Today, I attended the workshop that dealt with homophobia held by Robin Ochs, who is a bisexual activist. She got married at May 17th, the day when the same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts. It was first time for me to see a person who is a bisexual and got married.

I realized that the influence of the legalization was much bigger than I had thought. Some people still wondered and thought it strange about same-sex couple, and some of them bravely asked her why she get married to woman. But, in such case, she became able to assert confidently that she got married, and this was because they loved each other. It would be unacceptable for most people if it wasn窶冲 legalized.

There were about 20 people. At first, we listened to the lecture. She told us many stories about homophobia. It was surprising that murders took place because of the homophobia in the United States. For one thing, religion is influenced on the consciousness of the people. Some people I got to know since I came here were Catholic. Most of them seem to be opposed to the same-sex marriage for religious reason, so that the murder took place. (But I don窶冲 know in detail, so I would like to research more about that.)

After the lecture, we made groups by 2 people, and talked over personal experience about homophobia each other. And then, we all shared some stories. We discussed the misunderstanding, prejudice, and how to overcome it. Many ideas were presented.

What I learned in this workshop is that I still have a prejudice. In fact, sometimes I would tend to think of a person with prejudice just looking him/her. However, I never show the other people my bias, so nobody notice it. I know it is wrong. I have a prejudice just in my mind. I hate it. I want to get rid of it. I vowed it in front of the all students. Not only did I, but also every participant promised something he/she wants to do to stop the homophobia. Many students mentioned that to educate other people is most important. Talking about this workshop with friends would be a better way, or educating myself would also be better way. Anyway, to get awareness of the people is the beginning, I reconfirmed it.