x-men and gay people
January 31st, 2006 by shinzu
The other day, I was thinking about the x-men and the issues that they go through. Many of you probably don’t know, but a nerd fact about me is that I have extensive knowledge of x-men history in comic books hehe.
So far those who are not familiar with the x-men, let me give a short overview. In this comic book universe where the x-men exist, there are people called “mutants.” Mutants are people who are born with special powers. Because humans fear these mutants, the mutants are discriminated against, and are not treated equally in society. The mutants seek to be understood by others, and try to create an egalitarian society. But, they have cool mutant powers so I suppose that balances the playing field a little bit.
I read the x-men for many many years, and after coming out of the closet it sorta hit me recently.. Gay people and mutants have similar situations (except for the cool mutant powers.. *darn*). Of course this makes sense if you believe that gay people are born that way.
Gay people seek to be understood by others.. or sometimes hide in the closet for fear of repercussions (similar to mutants hiding their powers for fear of being discriminated against). Gay people seek an egalitarian society just like the mutants do. Mutants don’t understand why they are discriminated against since they were simply born that way.
In the comic book, there have been several issues that dealt with mutants who were looking for a ‘cure’ to get rid of their mutant powers to be ‘normal.’
Throughout the comic book series, I don’t think a cure has really been found, but what if the same situation happened today..
What if someone professed that they could change a gay person to be straight, through genetic means? If you were gay, would you accept this option? Would you take the opportunity to live a normal ‘straight’ life in society? Or would you not be true to yourself by taking the easier path?
How funny that this situation is almost no different than how it was described in the comic books about mutants. Mutants who wanted their power stripped away for a chance of a ‘normal’ life were often criticized by other mutants for not being true to themselves.
I just found it funny to find this correlation between x-men and gay people… I might be totally off, but this post is just my random 2 cents of the day.