National Coming Out Day

[sonia]

I am bisexual. I am in a heterosexual relationship for the first time in 16 years. Neither of us performs our gender in socially approved ways. I don't shave my legs or wear makeup or hide my competence. He doesn't dominate conversations when he is the only man present, nor try to dominate me in other ways.

I've been thinking about tim's recent post Allyship, empathy, and etiquette.

If you are a person experiencing conditional heterosexual privilege at any given moment, what I expect you to do in order to be an ally is to quietly reflect along these lines: "Hmm, am I in a space where it's safe for queer people to make out? Because if I am, then great, I'm going to make out with my partner with reckless abandon. But if I'm not, then I'm not going to do that, because I don't wish to take advantage of my heterosexual privilege. If queer people would get hurt for doing it, I don't want to be the one who's doing it all the while knowing that my queer friends in the same room can't do the same."

It's definitely not something I thought about when I was last in a heterosexual relationship. Then again, I have spent very little time in spaces where it was not safe for queer people to make out. Also my new love and I are pretty shy, and have access to private space, so we're not likely to make out in public. Holding hands, though...

There have been times when I was newly single, and it made me ache to see others holding hands. And yet, I didn't want them to stop. I didn't want to subtract from the amount of love and well-being and touch in the world. I'm not sure I agree that refraining from holding hands in a heterosexual couple makes it safer or better for queer folks. It might depend on the specific environment and the specific queer folks.

It makes me think of my quiet, hopeless battle to remind people around Christmas time that not everyone is Christian. It does help when people say "Season's Greetings" to me instead, but I wouldn't expect two known Christians to avoid "Merry Christmas!" with each other.

I'll keep thinking about Tim's definition of allyship. It's a new angle for me.

Comments

[kaberett]

I am one hundred percent confident that Tim's definition of allyship is a crock of shit, not least because it (again) erases disabled bodies; obviously I'm lucky in terms of where I live but I definitely get more aggression for public displays of affection while I'm using a wheelchair than I do when I'm not, regardless of apparent gender combinations of folk involved.

Plus all the other combinations of people and bodies where making out while in receipt of conditional heterosexual privilege absolutely 100% is a radical and subversive act.

I get to expand the legible space occupied by "genderqueer". I don't have to fucking police my own gender expression (in ways that directly cause me harm) in order to be ~~permitted~~ to receive physical contact from my partners in public without ~~harming queers~~. I'm queer, I'm disabled, and physical contact is frequently a necessity for me to be able to leave the house.

And yeah, I'm post-grad-school-age in the UK, and so are my partners -- and yeah, I'm often in the front row at concerts because being a wheelchair user means that happens automatically.

Feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit; Tim, much as I am fond of him in many contexts, has been consistently shitty over the past few months at not erasing or talking over disabled voices or those of PoC, and has point-blank refused to engage on being called on his shit even to the extent of saying "I'm sorry that I hurt you and I'll think about that". Which is absolutely his prerogative! But I don't think terribly well of him for attempting to get people to pay him for it, and I don't think terribly well of his rigour in general on this topic.

[sonia]

Thanks for bringing in intersectionality with disability and other identities!

That's crappy that you get more aggression for public displays of affection while using a wheelchair. :-( While I'm sadly unsurprised, it still makes me feel a little sick to hear it. Says a lot about ableism right there.

(frozen)

[winterkoninkje]

> Feminism will be intersectional or it will be bullshit; Tim, much as I am fond of him in many contexts, has been consistently shitty over the past few months at not erasing or talking over disabled voices or those of PoC, and has point-blank refused to engage on being called on his shit

+1 to this. I wouldn't restrict that second sentence to just "the past few months" since it's been a few years IME, but yeah.

(frozen)

[tim]

So do you still think that Black people can be racist against white people, or did you change your mind on that one?

(frozen)

[sonia]

Okay, I think everyone's point has been made here. Topics of allyship and intersectionality are still open on this post. Topic of past responses to call-outs/call-ins is closed here. (And can be opened elseweb as you wish, of course.)

[azurelunatic]

After contemplating on this for some time, I think I see the seeds of three essays in this single one, and I think they would all be interesting -- separately.

One of them is "Dear Heterosexuals: when you say 'but what if that couple that appears to be opposite-sex is actually queer' in response to an 'ARGH HETEROSEXUALS' this is the opposite of helpful." With appropriate care taken around non-binary gendered folks and bisexual folks. One of the things going around Tumblr that I found enlightening on a similar topic -- I'm white. My ~goddaughter is Asian. When my goddaughter says "Fucking white people!" to her friend, or to me, the fact that I'm trusted to hear this says that I'm probably not currently displaying the problematic White People behaviors that she's upset about. Making it about "not all white people" or "but what if they weren't actually white" is super unhelpful derailing and probably rooted in my discomfort around race issues, when I should be listening and offering support. The essay on Tumblr mentioned that generalizing to "white people" (or whatever) can be helpful, when the root of the pain in the moment is something like "my white teacher, who I had trusted, just said something really racist and hurtful and I'm feeling betrayed" -- which is really more up-close and personal than maybe someone wants to face in the moment.

One of them is "If you're heterosexual, you are a guest in queer spaces such as Pride." And there are a lot of interesting things to be said about the difference between showing up in a queer space as an ally (amplifying marginalized voices, being present in support, making room for spaces that don't include you) and showing up as a tourist and trying to make the space All About You.

And the final one is "There are many subtle signals that queerfolks use to judge the safety of any given space; this is one of mine, and that is: spaces where apparent M/F couples over a certain age feel it's appropriate to get to base 2.5 and it's not explicitly queer-friendly are KIND OF NOT SAFE."


The collision of the second two themes also reached unfortunate conclusions in my brainspace.

[sonia]

Thanks for this analysis! Makes sense. I still have Thoughts about that third one, but you're right, separating out the other two does help.

(Current Thoughts - I kinda don't like being around couples getting to base 2.5 generally. Not sure it has anything do to with queerness for me, but more with boundaries and respect around sexual energy.)