It’s time to remember who the real victims are

Gay Pride was celebrated yesterday in Valletta, and I thought to myself that I can’t stand anymore of this Orwellian weirdness, as politicians of all stripes vied with each other to be at the forefront and make sure they were seen by as many people as pos

Why do politicians still feel they have to take part in these parades? The laws have been changed. Gay couples are everywhere. It’s been years since anybody raised an eyebrow at the sight of two women holding hands or two men out on a date. Nobody cares. Nobody is bothered. Gay people are so much everywhere that they have become as invisible as the rest of us. Isn’t that what the aim was – to make gay people blend into the scenery along with everyone else, rather than be pointed out and pointed at? But gay pride parades, so essential in homophobic societies like Russia’s, are counter-productive anywhere else. You achieve your aim of blending in only to take to the streets one day a year and say “Actually, I’m different and want to stand out.”

I think the problem lies in the fact that now there’s nothing really for gay people to protest and demonstrate about. In the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s – well, that would have been very different. But gay men and women are no longer victims or harassed in our society. Nobody whispers and nudges when a care- fully dressed gay man walks past. Nobody says “dak sissy” or “dik mara-raġel”, at least not in civilised society. And uncivilised society is going to stay uncivilised for the foreseeable future. Face it: they still believe in witches and the 17th century was four hundred years ago. You can’t do anything about that. You can’t teach them about gay people in an educational vacuum. They’re not going to learn about gay people what they haven’t learned about women, about children, about fundamental human rights, about the essence of democracy. Theirs is a general ignorance that no gay pride is going to cure or solve.

The real victims in our society are what they have always been: straight women. In Malta, gay men will always be considered first and foremost as men, regardless of their sexuality, and by definition superior to women. Gay women don’t have most of the problems straight women have, which are caused by relationships with men. And in the workplace, gay women will encounter the same prejudice, condescension and patronising behaviour that straight women do. We get that because we are women, whether we are gay or straight.

The charity-run shelters for victims of violence are not full of gay men or gay women. They are full of straight women, and the children they take with them. The big steel doors which guard them are not kept locked against marauding gay men or gay women, but against the straight men out to beat up the straight women who have left them, and to drag them back home. The shelter for prostitutes is not used by gay men or gay women. The prostitutes are mainly straight women at the mercy of straight men who pay for sex with them, and other straight men who pimp them out.

The biggest victims in Maltese society are straight women because, whichever way you cut it, they are bullied, harassed, ill-treated, patronised, pimped out or beaten up by straight men. Even in the workplace, a gay man is going to be promoted ahead of any woman, whether gay or straight – because above all, he’s a man. And men stick together, whether they’re gay or straight, and lock the women out.

While the politicians were out parading yesterday with their rainbow flags, accompanied by people in fancy dress, the real victims in Maltese society were cowering in a shelter: prostitutes at Dar Hosea and women and children at Dar Merħba Bik. In other shelters, homeless men are trying to make the best of a bad job. And in places like St Patrick’s, Angela House and the Ursuline Crèche, abandoned and orphaned children, and those from violent and dangerous homes, are trying to cope along with the few nuns and volunteers who valiantly do their best. In the light of all this, the pom-poms, rainbow flags, dancing and posturing look like just so much egocentricity and narcissism. My suggestion to all those people is to find out what real victimisation, harassment and serious problems are, by paying a visit to a shelter and perhaps offering to volunteer there. It’s a scene devoid of pink pom-poms and rainbow flags, I can assure you. Meanwhile, the politicians might perhaps like to focus on what the real problems are, and it’s not the finer points of gay marriage but the blackened eyes, ripped out hair and broken bones of a straight marriage gone very badly wrong.