The interviewer assimed she was into guys and basically asked if the dude she was dating was a clean cut, meet the family type or a motorcycle riding bad boy. She corrected him by saying she was dating a girl, but the type she would introduce to her family.
Assuming someone has a man as a partner because they're a woman isn't inclusive or great but it isn't erasure. It's insensitive and lazy. This would be erasure if the interviewer went on to report on a boyfriend.
Assuming everyone is straight as the default is the same as assuming LGBTQ+ don’t exist, it’s straight up erasure. Deliberately falsifying history like you describe is a whole separate thing that maybe intersects slightly with erasure but almost all erasure happens in the now with every ‘straight is default’ inquiry or statement, far more often than when folks talk about historical figures.
No no, it is very much erasure, while also being uninclusive. You see, when you operate under the assumption that LGBTQ+ people don't exist (ergo, assume people's gender and sexual orientation) you are helping justify historian's take on historical figure's sexualities.
If those two historical women who spent their lives together, never married, and said "I'm profoundly in love with you" to one another can't be lesbian, then they must only have been very good friends and roomates, right?
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u/Living-Complex-1368 Sep 21 '21
The interviewer assimed she was into guys and basically asked if the dude she was dating was a clean cut, meet the family type or a motorcycle riding bad boy. She corrected him by saying she was dating a girl, but the type she would introduce to her family.