EYE ON ETHICS

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Boys don’t cry

In 1993 Brandon Teena, portrayed by Hilary Swank in the movie Boys Don’t Cry, was shot dead by two acquaintances in Nebraska, US. He was born Teena Brandon, but preferred to live as a man. When Teena’s friends discovered his sex, they removed his trousers in public and also raped him. When he reported the rape to the police, his murderers hunted him down and shot him, along with two other friends who sheltered him.

In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was tortured, tied up and left for dead. His attackers later reportedly revealed he was singled out because he was gay. He was found 12 hours after the assault in a coma and died from his injuries.

Homophobia and other violent tendencies towards the LGBT community do not form overnight. They are cultivated and nurtured in our environment, in which the mass media play an important role. While some may strongly object to certain individuals’ sexual orientations and personal choices, it is irresponsible and unethical for journalists to objectify, humiliate and endanger the LGBT community through negative and false stereotyping. By doing so, the media, in effect, support and encourage the harassment of these vulnerable groups by state-sanctioned moral police, as well as non-state actors.

“Crisis of abnormal sex threatens the world,” wrote Utusan Malaysia (Malaysian Messenger) columnist Awang Selamat, likening same-sex unions to symptoms of a rapidly-spreading disease. But it is not the LGBT community that threatens the world. It is powerful institutions like the media when they judge and objectify vulnerable groups that put our society at risk.