I am straight.
However, being straight does not come with the right to discriminate. In the past I was not accepting of the LGBTQ+ community, having grown up in a strictly patriarchal heteronormative household and community. A romantically involved same-sex couple was unfathomable.
Yet, upon watching Abdellatif Kechiche’s Blue Is the Warmest Colour and going on an exchange program to Quebec, I had experienced such a change in attitude and altitude that to label it merely as an “experience” would simplify it to something insubstantial. On a grand scale it was life changing.
The premise of Blue Is the Warmest Colour is very simple: a modern love story showcasing the romance between two girls, Adèle and Emma, through three decades of their relationship.
After watching the movie I was struck by how raw and emotional the lead actresses were. How real the tears seemed to be as the failure of a long-term relationship began to quietly seep into my consciousness. The passion and tenderness they exhibited towards each other was real love, like I had felt before.
I was taken aback, and for the first time in my life I could gather a sense of a change occurring in my brain.
When I arrived at my exchange program, there I was, at first, shocked to see how many gay people had taken part. Once I did the math, I quickly realized that the ratio of straight to gay guys was insanely tipped to the other end of the spectrum.
I began to have a very hard time figuring out people’s sexualities in order to avoid them, it was like a game of Clue, but very quickly I realized that mindset was idiotic and flawed.
I ended up befriending a man during the first week who is gay. He irreversibly changed my mindset. We shared a lot of common interests and he connected with me on a different level than anyone else I had met. Even when he told me he was gay it didn’t mean anything to me at that moment. I didn’t care anymore.
Our friendship became more than labels. What I finally understood was that we were both men. Men who shared different opinions, liked similar and dissimilar things, but at the end of the day were both part of the same group: humanity.
Getting to know him during my stay there showed me how diverse people can be if you simply get to know them better. My ignorance was disbanded and in its destruction formed something new: acceptance.
Sex, race, and culture have nothing to do with what a person is truly like. We are all the same and by saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to do what they want is nothing short of totalitarian.
Collectively, humans are part of a giant bubble and by segregating ourselves we are immediately downgraded to the lowest common denominator, which stalls the possibility of progress.
Love is universal, meant to be for everyone, accepted by anyone. Gay, straight, trans, bisexual, or any other, there should be no stigma that separates them.
I am straight, but I’m not ignorant.
Damir Ferhatovic, Contributor
