I personally haven't had that happen to me but I was wondering if anyone on EC experienced this (having a largely vocal and passionate ally turn into a neutral or even anti-gay stance). Feel free to share some stories. I would love to know how you guys get over that kinda change.
Yes. The first person I came out to (as trans) in my family was my oldest brother. Initially he was very supportive. Six months later he does a complete flopsy, informing me that he was "wrong" and that trans-people don't actually exist (or deserve to exist) and that he can't "in good conscience" support that anymore. This was right after my parents explicitly rejected me post coming out. Being the ever cynical pessimist, I kind of expected it to happen. My brother is an arse, so I don't really care, to be honest. I've been rejected enough not to give a crap anymore what people think. Basically, I get over it by not expecting any support in the first place. That way I can't be "let down" when someone conveniently changes their mind about the validity of my identity. But if there is support, it comes as a pleasant (if not wary) surprise.
There was this one guy who was actually my friend at one point. (not anymore, thank god) He would be pretty in favor of gay rights. Although, I found out that he's pretty transphobic. I'm not sure if he's homophobic now, but I know that he is pretty conservative. He actually does believe people are born gay, but that doesn't mean he won't still be against gay rights. He probably grew a harsher stance on gay rights, but I can't say for sure. All I know is that he's said some pretty transphobic things about a trans friend of mine. Overtime, I realized he was more and more of a narcissist. He thinks he's cool, smart, hot, funny, strong, and likable. He looks down on everyone and mistreats people.
My family was very 'Meh it doesn't affect us so why care?' until I came out, then they became overly 'I hate everything to do with the LGBT+ and throw out homophobic and transphobic things out every fucking day to make sure everyone knows we hate the LGBT'. So yeah, it happens.
Definitely happens and it's a major let-down. A lot of people instinctively drift to their earlier prejudices, most of which they've grown up with. Or they feel they've been "enlightened" by certain conspiratorial commentaries on homosexuality. It might seem surprising to some but I think it's entirely understandable. We live in a world where we have a lot of unclustered and semi-formulated ideas about many things, we don't know which to disgorge and which to apply. Those who have shown tolerance in the beginning but later "changed their minds", might have just been doing it because it was fitting and socially acceptable to do so during that specific time.
Although I just figured out that said brother watches "Transparent" which is a show about trans-people... If you think trans-people are gross and you don't support them then WTF?
Great show, btw. Totally recommend it, if you can deal with hateable albeit interesting characters, that is. Maura's kids are the worst. As for your brother, I dunno, maybe he is in the process of accepting you but isn't quite there just yet?
yea, it happens, sadly enough. I've seen people who have conversations with me, say that they support lgbt people, and sing a different tune when someone who isn't lgbt in the conversation. It sucks though because I feel like these kind of people are being trained to say these things instead of being honest with themselves, they're not being taught (or learning) the values that we're trying to teach them. I honestly like to believe that we do have allies, though from my experiences, they always seem to have that certain distance they keep from us that still makes them feel uncomfortable.
