there’s a lot more to what it means to be perceived as gay in this society than just that person, personally hating gay people.
i had someone say that to me and i’m just extremely self conscious so i was just trying to figure out why….
was it my tone of voice? mannerisms?
all these penises in my mouth?
Is that why women are seldom romantically interested in me? Do they all think i’m gay? is that the key to my loneliness? (probably just the ugly part).
if you tell someone, “oh i figured you like country music” and they don’t, they’re going to wonder why.
and i don’t know if they stopped, but kids used to be pretty mean calling people gay… it can be kind of a “touching on childhood trauma” thing.my advice: don’t “trick” people with clever “tests” and try to be genuine with your friends. If you’re gay and you have straight friends, those friends probably aren’t the problem even if they have a problem with being misidentified as gay.
Agree. Let’s approach this from the rational angle. “If they don’t react how I think they should react, then they must be…” But that’s clearly not a rational process. Its not even a decent heuristic.
I feel the need to emphasize that there is no difference between a straight person and a gay person outside of where they fall on the kinsey scale, just as there’s no difference between a trans person and a cis person, outside of the difference between their physical traits and preferred gender.
People are made up of tens of billions of neurons firing in a complicated puzzle, every one of us is unique and different. We should use caution and discretion in defining and perceiving the labels we use to categorize people using any trait that is not directly influenced by that trait.
i don’t believe in labeling people as such either, but for the sake of being able to communicate i’ve used the vernacular terms aforementioned, here within.
Also the kinsey scale is yet another human attempt to collapse the broad, multidimensional aspects of sexuality into a one dimensional “scale”. Like the “political spectrum” plane, it’s overly reductive and attempts to understand and explain the elephant by feeling its tail.That simple spectrum is how we get paradoxes like “there will always be yin in yang” and “horseshoe theory”. One dimension is not enough to describe the complex universe.
there’s contexts where it could be fine I think, like if you know your friend will take it lightly, and you’re not taking it seriously either. but actually trying to test someone with that is stupid
I think that’s more of a tell on your own insecurities if the notion makes you uncomfortable. You can’t tell if someone is gay, even if there are some trends/social queues.
you should look up “gaydar”
I feel that was covered by saying “trends/social queues”
“Gaydar” is just making a guess based on social queues. Maybe it’s an educated guess but it is a guess.
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Yes
no, that’s how someone straight would guess….
gaydar is more of an intuitionIntuition - “quick and ready insight; the power of knowing things without conscious reasoning.”
Iunno, I think that’s covered by “social cueues and tendencies”. Your intuition is still fueled by the things you perceive and isn’t magic, or necessarily accurate.
👍 sure
🧊 cool
But the trends and social queues are important for how people view you, and how people view you has a big impact on your life. e.g. imagine you were trying to flirt with people but everyone you talk to assumes that you’re not into their gender.
Just because you can guess doesn’t mean you can definitively tell.
This thread has been great for reminding me that nobody on the fucking planet can read.
Right back atcha.
Why is this okay because they are straight? Imagine saying you thought your Trans friend was a man, when they are trying to present as a woman.
These kind of tests are so toxic, and serve nothing but to spark an argument and hurt feelings.
You are part of the problem.
I don’t see how those two are related at all and honestly treating them as interchangeable is… cringe.
There is no harm in suggesting you thought someone was gay or straight, especially because sexuality has nothing to do with outward appearance and can be kinda nebulous to infer at all. If you’re not comfortable with the idea of being lgbt+, how are you an ally? Nothing differentiates a gay man from a straight one, outside of attraction to other men.
Whereas so much of trans struggles and validity relate to how they’re/we’re perceived. Do I pass enough to shit in the restroom that conforms to my identity?
So you think there isn’t a lot of extremely toxic male culture that will make men feel invalid for not being perceived as straight? Because that shits everywhere. It’s perfectly normal to struggle with that, feeling insecure about your self image has nothing to do with your support of others.
And insecurities can come from very personal things and no one should be judged for them. Lying about how you perceived someone as a “test” is toxic as fuck.
Yeah, it’s bad to ask if your friends are comfortable being viewed as gay because they might have insecurities from toxic masculinity 🙄🙄🙄
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I disagree about it not being remotely comparable. There’s little doubt that on average it’s gonna be far worse to misgender a transperson in that way (though “i thought you were x when i first met you” isn’t really misgendering either since it’s explicitly saying they’re not that, but w/e we all know what we’re talking about here) since there’s a very high chance they have some degree of trauma associated with it.
But I think in individual cases the “i thought you were gay” can be just as bad, so I do think it’s entirely comparable. I think it’s important to also think about the worst effect it could have, and it’s such an unnecessary action that both cases are just toxic and never a good thing, so I don’t think there’s a need to rank one as worse than the other. (And ofc both can also be fine if it’s clear everyones comfortable with it, and that’s more likely in the gay case, but hopefully that’s obvious).
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Did you skip over the part of it being completely unnecessary? Insults are a part of human communication, you can’t just erase them, so of course it makes sense to classify some as worse than others. It’s a fundamental part of insults even.
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As someone agender this entire thread is wild to me. I accept any gender, any pronouns, and do not care how people percieve me. None of this seems offensive to me, whether people thought i was trans or gay or whatever. Pretty sure the offense is mostly just whether offense was intended.
Pretty sure the offense is mostly just whether offense was intended.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but since I read this sentence I understand why I dislike this suggestion. Saying something to your friend to see if they’ll be uncomfortable is intending offense, imo. You should be kind to your friends and not give them shit tests, or else just don’t be friends with them anymore. It honestly feels like OOP is suggesting your straight friend isn’t really your friend, but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
It would still be irritating, not because being gay is bad, but because they think you are something you’re not. It’s just incorrect.
If I said “I thought you were from Mars” it would be… kind of annoying, in the average case.
What do you mean there’s no harm? People still get killed for being gay, yeah?
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Irrelevant to the discussion at hand
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Crappy comparison…
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with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay
Except just about every guy who has ever been bullied. While the bullies usually don’t actually believe that, it certainly explains why straight men get defensive about someone thinking that they’re gay. Plus it’s just inconvenient if you’re trying to find a girlfriend.
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IMO, it’s a difference in severity, not in kind. It’s a fairly regular thing for bullying victims to kill themselves or get seriously injured or killed by their bullies. Go a couple of decades back and out homosexuals, especially men, were exactly where trans people are now. Remember how the Republicans handled AIDS, or how male homosexual acts were literally illegal in many western countries until like the 90s or early 00s?
Bottomline is, don’t say your “friend” is a different sexuality or gender than you know they are, just as a test.
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Oppression olympics never gets anyone anywhere. The people who were bullying and persecuting gay men 20-30 years ago are often literally the same ones who are bullying and persecuting trans people right now.
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Shit, you’re right. Without allies like you, how would we learn and grow? Thank you for your insights.
Not an ally, Im a member bitch. And this aint okay
I’m glad you understood the point so well. I’m so glad you’re here.
I don’t think that would be my reaction as a straight man, but I could see why some people could be upset by others thinking that they were gay. It means you are not projecting the kind of appearance and energy you are trying to. It’s like telling a trans man “oh when we first met I thought you were a woman.” Maybe they can laugh that off but it probably stings still. It doesn’t mean they think being a woman is inferior to being a man.
Yeah, this kinda feels similar to the whole “you can’t be racist against white people/sexist against men” that tries to turn it into a cycle of revenge rather than bring anyone together.
It seems just like false flag division tactics. On the surface it seems like a good point, but you peel it back a bit and see it’s more likely to just drive away people who might otherwise be on your side for not being “supportive enough”.
If you’re not comfortable being perceived as lgbt+, are you an ally?
I think that’s what this post is asking.
It’s not a part of my identity, so no, I’m not. I just think that it should be irrelevant to whether or not someone should be allowed to exist or be respected as an equal. Does that make me an enemy?
I’d also feel weird if someone randomly said I seemed like an artist. Even though I’ve made an art or two over the years, it’s not a label I consider a part of my identity. Hell, even labels I do consider part of my identity can feel weird if someone randomly said I seemed like that out of a context where I’m demonstrating that. It’s nothing against anyone who identifies as any of those labels, but more of a general discomfort from being reminded that no one really knows me but will try to quantify and qualify who I am anyways.
It’s like saying “if you don’t want to be one of us, you must hate us”.
What does the implied perception have to do with your own wants?
Not entirely sure what you’re asking, like if others’ perception of me threatens my identity or something? It’s not that big of a deal. Discomfort, not distress or outrage.
To be clear, the issue I have is using this as a shit test, not that people might label me wrong. It’s going to happen, it’s just not comfortable. But treating reacting with discomfort as if it implies hatred is just going to start a conflict where there wasn’t one and increase division in a time when we really don’t need more things dividing us.
I fall in to the +, but not gay. I spent my teen years with people assuming I was gay because I didn’t project masculinity, nor fawn over/chase women. It was frustrating to be misidentified. I’m sure people who don’t fit into LGBT+ are similarly annoyed at being misidentified.
There’s more to it than that, being gay 30 years ago was enough to ruin your career - even if there wasn’t any proof. This is where the term “metrosexual” came from in the 2000s. Being gay was so bad that men came up with a word that meant “I’m straight but I like to shower and dress nicely.”
So if you’re a Millennial or older, odds are that you still carry the scars from that stigma to some extent, even if you’re an ally. When I was a kid, calling something gay was the worst you could get without swearing.
There’s no difference between a gay man and a straight man, outside of specifically who they’re trying to fuck. Suggesting someone might be one or the other isn’t harmful, since there’s no real way to tell without asking.
Telling a man they didn’t pass is rude af.
I don’t see how those can be equivocated. Sexual preference and gender identity are different things defined, characterized, and experienced in wildly different ways.
You literally mention the difference but then want to ignore the implications of that difference.
Gay men and Straight men generally have differences on average in what they do to attract perceived partners past the baselines of having a pulse and being a functional human being.
Yes, but that’s all social and varies person to person, region to region, etc. Even if there are typical differences, that’s not a rule. Which is the point.
So in one sentence you say there is no way to tell, in the next you say there are differences, then back to “it’s hard to define, therefore there are no differences at all”.
There’s no way to definitively tell but you can still make assumptions based on appearences? Fuck off ffs
Exactly. You are contradicting yourself.
Even if there are typical differences, that’s not a rule. Which is the point.
Something not being a rule doesnt make it locally insignificant. People in these various regions and cultures all have general ideas of how they would like to outwardly present themselves.
If straight and gay men are so similar then what made your hypothetical friend seem gay to you? Are you implying that society associates certain behaviors with sexuality and that you observed gay-coded behavior in him?
Read it again because that’s not what I’m saying
I get what you mean, and certainly you never know for sure if someone is straight or gay when you first get to know them… but are you saying you never make assumptions based on how someone dresses, talks, carries themselves, and interacts with the men and women around them?
No, I’m more saying that those traits vary from person to person and you can’t know until you ask. Assumptions and preconceived notions are how we deal with not having definitive information
Exposing people’s insecurities is not a test of allyship.
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While I get what you’re saying, you would still be the person who is choosing to take offense in this situation, and getting yourself worked up. This would be more like if someone said you look like you’re from Boston, weird because there’s not a true ‘look’, but not a big deal at all.
Equating it to someone calling you a dog is the energy you’re putting on it yourself. It’s generally considered dehumanizing to equate gay people to dogs, something to consider
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You are the one who needs to step back and actually think about the rhetoric you are spewing before just pushing it out there. From your own standards that you defined in your conversation here, you are saying that when a Trans person gets misgendered, THEY are CHOOSING to get worked up if they get upset and correct someone. Your own rhetoric is transphpbic. People have a RIGHT to express and maintain their own identity. You need to understand that.
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I feel like this is more of a test for confidence than for supportiveness.
I’d say “because I’m stylish and I work out?” (Context: I’m fat and wear jeans and graphic tees year round)
I mean guys are socially conditioned to feel inferior and less worthwhile as men for that kind of thing, I try not to hold it against folks as long as they’re kind and choose to act in support
It takes some people a looong time to unlearn that internalized rubric. Sometimes it even takes gay guys a long time to unlearn it
My brothers friend came out to his group, and apparently one of them just went “gayyyyy” and they had a laugh and that was that.
A gay dude hit on me and I was super flattered. I told him that he looked good too without saying “No Homo”
+1 ally points
*
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doctorgay friend for details.
I’d be interested to know why they thought that too. Not sure why that’s a bad thing
My queer kids seem to think I am lesbian. The girlfriends “are you sure your mom isn’t lesbian?” I literally have birthed 4 of kids , half of that set queer, and myself had only 2 long term relationships, both with men. I’m only into men, as far as I can tell. Am not offended in the least, as I get older I do wish it was so, women hold up better; and they obviously mean it as a compliment, it’s just funny.
“Yeah, lots of people do. My parents did, too.”
I actually get this fairly frequently. I don’t read as terribly cis, but I am.
I used to get it a lot when I was young because I didn’t have a girlfriend. I was always like “…Yeah it’s not because I’m 5’3, shy as fuck, got the shit bullied out of me at school for 6 years straight, and don’t go to social activities, I’m just gay…” Assholes.
My life as a cis male massage therapist
I’m a straight guy. I don’t wish I was gay, but being bi would be pretty cool. Twice the options.
sadly it still equals zero
As they say, 2 x 0 = 0
If a gay friend told me that, I would have said “you have shit taste in men”
