is broken.
What gets me most? Some of us have bought into this garbage so completely that we're basically doing their work for them. Policing each other. Staying invisible. Playing respectability politics like it's going to save us.
If you're straight and reading this: I know many of you stand with us. I'm talking about patterns, not every person.
"You Chose This Life"
The choice myth persists despite decades of research showing sexual orientation involves genetics and brain development before birth. That massive study from a few years back analyzing nearly half a million people? Completely ignored. All those findings about prenatal hormones? Dismissed.
Why? Because the choice myth is convenient for conservative straight people. If we chose to be gay, discrimination becomes natural consequences. They don't have to examine their own homophobia, we brought this on ourselves, right?
Here's what this really tells us about these people: