okay but like. why do cis gays speak as though their views carry more weight in regards to LGBT issues than any other group in this community?
like it’s almost never stated explicitly, but it’s a tone that’s ever-present.
they speak of the community as though it is a kingdom that they are the benign rulers of.
beyond “you’re either LGBT or you aren’t!” there’s this unspoken (but lawfully abided by) hierarchy.
and i specify cis gays because i actually notice bisexuals being shat on by this community dynamic more often than even i myself am.
and the lower you are on it the easier it is for your identity’s LGBT status to be called into question. the thinner your ice is.
if cis gays are displeased with your rowdy behavior you bet your ass they’ll slam their gavel and call into question the legitimacy of your identity, personhood, and your right to be in the only space in which you’re relatively safe from violence.
something that inconveniences cis gays is viewed as being a far greater threat to the LGBT community than something that kills trans women.
i saw a post recently that mentioned both how micro-labeling validates a lot of LGBT folks in a way that saves lives, but also that it made figuring out you’re A Cis Gay a more time consuming process and therefore micro-labeling should be done away with.
all i know is that if a cis person ever talks about LGBT issues as though i am a beloved subject in Their kingdom and that my status as a ‘citizen’ relies on My loyalty and obedience i’m gonna hurt someone.
because here on tumblr? analysis of power dynamics and oppression isn’t based in material data. its goal isn’t to protect those most at risk.
That is,,, exactly what it feels like
Another thing I really don’t get on this site is this recurring attitude of ‘people of your orientation haven’t suffered enough in the past to be part of the LGBT community’ as if it were some kind of pity party?
I thought the community was created so sexual, romantic, and gender minorities could provide each other support and solidarity, strength in numbers, and to create positive social change in the world?
And yet I’ve seen even bisexuals, who are in the original name, shunted off to the side for being ‘straight passing’ and ‘not gay enough’. Isn’t this tasteless exclusion the exact attitude the community was created against?^^
And what is especially frustrating is when someone says anything about any of this, we get told that we just hate gay people, that we are even oppressing them, and reminded that they don’t oppress us and are oppressed by the straights as if we don’t know that.
But many on tumblr will hate whole orientations and genders if they even suspect that a few members of the group are homophobic, and we get told they are allowed to call out homophobia no matter who it comes from so it’s okay if they hate entire identities and everyone with them. That being LGBTQIA+ doesn’t give anyone a pass on homophobia… even though supposedly it gives them a pass on biphobia, transphobia, queerphobia, panphobia, aphobia, etc.
Anyone who defends themselves to someone on tumblr who happens to be gay is homophobic, but tumblr cis gays attacking and hating all people within an orientation or gender is okay for some reason.
And that makes it so difficult to speak out, to say, “Hey, the way you are treating people is wrong,” because you get branded a homophobe for it. They never listen to your actual point or argument. They don’t get that you aren’t attacking them for their orientation but rather asking them not to mistreat other orientations and to respect non cis people.
I’ve seen posts saying, “Using cis/white/neurotypical/able bodied/whatever before the word gay doesn’t make your comment less homophobic.” In other words, no one can every point out any privileged behavior in certain parts of the gay community or bigotry from gay people privileged on another axis because to say anything less than positive about any gay person is automatically homophobic. How can we ever address real issues in the community if that is the attitude people have?
I wish we were allowed to say, “Hey, the way you as an individual do x thing is bad” or “Hey, this behavior common with people in your group is bad” without them hearing, “Hey, you being gay is bad.” Because that’s not what is being said, at all. And none of us feel that way.
And this really does seem to be a mostly tumblr thing, but it makes me anxious to enter LGBTQIA+ and queer spaces in real life.
I feel scared just talking about this at all, because this problem is so prevalent.
People shouldn’t have to be afraid of wanting respect, solidarity, and basic human decency. Shouldn’t have to be afraid of calling out behavior that hurts them. Of asking people to support and stand up for them rather than make them feel next to nothing.
Yet here we are.
“they speak of the community as though it is a kingdom that they are the benign rulers of.”
Well thats genuinely what they think.
When I keep saying that a ludicrous amount of young (cis) gay dudes and lesbians here on Tumblr view the community not as an EQUALITY-BASED community, but as a HIERARCHY-BASED one, with themselves right at the top? This is precisely what I mean.
And all of the above nonsense comes from two radfem-authored ideas:
- exclusively-same-sex-attracted people are the most oppressed members of the community, full-stop
- the community is primarily for the needs of exclusively-same-sex-attracted people with exceptions to others if they prioritize their same-sex-attraction.
That’s how you end up with everything from circular, never-ending spirals of Oppression Olympics and a complete inability of young cis gay dudes and lesbians to accept accountability for behavior and attitudes toward other marginalized orientations.
It’s also how we end up with some many Pick Me™ styled bi+ and trans folks doing whatever they can to undermine their specific communities, as well as the communities in the extended acronym, in order to kiss up to homonormative cis lesbians and cis gay folks.
How many times have I seen (typically exclusionist) bi+ and trans blogs on this hellsite that generally post about and for bi+ and trans issues, but as soon as stats and discussions come to intracommunity policing, abuse, suppression, fetishization, and so forth, two kinds of rhetoric tend to be used in retaliation:
- This only happens from some individuals in the (LG, but also BT+) community. It’s not a systemic problem. If you claim it to be systemic and resulting in the negative outcomes of the BTQ2SIA you’re a homo/lesbophobe!
- Ok sure, the BT+ communities may have it hard, and according to these slew of statistics and studies they seem to have it worse than (cis) gay and lesbian people, BUT! That doesn’t mean the BT+ has anything worse than the LG in certain respects. So don’t bring it up again
It’s gaslighting. It’s bullshit. It creates an environment of hegemony in order to replicate cisheterosexist structures of privilege amongst marginalized and oppressed communities.
Notice the constant deference to the cis LG. Notice how they are put on a pedestal, even when they aren’t the center of the topic. Notice how even pointing out that the LG isn’t the pinnacle of oppressed demographics is equated with bigotry towards the LG. Not so coincidentally these blinders apply to the intersections of disability and white supremacy in queer/LGBTQ+ spaces too.
Why else was there massive push back against the coining and usage of cis, cisgender, and cissexism? What about monosexual and monosexism, even biphobia in the “Biphobia is just homophobia,” and “There’s no such thing as biphobia” crowds? Allosexism, aphobia, perisexism/dyadic privilege? Gods forbid of Two Spirit people are even mentioned at all. All of these words are integral terminology for the communities that birthed them. Yet they threaten cishomonormativity and exclusionism so much that there are swaths of LG and LG-appeasing BT folks chomping at the bit to quell the formation of in-depth intracommunity politics by crying homo/lesbophobia.
It’s a game of control. It’s the same game that says queer/LGBTQ+ people using the word ‘queer’ is exactly the same kind of queerphobic (natch homo/lesbo/bi+/trans/etc.) abuse as when non-queer/non-LGBTQ+ populations use it against us.
Don’t be fooled by these strawmen-toting types. The goal is to create and preserve a very distinct and harmful status quo.
@leproblematique made a great point there about how the people who exhibit this behavior seem to be driving for a hierarchy-based community. I complain it ad nauseam, but this is another feature of authoritarianism and you can see it play out anytime you’ve got a community that is not wholly comprised of but does contain some authoritarians in it.
Authoritarians need structure, so they support social hierarchies because it helps them feel like they have a degree of security. And they need it so badly that they will attack anyone who gets in the way, regardless of who the target is.
We need to be aware of it so we can help educate people to fight authoritarianism and reject it in their own lives. It’s the only way to protect them from this kind of behavior, because converting authoritarians is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.
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