No one chooses his or her sexual orientation, and yet straight still remains the default. When a person feels as if they must “come out,” it turns them into a target, not only for bullying but also for scrutiny. While a person’s preference remains a part of who they are, it does not define them and making them admit it as if they should feel shame takes away the novelty of being in love, regardless of gender.

Many people under the LGBT umbrella morph into mere accessories. The existence of an assumed default makes the idea of a person liking the same or more than one gender so foreign to many that it almost turns into a rarity. The movie G.B.F. tells the story of a young man who reveals himself as gay. Instantly he turns popular and everyone wants him as their personal “Gay Best Friend.” Heterosexual people turning another’s sexual orientation into something for their own benefit strips away the person’s essence. If a default did not exist, this probably would not remain such a significant problem in the media. The media often shapes how we think, and when television shows us the “sassy gay friend,” people take this stereotype seriously.

While LGBT men act as an accessory, LGBT women often fear turning into a basis for the male imagination. No longer do these women possess feelings; they remain objectified into something to please the heterosexual mind. When someone strays from what society considers the norm, fantasies pop into the heads of others. They almost do not believe that a woman could not find attraction in a man, or vice versa. There remains a sliver of hope in the back of their heads that they could stay the exception, the one to make the gay person realize that they merely stood “confused.”

The word “gay” has slowly turned into something forbidden, commonly used as an insult. Society constantly tells us that homosexaulity represents something evil, that it needs to stay hidden and locked away in a closet. One preference stands above the rest, not needing lies nor deceit. Heterosexaulity acts as the best, the one that we are assigned at birth, the preferred and more comfortable option.  

The instant humans exit the womb, people automatically assume our preference as the opposite sex . For some, this has never and will never prove the case. What if we automatically assumed everyone’s preferences as the same sex? If the idea of a straight person coming out sounds absurd, why should a gay person not receive the same treatment? Society has constructed the idea of sexual orientation as the end-all way to identify people for easy placement into specific boxes. Anyone who does not identify with the default stands out, and not always ending with positive consequences.