Heya everybody! Recently, a person i follow on a social media posted something that grabbed my attention. He said that he is a bit sad that all non-hetero sexualities are put together in the LGBT community, because it is excludent to hetero people. He said something like "what if we did this with races, and exclude all cis white people?". Personally, i disagree with him. I think that the LGBT community increases our strenght, as we all fight similiar prejudices, and i see no reason to separate it in many tiny, weak communities. Besides, i think straight people who are sympathizers to our cause are more than welcome to join in our discussions, protests, etc. I understand that there are some exaggerations, where some people are excluded from events. There was a recent event (in UK, if i'm not mistaken), and cis white males weren't welcome in the event. I think it is a great thing that we are worrying more and more about minorities and fighting the different kinds of prejudice, but i don't think excluding people and automatically labeling a whole group as "villains" is the way to go. That, in my opinion, was an isolated case, and, in general, i see that the LGBT community is friendly enough to accept people who aren't LGBT into our discussions. And that, in my opinion, is important, because, well, if we just sit in a room, sharing our ideas only with people who agree with us, then everyone agrees with everyone and nothing changes in the outside world! And, again, i'm happy that, here in Empty Closets at least, we have members of different orientations, including straight people, all working together to build a strong and healthy community. No one is left behind. Well, this ended up being bigger than i expected. But, this is all my opinion, what is yours? And, as always, keep it civil folks!
Race is not sexual orientation. There are way more non-whites in the world than there are LGBTs of any color. Lots of countries do not have whites as the majority of the population, but I'm pretty sure every single country has cisgender heterosexuals as the majority. That's just my two cents.
So what if something is in the majority or minority? - especially for things people can't choose. I say as long as we're respectful people and open to discussion [not arguments] then that's all good. I think everyone should be allowed to events if they're supporting it or coming to have a respectful discussion. Oh, and yes, I'd be willing to have a conversation with a religious person that were against LGBT+. I find discussions about 'right and wrong' fun and I know they say it's a 'sin' - but why? I know what the Bible says, but that was written 2000 years ago, applying it to modern day would be interesting to see what they say. Providing no one was directly abusive to each other then, yes, I'd be interested. I mean, we talk about making equality, but not allowing cis white males to come to something *is* discrimination. If you don't allow cis white males, then you're starting opposite inequality, and before you know it, they'll be fighting back asking for equality ... and then it'll just be this endless cycle ...
I know, and i agree with you! I'm just quoting his example In my interpretation, he was just (poorly) comparing the two things, but, as i said, i personally disagree with him. My thoughts exactly.
Hmmm...so should we also not have "fruit", because it is exclusive of perfectly healthy vegetables? Should we not refer to New England, because doing so excludes States like Maryland or California that might otherwise support New England's values and freedom? Should we not refer to Christian Faiths, because it is exclusive of other valid religions? It's not like the LGBT Community is a walled/gated community...it's not like we're saying other people aren't allowed to interact with us. We definitely appreciate (and had damned well *better* appreciate) our allies. But labels *of all kinds* are used to make distinctions between things with a quality and things without the quality...whether the quality is botanical, social, geographical, sexual, religious. Creating a label does not exclude people to whom the label does not apply. It simply describes the people to whom the label *does* apply. To say this is a bad thing is basically to make an argument that we should get rid of language...which is STUPID.
While I do agree with the "stronger together" sentiment you expressed, I think there are drawbacks of being a very large mixed-minority group.
Oh, i agree. One of the biggest drawbacks is the risk of losing focus, as we have different objectives, depending on how you see it. It is something we need to be careful about, without any doubt.
tough! We're all united whether we like it or not, in the common goals and issues that we face.. in our community, in society... in the world as a whole. I think the problems start when, we focus more on dividing ourselves into little groups and less on what we have in common. Come to think of it that may be why I prefer the term Gay community.. or maybe it's because I'm lazy.
No! Any large community has some difficult to align the objectives of all it's members. Look at religious groups for example: Inside a single religion, we have many different people, with their different ideas (even if they converge in a single idea, that unites everyone), and we even have fanatics who believe their ideas are superior than the others in their "group"!. Or scientific groups. I recently participated in an event about caves. We had many different people there, from many different places of Brazil, with the same objective: To study caves. You could simply say that we were one big group with the same objective: We want to study and understand caves. However, we don't agree with everything. Some people there worked for mining companies, some worked for organizations focused on conservation... In resume, we all had the same big objective, but we don't think exactly the same thing. That wasn't harmful to the exchange of scientific knowledge, and, in fact, the presence of different visions enriched the discussion. But we have to be careful to the central objective. Why we were all there? To study caves. What i am trying to say is: It is a great thing that we are together on this fight against prejudice. But we should be careful to not lose the focus of our objectives (and i don't think we are losing it, we are doing great!). Any big group should think about their objectives every now and then. As long as our objective is to fight prejudice and unite everyone together, then i think we are doing great! Now, if some people are trying to separate us and straight people, then something is wrong in my point of view. After all, aren't we fighting for equality? Like kageshiro said:
I think it may be more that people who don't fit the heterosexual mold find themselves more comfortable within the LGBT community, as we're apt to know how they feel about other people not understanding their sexuality.
Straight people aren't included in the LGBTQ community because they do not face the same societal oppression that queer people do. It's like Rachel Dolezal saying she's black, even though she never had to experience discrimination because of her race because she's white. Allies are included in the acronym justly, and yes, while some allies may have a shitty time when it comes to being hated along with the LGBTQ community, they still cannot relate to being queer. Non-LGBTQ people are more than welcome in our spaces and discussions, but they must also respect and acknowledge that they cannot understand our struggles on the intersect of sexual/romantic orientation and gender identity. Essentially:
I think when you're fighting for rights as minorities, it's great to band together. What I'm seeing in my part of Canada is LGBT becoming so much an equal part of society, I'm wondering if a separate community will even be necessary unless we want to maintain it for other reasons besides fighting for our human rights. How do Canadian gays feel about being absorbed into the human mainstream? Are you seeing this happening where you are? ... gay couples and gay parents and homeowners who live and work alongside straight couples and straight parents and homeowners. The differences in orientation are no longer a big deal. I think gays are still viewed as different in a lot of rural areas, but in urban Canada LGBT are widely accepted I believe.
I guess I'm one of the few people on the planet who still believe in safe spaces. While I have many straight friends, all of them understand that sometimes, I just want to be with people like me--people who viscerally, not just propositionally, understand what it's like to be queer. Safe spaces are necessarily and correctly exclusive. That's a desireable property, not a lamentable one. If certain people are not excluded, certain ideas definitely are. Misogyny has no place in feminist spaces. Homophobia and transphobia have no place on Empty Closets. If they had a place, these wouldn't be the spaces they are. Instead, they would be "everyday life."
