First of all I’d like to apologize in advance for any insensitive statements I might make (I hope I don’t though), I’m trying my best not to and I was just curious :)
I’m an 18-year-old cishet guy currently in uni and recently the thought popped into my head that I have no clue how the LGBTQ community would view me as someone who’s not in the space or actively an ally. I would more accurately describe myself currently as a “don’t care” person in the sense that to me it genuinely does not matter what someone identifies as or who someone is attracted to. I don’t know how much this means, but I have multiple gay friends, my roommate is bi and I dated a person who went as a girl in day to day life because it was more convenient to her/them although she/they told me she/they partially identified as nonbinary (correct pronoun usage pls >.<) but I don’t know if all this is the classic “but i have a black friend” argument that racists use.
To cut to the point: I’m curious as to how I would be seen by queer people in general, as I’ve witnessed both very inclusive and nice people (mostly here), but also some that said that LGBTQ places are not to be used by cishet people and I’m wondering what the best attitude to take would be.
Thanks!
If you’re respectful to others, you’re good.
Generally, I’m really careful about forming an opinion about people without knowing more about them. Each person deserves to be judged by their individual character and actions, not by the group they belong to.
Eww, allocishets. Don’t give us cooties! /s
Not really sure what you expect. Queer people generally are probably going to be more comfortable around similar queer people because they are probably safer around them and don’t have to deal with weird tiptoeing around things like:
to her/them although she/they told me she/they partially identified as nonbinary (correct pronoun usage pls >.<) but I don’t know if all this is the classic “but i have a black friend” argument that racists use.
where they may have good intentions and all, but make things a bit awkward by over-focusing on it (and also may come off as being more worried about how others perceive them than actually caring about the other people sometimes).
In this case yeah, it’s formulated quite awkwardly by me since (I’m just gonna stick to she) she goes by she/her in daily life, but online she uses she/them and she told me she felt nonbinary to some degree although she hadn’t told anyone else so I didn’t really know what pronouns to use so I thought “let’s roll with both”.
Her exact words were something like “I just go by as female because I don’t want to deal with the hassle of having to explain to people” so I actually don’t know what she’d prefer in an ideal world
You don’t have to know what pronouns she would prefer in an ideal world, just which ones she is using right now. If she’s going by she/her, and isn’t open about possibly being nonbinary, then you should probably keep using she/her until she tells you to do something different. But if you’re really that confused, you could ask. You can also always use they/them as a default when you’re not sure, especially online.
Treating us like humans is all we ask. We’re all different and while I would initially approach with caution if I know you’re being sincere then cool. We’re not asking for performative liberal woke points bs. We know those types can be full of shit when they’re out of the public eye. I’d take 10s of you over any one of them
That’s in a way a bit what I’m wondering about, like I don’t want to come off as performative so I usually wouldn’t bring it up except if the context made it relevant, but I also don’t know if not explicitly supporting the LGBTQ community is passively enabling bigotry or something
Is there that much difference between passively enabling bigotry, vs. passively opposing bigotry?
You’ll live a life truer to yourself, if you take action to explicitly and actively defend whatever you think. You said you’re 18, so take this from someone who’s spent their life bullied into passivity: it isn’t worth it. Some decades into the future, you’ll look back and ask yourself “what have I actually accomplished?”, and you better have some answers other than just having passively watched the world turn into whatever it will.
I’m curious as to how I would be seen by queer people in general
Idk about other people, but if we met in person, I’d probably see you as a human-shaped sentient organism who seems friendly :)
If I’m being honest, the only thing that would be strange to me is why wouldn’t you consider yourself an ally? It sounds like there are are a lot of important people in your life who are LGBT. I guess if you’re wondering about perception, someone who has a lot of queer friends but doesn’t want to stand up for them usually rings alarm bells in the LGBT community. Not saying that’s you, just in general.
But I will say from personal experience, allies are like gold for me. Love them all to death.
And no worries, I feel like it’s a respectful question. Hope you can keep learning!
Like I don’t feel like I’m an ally because I don’t really go out of my way to show it? I don’t really know how to explain it other than my sister who is very explicitly an ally, like she has a bunch of rainbow stuff in her room and on her backpack etc and has a lot of queer friends while on my end I don’t really show that? Like of course if someone was being a piece of shit towards my gay friends I’d step up and try and defend them, but that goes for any of my friends too?
Again I don’t really know how to word it but I don’t recognize myself in the term “ally” (although I’ve been considering putting a rainbow pin on my backpack or something because rainbows are cool)
You don’t have to put rainbows on anything if you don’t want. I don’t even use rainbows!
The main thing is, when you hear someone in a cishet group spouting homophobia, be the one to say “hey that’s not cool”. Lots of people say they’re allies and put it on their social media and whatnot, but where it counts is just being able to stick up for us like you would for any mate when the time comes
💯 A cishet person who treats “ally” as a verb is WAY more helpful than one who only wears it as a noun.
In that case, I don’t think it’s fair to describe yourself as someone who “doesn’t care”. I think when you say that you don’t care, it can come off as not caring if someone is being a piece of shit towards your gay friends. “I don’t care if you’re gay” can sound like “I don’t care if you get antagonized for being gay”, and I think the fact that you would stand up for your gay friends shows that you do care that they are gay, you care that that is seen as something worth standing up for and protecting. Saying you don’t care is minimizing the extent to which you do care.
