Omar Mateen and the convenient myth of the violent, self-hating ‘closet homosexual’ [View all]

[King_David]

In the wake of the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history, reports are surfacing that the Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, was gay—or, at least, struggled with his sexuality and frequented gay clubs, with accounts on gay hook-up apps like Grindr. Some people have made the (good, valid, necessary) point that this complicates the mainstream media’s narrative that Mateen was motivated by his allegiance to “radical Islam”, and they have criticised the knee-jerk racism and xenophobia present in much of the mainstream media after the attack.

Unfortunately, many people have also declared that Mateen was clearly a “closet homosexual”, and that his shooting was fuelled by psychotic self-hatred and mental illness. Comments sections are teeming with announcements like, “I called it!!”, “that was obvious”, “he’s clearly mentally ill” and “the biggest homophobes are always closet gays”.

There are multiple problems with this line of reasoning. To begin with, let’s get a quick terminological point out of the way: we should talk about gay people, not “gays” and “homosexuals”, unless we want to dehumanise LGBT people by conflating their entire identities with their sexuality. Despite the (sometimes understandable) feeling that “language policing” has proliferated out of control in these “PC times”, the words we use to describe each other are the most basic foundation for how we understand and treat each other. In other words, language matters.

Moreover, these glib, self-congratulatory sentiments betray a harmful misunderstanding of both mental illness and sexuality, each of which can be dealt with in turn.




http://thespinoff.co.nz/media/20-06-2016/omar-mateen-and-the-convenient-myth-of-the-violent-self-hating-closet-homosexual/