• AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Would be nice to see the numbers for straight cis people as well. I mean, as a queer person, i can talk all day long about the genre of guy that’s the reactionary, bourgeoisified, transphobic, biphobic, acephobic, misogynist, racist, ableist cis gay man who wants to keep his hegemonial role in the community while pulling up the ladder in his defeatist assimilationism. I know guys like that, i’ve seen former friends become like this, they’re insufferable, there’s too many of them and this is a real problem for organizing in queer spaces, but i generally do not feel comfortable having that kind of converation with cishet dudes, in a similar way in which a black person would probably feel weird if i as a white woman got worked up about black assimilationists more than i get worked up about my racist former gay friend.

    Firstly, most straight dudes don’t even remotely understand the context in which assimilationist queer people operate because they do not know what it’s like having to navigate a queerphobic society as a queer person and how easily queer people can take a wrong turn and try to demonstrate fealty to cishetnormativity instead of doing the reasonable thing of throwing bricks at it (this is also why i do not talk much about transmedicalism outside of trans spaces even though it’s one of my main red button issues within them). Secondly, the problem is that both from my personal experience and from similar polls, the number of shitheads is notably higher among the straights, even straight women, than among gay guys, and the number of people who do actual, meaningful trans allyship among the gay community is a lot higher. On a website full of cishet dudes with … let’s say with room to grow when it comes to views on gender issues and sexuality, there’s just a lot of potential for deflection here.

    Not saying we should go soft on the dollar store Yiannopoulos kind of gay man, not saying a straight guy reading this shouldn’t push back against transphobic bs from a log cabin republican, but each of you knows ten times as many transphobic straight people than transphobic gay people, and if you wanna be an ally, you should focus on battling transphobia in your own back yard. Playing up gay and lesbian transphobia because it seems more credible and harder to attack is clearly a conservative tactic at this point, do not contribute to weaponizing idpol and platforming the Olly Londons and Kathleen Stocks of this world. They are fringe figures in our communities and to push them further to the fringe, we have to avoid giving them the engagement they’re supposed to get.

    • ashinadash [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Envisioning this chart but with “straight woman” and “straight man” categories both at like 30% negative.

      Honestly I was surprised that 13% negative is as bad as it got here.