Sexuality and Heterosexism

Sexuality and Heterosexism

In this paper I will discuss Patricia Hill Collin’s “Prisons for our Bodies, Closets for Our Minds. In this chapter Collin’s discusses how racism and heterosexism affect each other. She states that sexuality for African Americans has been manipulated in defense of racism that “white fear of black sexuality” has been a basic ingredient for racism. Collin’s states that there is one group that were among the first to question how racism and heterosexism are interconnected; this group is Black lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people. She refers to them as LGBT. She states how American historians point to the significance of sexuality to belong to slavery. She categorizes racism and heterosexism as the prison and the closet. Collins suggests that the metaphor of the "prison" and the "closet" might illustrate how oppressions of race and sexuality are interwoven. The prison may be likened to racism and the closet to sexual oppression. Both systems use state-sanctioned mechanisms of social control such as segregation to maintain racial and sexual hierarchies and to subjugate black people. "Coming out" of the closet or attaining freedom from the prison reflect resistance to racism and heterosexism. The term prison is used as a form of feeling isolated from society and those who have racism toward them would feel trapped within themselves so the word suits. The word “closet” is self explanatory as the term of having “skeletons in the closet“. If one has not come out to the world about their sexuality, then that is where the term fits. It is said to be that if racism affects LGBT people then it affects all people. Racism and heterosexism both use similar components to maintain sexual and racial hierarchies. An example would be how they both rely on segregating people as a system of social control. The state has played a major role in supporting both of the norms. In support of heterosexism, the state had laws that refused to punish hate...