LGBTQ+

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All forms of queer news and culture. Nonsectarian and non-exclusionary.

See also this community's sister subs Feminism, Neurodivergence, Disability, and POC

Beehaw currently maintains an LGBTQ+ resource wiki, which is up to date as of July 10, 2023.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

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How are cishet people viewed in general in the LGBTQ community? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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!

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

I'm really glad you asked this question. I'm older than you but fits similar description, cishet with some friends and colleagues who are LGBTQ+ , dated a girl once who was bi. I also would stand up for any of my friends if they were treated poorly or unjustly, or if their identities or preferences were badly talked about i.e. my parents had very negative impression of gay people due to prevalence of drug use and STDs in the local scene until I sat down and talked to them.

Unfortunately I'm also pretty neurodivergent so I don't understand a lot of stuff about LGBTQ+ because it isn't structured in a way that I can understand. I wish someone made a programmers guide to LGBTQ+ or something :)

The upshot is that I struggle with the same dilemma as you do. A while back one of my favourite programs changed their icon to a rainbow one in support of LGBTQ community. I heavily criticized for a) saying that I wish they had told this before hand or given an option to retain the old one because I found the change jarring b) could they be transparent about what they're doing for LGBTQ+ people in terms of donating money or workplace policy because it felt a little bit like an empty gesture.

The upshot is that I have no clue how people in this community would view me in the context of how hard it would be for me to interact with them (I already struggle with you're creepy/emotionless bias when meeting new people, if I'm doing something to offend them on top of that then it's going to be even more of a struggle).

The answers here have been really illuminating whr varied. So thank you to all the people who answered as well :)