'I'd never judge....'

There seemed to have been a break from it for a while - maybe people were preoccupied by the festive season, or something - but last night at work, it was back to 'normal', with a couple of gratuitous outbreaks of 'gay baiting'. The target on this occasion was one of our more recent 'recruits', and one of the younger guys in the place, whose training has now almost finished - he wasn't there, of course, in the nature of this stuff, it almost always happens behind people's backs - who seems to have been targeted because of the way he dresses, and the fact that he's flat sharing with a couple of young women, who 'obviously' wouldn't feel 'safe' if he was a 'red-blooded male'. At one point in the conversation, one of my colleagues, with obvious (and almost certainly deliberate) irony said 'I'd never judge anyone by their orientation', and it was all I could do to avoid calling him a liar to his face. Because I know, from things he's said numerous times before, that he would, without a shadow of a doubt, judge me for my sexuality, as would virtually everyone else who works in the building. Judge me simply because of the existence of my attractions, rather than any consideration of how those attractions are expressed - which is, of course, not at all in any practical sense. It's not just the prejudice that irritates me, it's the hypocrisy, too.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B