Throughout the book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, there is a huge amount of discrimination that the main character Simon and other characters face on a day to day basis. Simon is a sixteen-year-old boy that goes to high school in the suburbs of Atlanta Georgia, and he has one gigantic secret, that he is gay. Simon struggles with this internally throughout the book even though he has very understanding friends and family that would support him. Simon fears that once he comes out that everything is going to change, and in fact it does. In the book, Simon makes a claim that he feels that girls have an easier time coming out than guys do, which is far from the truth.
In the book Simon vs. the Home Sapiens Agenda, Simon is blackmailed, and gets his chance to come out taken away from him. Coming out is a very important part in any gay individuals’ life, as it could affect how they handle different types of discrimination. In a literary journal titled Coming-Out Issues for Adult Lesbians: A Group Intervention, the author states, “Coming out can be defined as acknowledging one’s sexual orientation to self and others. Such disclosure is an ongoing, lifelong process rather than a one-time event” (Morrow 1). Coming out for gay people is not just a one-time event in life, and this opens up the opportunity to be discriminated against every time a person has to come out to someone. Coming out is not just difficult for gay men, it is also difficult for gay females as well because they are also always opening themselves up to the same level of discrimination every time, they have to come out again to a new person. In the book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, Simon says, “But I’m tired of coming out. All I ever do is come out. I try not to change, but I keep changing, in all these tiny ways. I get a girlfriend. I have a beer. And every freaking time, I have to reintroduce myself to the universe all over again.” (Albertalli 56). At the point in the book when Simon makes this statement, he has not come out as gay yet, and yet he feels like every time he does something he has to “come out all over again”. Simon is not even coming out as gay and is having difficulty with it, so why does Simon assume that females would have an easier time coming out as gay?
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While there are many discriminations in society, one of the main struggles that Simon faces is an internal struggle that may have been brought upon him by society. This struggle is called ISS- Internalized sexual stigma. In the article titled Coming-Out to Family Members and Internalized Sexual Stigma in Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay People, the authors state, “ISS is the product of society’s negative ideology about sexual minorities that some gay and lesbian people carry; it describes the self-referred—sometimes unknowingly— negative feelings, attitudes, and representations of sexual minorities” (Pistella, Jessica, et al 3695). Simon is affected by this is the fact that even though he is a part of the gay minority, he is discriminating against the lesbian minority by saying that they have an easier time coming out than males do. Simon makes the statement, “I guess there are a few lesbian and bisexual girls, but I think it’s different for girls. Maybe it’s easier. If there’s one thing the Tumblr has taught me, it’s that a lot of guys consider it hot when a girl is a lesbian.” (Albertalli 21). Simon is feeding into societies discrimination of lesbians when he makes this statement, because he of all people should understand what it feels like to be discriminated against first hand. ISS negatively affected the way that Simon felt other parts of the gay community even though he was a part of it himself.
One of the main ideas that stand out throughout the book Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, is that there is always going to be some kind of discrimination that people are going to have to face, especially if you are a part of the gay community. It was a very wrong assumption of Simon to assume that females have an easier time coming out than males do. In this quote from the article Coming out on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’: Industry Scandal, Constructing a Lesbian Story Line, and Fan Action, “Now we know that it's time for lesbians to be portrayed on network television as something other than the token best friend or guest star. It is time for lesbians to be at the forefront of story lines the same way that heterosexuals are.” (Zuk 1). When lesbians are portrayed in the media, they are over sexualized, and this is a way people connect the gay and straight community. Straight males have over sexualized the lesbian minority, it may seem as though it is easier for women to come out because “more people will like it and accept it”, which is not true because it still discriminated against heavily. While lesbians face a different type of discrimination, gay males face the same hate as well. In the book, Simon says, “I mean, I feel secure in my masculinity, too. Being secure in your masculinity isn’t the same as being straight.” (Albertalli 65). Simon expresses that even though he is secure with being masculine, it will never be the same as being a straight male in society, and that he will be discriminated against because of it. Even though lesbians, and gay males face two different kinds of discrimination, that does not make one easier to endure than the other, they are still equally bad.
In the book Simon vs. the Home Sapiens Agenda, the main character Simon expresses feelings that coming out as a guy is harder than coming out as a girl, which could not be farther from the truth. Both gay males and lesbians experience discrimination from every direction imaginable, and sometimes even from within the gay community itself. In the book Simon makes the statement about “Why does straight have to be the default in society?” (146). So why did Simon assume that girls had an easier time coming out than guys did?
Works Cited
- Albertalli, Becky. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Balzer Bray, an Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2018.
- Morrow, Deana F. “Coming-Out Issues for Adult Lesbians: A Group Intervention.” Social Work, vol. 41, no. 6, Nov. 1996, pp. 647–656. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=slh&AN=9611261929&site=eds-live&scope=site.
- Pistella, Jessica, et al. “Coming-Out to Family Members and Internalized Sexual Stigma in Bisexual, Lesbian and Gay People.” Journal of Child & Family Studies, vol. 25, no. 12, Dec. 2016, pp. 3694–3701. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10826-016-0528-0.
- Tanya D. Zuk. “Coming out on ‘Grey’s Anatomy’: Industry Scandal, Constructing a Lesbian Story Line, and Fan Action.” Transformative Works and Cultures, 2017. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3983/twc.2017.0980.
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