My two LGBTQ+ friends walked into my room and said, “Ew, your room is so painfully straight.” It was a typical room designed to my tastes. It was baby blue and had wall art of European landscapes and plants. I could not say anything. I was offended. This is just one of the many statements I had to hear. LGBTQ+ discrimination exists. But these days so does heterosexual discrimination. Emotions are always running high in situations like this. It is not easy to say something in your defense because you are scared you might offend this person. I have had to take blatantly rude comments like this from many of my classmates. I overheard a conversation in a shared room with a classmate. She said, “Straight people are the most boring people I have met.” There have been many instances where heterosexual people have been called boring or “not adventurous.” I have seen many people call heterosexual men bigots and uptight. These blanket statements are unjust. Heterosexual women are often accused of being too “vanilla” in their sexual practices. They are viewed as too dull in their dating and clothing preferences. It is not okay to discriminate against heterosexuals. The same applies to the LGBTQ+. It is a two-way street.

Discrimination is no casual word. It implies harmful consequences beyond simple grievances and negative attitudes. One group must actively or implicitly cause harm to another to justify the use of the ugly word. Homophobia and heterophobia may sound like two sides of a coin, two issues with similar magnitudes. They are not. Far from it. Homophobia represents a present, significant and overwhelming threat to the LGBTQ+ community. Heterophobia does not constitute significant harm to qualify as discrimination. What does homophobia mean? It means your right to marriage came down to one vote of a heterosexual judge only six years ago.[1] It means in 29 U.S. states you can legally lose employment, housing, or public accommodations for their orientation.[2] You can become a target in approximately 16.7% of all hate crimes in the United States.[3] You can legally receive forced conversion therapy, a pseudo-scientific and harmful practice, in 20 states.[4] You can be refused services at the discretion of the business owners.[5] You may not be able to adopt a child in 20 states.[6] While progress has represented the past decade for LGBTQ+ rights, homophobia still perpetuates every aspect of daily life and causes significant harm for LOBTQ+ people. What harm has heterophobia done? How have you suffered when someone casually labeled you “straight”? How have you suffered when a crossdresser is performing on TV? How have you suffered when your way of life no longer dominates the media and pop culture? What significant harm can and will an antagonistic gay person do to you when you hold the upper hand in every aspect of society? Power enables harm, and harm constitutes discrimination. Between straight people and the LGBTQ+ group, only one holds the power and is capable of discrimination. Heterophobia represents a license for the privilege. It gives excuses to resist social change, to retain power and space not entitled to straight people in the first place. Calling it discrimination is factually, morally, and historically wrong. [1]. Liptak, Adam. 2015. "Supreme Court Ruling Makes Same-Sex Marriage A Right Nationwide". The New York Times, , 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/supreme-court-same-sex-marriage.html. [2]. "LGBTQ Americans Aren't Fully Protected From Discrimination In 29 States". 2021. Freedom For All Americans. https://freedomforallamericans.org/states/. [3]. Human Rights Watch. 2020. "NEW FBI HATE CRIMES REPORT SHOWS INCREASES IN ANTI-LGBTQ ATTACKS New FBI Hate Crimes Report Shows Increases In Anti-LGBTQ Attacks". https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/new-fbi-hate-crimes-report-shows-increases-in-anti-lgbtq-attacks. [4]. "Conversion Therapy Bans By U.S. State". 2021. Born Perfect. https://bornperfect.org/facts/conversion-therapy-bans-by-state/. [5]. Barnes, Robert. 2019. "Supreme Court Passes On Case Involving Baker Who Refused To Make Wedding Cake For Same-Sex Couple". The Washington Post, , 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-passes-on-new-case-involving-baker-who-refused-to-make-wedding-cake/2019/06/17/f78c5ae0-7a71-11e9-a5b3-34f3edf1351e_story.html. [6]. "Foster And Adoption Laws". 2021. Lgbtmap.Org. https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps/foster_and_adoption_laws.

**tldr**; Everyone is harmed by how society treats gender and sexuality, but decreasing that harm will come from productive discrimination not reinforcing the destructive discriminatory framework. --- I understand the point that @sanjana is talking about. Conversations like these often turn into (as @sanjana has noted) one about "my horse is bigger than yours." This is harmful because it reinforces a world where we rank each others oppression/suffering and become distracted from the fact that, all those having that conversation *are oppressed/suffering.* However, I do not want to encourage a false equivalency. I think it is more useful to acknowledge these kinds of statements and give them their proper weight in the discussion. For example, we can say straight people are discriminated agains. It is an important point that highlights a more inclusive, and I think mere important, issue. We, as a society, discriminate based on gender/sexuality *and that includes straight people.* We should acknowledge the truth in this statement, but qualify it. Another example: women and men experience sexual violence, but women experience it to a higher degree. Therefore, we should be trying to change society so that we decrease overall sexual violence *with special care towards women.* Discrimination also means the "recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another." Equality won't come from color blindness or ignoring difference, but from trying to counteract destructive discrimination with productive discrimination.

I mean, people have been using things like "straight" to vent their frustrations or even scapegoat at times, which does paint an overly-broad brush. But it certainly isn't common for that to be put into discriminatory action. That's not to say that it hasn't or couldn't have been used that way. But to say it's "common" is certainly stretching. The issue is that news outlets are aware that people are wary of this sort of language, and jump at the chance to report on the few scenarios where this happens. Remember to take news with a grain of salt. Insecurities garner clicks. A fear that non-straight people are seeking revenge on straight people is enough to built a whole website.

It's clear discrimination has increased over the years against straight people but to say it's common is tricky. Partly because LGBTQ+ still make a small percentage of the world. So if we assume a small percentage of that small percentage are discriminatory, in the real world the chances of you being discriminated against by a non-straight person is extremely low