Show you are gay

For true acceptance of homosexuality, a new message is necessary: gays contribute something to society.

The third phase of the gay emancipation struggle is three years old this year. It follows upon the struggle for equal rights such as marriage rights. The gay movement is now fighting to achieve social acceptance. Visibility of homosexuality is therefore the main strategy - a strategy that repeatedly faces resistance. For instance, the Amsterdam Gay Parade each year has been approached in a negative and moralising manner.  At the ’pink nativity’ organised by ProGay, Bishop Punt of Haarlem last December sighed about why gays and lesbians who can be visible the whole year through, now want this with Christmas too.

This raises the question of whether visibility alone is sufficient to force social acceptance. Based on surveys, by the University of Amsterdam, among others, the frightening answer is "no." The understanding that homosexuality exists and that it is fine as long as one is not confronted with it is unacceptable. Something more is needed.

Last summer a step was made by the participation of Minister Plasterk and Mayor Cohen in the boat parade during Gay Pride. This is to be interpreted as a signal that homosexuality is an integral part of society. But this also does not necessarily lead to greater social acceptance.

Homosexuality is still an ongoing taboo for young people, according to the aforementioned studies. Religion, ethnic background, or gender of the young people, have mattered little in this regard. They are reluctant to speak about homosexuality. Consequently, the subject remains unknown and this in turn leads to rejection. Deeply rooted beliefs and emotions concerning one's own masculinity and sexuality appear to be the principle cause of anti-gay violence. Young people experience visible homosexuality as threatening, and outside of violent situations, violent taunting against gays and lesbians is a real and permissible option. This threatening, aggressive masculinity is emerging among the school going youth and in the street culture.

Information is a solution, but not according to conditions posed by heterosexuals. Speaking well about, but not with gays and lesbians is not an option. Otherwise information resembles the film Milk, which is now in theatres. In this film, gay activist Harvey Milk, played by Sean Penn, comes into conflict with the gay establishment homo-activist Harvey Milk, played by Sean Penn, in conflict met het homo-establishment, who thinks that heterosexuals are best able to stand up for gay rights, rather than homosexuals themselves. And it takes place in the America of forty years ago.

What we need to ensure across all of society is the understanding that homosexuality is an enrichment of the society and of every individual that lives in it. Only then will the anxiety and the consequent rejection of visible homosexuality give way to true acceptance and only then will macho, heterosexual behaviour be able to be resisted. The ambition of the modern gay movement should be  for precisely that, and no less than that.

In this way the gay movement can take matters into its own hands. As long as the society oriented toward heterosexuals has difficulty in speaking openly about homosexuality, the risk that homosexuality be ignored or that information be introduced in socio-medical terms, is simply too great.

Departing from the prevailing heterosexual norms has an advantage for heterosexuals themselves. Fathers who buy diapers and women in managerial positions are both deviations from the classic masculine heterosexual norm. Acceptance of homosexuality is concerned with releasing them from this norm. This promotes a better society for everyone.

The time for the spring forwards seems ripe. Politics is responding to the problems of the gay movement. Mayors and Aldermen of Amsterdam are offering the Amsterdam gay movement the possibility to formulate for itself answers to the question of how to make people feel that homosexuality is enriching. A society in which homosexuality thrives is a society where every minority knows how to find its place. Where each person is judged on the basis of his or her contribution, rather than on who or what you are.

The Amsterdam gay movement is set on this. It fails when the ambition of Amsterdam as "Gay Capital" no longer finds any resonance. The beacon of inspiration for the rest of the Netherlands remains deaf at the moment. When asked which path leads to true social acceptance, no answer comes.

If there is no third phase -- perhaps they know it regardless -- every gay and lesbian and everyone who lives in the Netherlands therefore suffers.