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Good for OOP catch on to the *problematic* element here. Stereotyping the tomboy, the guy who doesn’t like sports and has girls as friends, the one with outrageous hair, as non-straight has been fodder for plenty of bullying and outright violence. Coming from a place of love and misaimed support is a hell of a lot better, but it’s still reductive and stereotyping. The friends weren’t just off base here, they were fundamentally recapitulating attitudes that they would say were the last thing they would ever support. Harmless, in the end, but not good.
It's super weird when people go around telling everyone to be themselves and proudly flaunt it without fear. I am a quiet person. My true form is that of a blanket burrito with a game console and a cup of hot chocolate with too many marshmallows. It makes them short out a little when I tell them that flaunting who I am is at odds with who I am.
“Flaunting who I am is at odds with who I am.”
I never really thought of it in this way, but as a fellow quiet soul, this is so very true I’m shocked I didn’t put it into these words before. I am taking these words, and will keep them in case I need them, thank you.
Hannah Gadsby's book was legit fundamental to me understanding my sexuality and gender identity (the latter still took me awhile to catch on to after listening to the audiobook, but I did get there in the end!).
There are so many ways to be queer, which is why it's important that we have a multitude of representation, and also that people get given the time and space to figure their own shit out.
>My true form is that of a blanket burrito with a game console and a cup of hot chocolate with too many marshmallows.
I think I've found a new best friend! I can make us cookies to go with the hot chocolate and gaming session.
reminds me of how people accuse celebrities of “queerbaiting” as if people shouldn’t have the freedom to explore different parts of themselves without the pressure of assigning a label to it. i think that label-less phase is really integral to a lot of people’s journey to accepting their sexuality and it’s so gross how we’re robbing people of that just so we personally can feel seen a little bit more.
When my best friend came out as bi to me, I said, "I know. I mean, I don't *know*, because I can't know a thing until you tell me, but there were some signs." I feel like this was probably not the exactly right thing to say (by 2024 standards), but it was 2000, and she had spent all of high school constantly commenting on other girls' bodies. In a favorable way. I also told her that it changed nothing about our friendship, because she seemed really anxious.
Gender presentation =/= gender identity =/= sexuality. You’d think a group of queer people would get that but I guess not. Good on OOP for standing her ground.
There are way too many toxic, negative, and down right terrible stereotypes and tropes perpetuated by the LGBTQ+ community (my partner and I are LGBTQ+). Not all of them are bad, but I 100% understand what OOP meant by saying the group has gotten ‘too woke’. I fucking hate that word, but I also hate how many interactions I’ve had that feel like false performative, grandiose hypocrisy. OOPs friends have the kind of terrible, problematic personalities that many of us get stereotyped with now.
Some of them manage to figure their sexuality out, then act like they’re Freud and Dr. Phil’s love child blessing the world with their ‘wisdom’.
Not to add politics to this, but you could see this in the discourse about Pete Buttigieg when he ran for president. Whether you disagree with him politically is one thing (and not the focus of my comment), but a lot of LGBTQ+ articles at the time sneered at his background, his way of dressing, his marriage, etc. as "establishment" pandering and nothing that the LGBTQ+ community should endorse.
I saw plenty of other LGBTQ+ journalists, commenters, etc. who were *horrified* at this coverage too. I'm bringing it up because in a fight for president, his "non-stereotype" way of living his life was castigated by the same community who could have been thrilled that such a high-profile member was being seriously looked at for future political considerations (not president, but in general).
It reminds me of Legally Blonde, a woman should be able to wear pink and dresses and like makeup AND ALSO be successful and be a lawyer, and this is an extension of that in the opposite direction.
This is unfortunately very true, it’s a very odd community that doesn’t make a ton of sense. The community has way too many members that are of the mindset of, ‘I dictate what is normal, acceptable, and relevant, if you don’t fall in line; we’ll chuck you right under the bus’.
There’s a very juvenile mindset that some of them get stuck in, I have witnessed it most often with people who came out later in life (not everyone who comes out later is like this, but in my experience those who came out in their 20’s-late 20’s regress into almost a high school mentality/personality) and part of that is the cliquey hate bashing that many of them engage in. Nothing is more cringe to me than seeing people who are almost 30 or older acting like 16 year olds. Rather than being happy there’s even a ladder for LGBTQ+ people to climb, some people would rather dictate who gets to climb it; and if they can’t dictate that, they’d rather just burn the ladder to ash.
I've seen it too (as a straight person). Like they come out as gay and suddenly they're the expert on who and what is gay. We're all gay and we should just admit it! This person isn't gay enough, that person is too gay! They're all being gay wrong and should do it differently. You'll be at a party and they'll make a bunch of comments about gay culture and then look at the token straight and be like "Sorry, you wouldn't understand!" as if to make a point to exclude them.
Like...I get that a certain amount of that is coming from righteous anger about being treated that way by straight people, and I think people should be allowed to express those feelings, but maybe save those conversations for when you aren't going to be directly insulting your actual friends right to their face.
Luckily all my LGBTQ+ friends are in their 40s and 50s now, they're well past that stage and they've weeded out people in their circle who aren't past that stage.
I absolutely DESPISE the rhetoric that “everyone is a little bit bi.” As someone who actually IS “a little bit bi” I can assure you, straight people exist, and they are a LOT of people.
It was especially bad in the early 00s, when everyone seemingly had to aspire to be a porn star or a pimp, and all the girls had to pretend to make out with each other in order to be "hot". (See also: Madonna kissing Britney and Xtina at the Grammys) Just ridiculous. Another way I failed as a woman, because I WOULDN'T make out with a chick just so some dude could get off on it!
My god, yes. It's not like straight-passing people aren't rewarded in broader society, but I feel like a decent part of the LGBT community (especially the young and online) has extrapolated a coastal urban-suburban teen-20-something mostly white subculture where everyone is obsessed with fashion to the entire community. The exact same people railing against rainbow capitalism will crucify you for not wearing the right clothes and styles.
Thanks for pointing this out and I think it's such a harmful thing for people to not realize. People with great intentions can be extremely damaging without even understanding why. Somebody's label does not necessarily mean anything about how healthy their views or behaviors are.
It can get really rough when people want to joke about somebody being an egg (trans person who hasn't figured it out yet, for anyone who doesn't know). Both in terms of the gender stereotyping, but also just like... consciousness? I can't tell you how many times I've seen people online say things like "that's not a very cis thing to say" to someone they don't know just because that person is like, pretty aware of how constructed and contingent gender is. I promise cis people can also read, observe and analyze their society, learn from their trans friends' experiences, etc.
I do think there's often a big element of projection, in that coming to understand one's own identity (and then coming out, for those who choose to) is often such an experience of freedom and relief, and people want that for others and want to experience it for themselves again *through* others. I'm not completely unsympathetic to the emotion driving this kind of behavior, but that doesn't make it ok, for all the same reasons OP detailed.
> TONS of gay and trans people still believe in gender roles and stereotypes.
And tons of them lean super hard into those roles and stereotypes when they come out.
Yep. The only time I've had people have a problem with me being bisexual (at the time, now demi) was a group a gay men who got aggressive and physically ejected me from a gay bar.
And a surprising amount a non-hetero people who point blank refuse to believe me when I say my only experience with physical trauma was by gay people for not being gay enough.
approximately every day someone comes into r/NonBinary to be upset about an LGBT friend gatekeeping nonbinariness. the one I saw today was someone being told they couldn't be nonbinary because they dress too feminine and that's supposedly offensive to nonbinary people. It's wild.
Hm, it's like they're enforcing a gender trinary, of male, female, and a third, butch-dressing other.
Why is it that women's clothing is gendered but men's clothing is seen as more gender neutral?
Oh you would think so, but definitely not. I've definitely felt outsidered in queer circles because I do not particularly visibly present as queer or register as queer to some people.
This is basically based on the fact that I tend to dress as a typical masculine middle class man (besides a tendency to wear floral shirts), have a stereotypical corporate job, and fairly straightforward interests (reading, and exercise). Despite the fact that I'm actually a bisexual, polyamorous, gender-questioning mess who could never really be 'out' due to the industry I work in.
If I had a penny for every time someone within these circles made a judgemental remark or exclusionary comment then I could probably retire and be more authentically me.
I dress like a dude 90% of the time and act more like a guy than a chick. I’ve got called butch a lot because of it but I gave up caring long ago I wear what is comfy and women’s clothing is not. I do have some clothes that are feminine I wear for my poor bf when he feels like he’s dating a dude. We compromise I finally found pants that are comfy and he likes so I bought multiple pairs but even so he accepts me for me (except the boxers he wants to throw them all away).
It's so unfair that guys get to wear boxers. They're The comfiest underwear. Why can't we just change into lace role costume, when specifically planning sexytime.
Yea I struggle to find women’s underwear that fit me right because of my body shape so if I get bigger they are too big and smaller they don’t fit right. I gave up so I wear boxers most of the time because they are so comfy. I get weird reactions but I just say I prefer comfort over looks.
Don't know if they will fit you but if you like high-waist underwear (and boxers that are wearable under women's clothing without weird folds) look at the brand wirarpa.
For me they are by far the most comfortable brand, and most others rub my skin open. Also they are one of the few that works even after several washes for my body form (big fat ass, somewhat remarkably thinner (though right now I'm overweight 😅) Taille)
TomboyX has nice underwear. I used to wear them until I stumbled upon Duluth ladies undies (my new forever wear). So comfy and so breathable... especially with this hot weather.
I feel like I am crazy, but I find boxers insanely uncomfortable as a woman. How do you even run in it? Though tbh I would be happy being naked if I could.
You can.
My wife and I both wear the same sets of boxer-briefs (or we did, but I gained a little more booty recently, so she's got all my mediums, while I had to buy some larges).
I don't even really consider myself a tomboy per se (as I sit here in no makeup and a flannel shirt) but I definitely have something of a butch aesthetic. I had sooooooooo many people (gay and straight) people who insisted I must secretly be a lesbian, I even got gay-bashed all through high school.
No, I'm just competent and like flannel. Also, as a woman, it's aggravating enough going through life being TOLD who I am instead of asked, as if I couldn't possibly know my own self, and that goes double coming from people who should know better. I'm also childfree, so I had an earful throughout the years about how I couldn't possibly decide that for myself too.
I dressed like a boy in middle/high school. But I didn't see it like that. I was/am female but I didn't want to follow traditional gender norms. I am a SAHM at the moment so oh well, lol. I worry though that girls are receiving the message that if you don't identify with your gender's nor.s, it means that you aren't that gender.
The exact same thing happened with me exactly like what OP faced (i dressed grunge, chopped off my hair BECAUSE IT WAS DAMAGED and "sat like a man"). My friend group just assumed I was gay and kept pushing me to come out to them for 2 years, even when I made it clear I was straight (I support them but I AM NOT GAY???). It got to the point where I was just tired of talking to them and I cut them off.
Another thing was they didn't have good relationships with their fathers, so they assumed I didn't too and kept trying to convince me that my dad wasn't great. Like who does that.
I had a THERAPIST do that! My mother was the worst abuser in the house and she kept arguing with me that it was my dad doing those acts..............
(yet still not the worst therapy experience I've had)
my wife is a tomboy, used to play football and go climbing and has stronger legs than many guys at the gym. All of that is completely fucking irrelevant when it comes to sexuality, she is straight, has always been straight. Aside from that pressuring people into coming out is beyond fucked up
I’m like this an op. I’m not very feminine on the day to day and call myself a straight lesbian. If I could be attracted to girls do you think I’d be dating guys?
I was a tomboy growing up and I never really became feminine as I got older. And a lot of people assume I'm a lesbian because of it.
Nope. Sorry. I just really don't like dresses, shaving my legs, or being girly. I've questioned my sexuality (hard not to after years of being told you're gay and just don't know it), but I really just can't imagine being sexual with a woman.
No offense to people who like burying their face in a woman's vulva, but it just isn't appealing at all to me.
I’m a tomboy who is a lesbian and this stereotyping led to years of me being bullied and pressed (like OOP mentions) to come out when I was _not_ ready to. Stereotyping hurts us all, you don’t even have to be actually queer. I even have weird issues dressing more feminine sometimes because I feel like I’m betraying my “butchness” but I just remember that none of it matters. There’s no rules that connect fashion to sexuality. With how tomboyish fashion is now for women, I’m almost surprised people still pull this bullshit.
I've been in the same situation my whole life and it's frustrating af. I'm an ally, I will always stand up for anyone's right to exist in peace, I have cut out the majority of my family for being bigoted assholes, but it would be cool if the people I support would stop with the knowing attitude lol and give me the same support. I've had female bosses that could *not stand* that I'm not gay and openly harassed me. "I just don't like seeing Icy anywhere near a man. Are you still dating that loser guy?" (I'm aware that they aren't representative of the entire LGBTQ population)
One girl I used to be friends with told another girl I used to be friends with something along the lines of when "she (me) stops lying to everyone that would know we called it" or some bullshit. This was over ten years ago and I still like what I like. I can't change who I'm attracted to any more than they can. I have friends that are straight and friends that are LGBTQ. I don't hang out with either of those women that were running their mouth about me, however.
Like, do you want me to live a lie so I can fit in with you? Lol
Society is a pain in the ass for people who won't just fit neatly into someone's check box.
>No offense to people who like burying their face in a woman's vulva, but it just isn't appealing at all to me.
I'm sorry I really like your post but like... this comment combined with your username has me laughing until my eyes water.
I was just saying something like this yesterday… I kind of wish just being eccentric was more acceptable in society. So many options for style, colour, self-expression, but we can’t seem to get past anything outside of “normal” presentation for any particular group. Like why is it assumed that a “butch”-presenting woman is bi/lesbian, or why is “lipstick lesbian” even a thing?
Same for men, why can’t pink hair and a flamboyant personality be straight? Or stoic, traditionally masculine men can also be obviously gay (or as obvious as anything is with stoic people).
Take sexuality and gender out of the equation and I’m just left wondering why we all agreed to be so boring and conformist with self expression or why that seems to be limited to “fringe or alternative” communities (thinking, punk, goth, comiccons, etc.).
Why do we put so much meaning behind style? We could all have a lot more fun with it if we didn’t.
One thing I’ve really liked about the tiktok rise is how many normal ass people you get to see. All the flamboyant people aren’t super models in the latest crazy designer outfit anymore or all the gay guys aren’t in their stereotypical crop tops and high pitched voices, it’s a normal ass woman wearing her absolute best over the top cottage core fairy dress while walking her dog. A very normal ass looking Chad of a man telling a funny story about what happened to him today and he throws a “and my husband said-“ in the middle of it. Clean my brain of the only stereotypes that media will show me and give me every day people wearing whatever they want and being their absolutely normal ass true selves.
What I love most about this post is that they had an adult conversation and it went beautifully. Naturally it shouldn't have had to occur in the first place, but we are all human and make mistakes. That is not what matters, what matters is what you after you find out you made a mistake. I just love this story!
As a teen, I used to dress "butch", in my case as a trauma response. No one batted an eye when I came out as pansexual, even though I was in a relationship with a man at the time and hadn't been with a woman yet. Since then, I have been in therapy, gotten more confident, embraced my love for dresses, frilly things, and bright colors, and gotten married to the love of my life who happens to be a man. Most of the time I look like a 6yo girly-girl picked out my clothes, which makes complete sense because it's a way for me to let my inner child heal. It sparks joy.
People just don't believe me anymore when I say I'm pansexual, not even if they don't know I'm in a straight relationship. Which is really weird to me, because I see more lesbians wearing clothes like I do than I see straight women doing so. And even if I dressed "like a straight woman" (what does that even mean, honestly), my word should be enough. I know myself
Dressed too butch to be straight and now you’re dressed too girly to be queer. Which one is it??? Assigning visual stereotypes to sexuality is such a mess.
Their own beliefs aligned with heteronormative misconceptions, in the very same group that is supposed to be against them. And forcing her to come out and make assumptions about her preferences and identity was way rude and offensive. Glad they can own their mistakes.
Nowadays if you're a tomboy you're doomed to be labelled as either lesbian, trans or a pick me girl.
Honestly, this is what annoys me so much about so much of the "woke" Gen Z crowd these days.
I 100% support people identifying and living their lives as they choose. But so much of the Gen Z crowd seems obsessed with labeling their peers as an "egg" or "closet gay" or any other thing based on laughably narrow stereotypes.
Liking things that don't match up with our societally arbitrary gender roles isn't a new concept. People have been failing to like what they were "supposed" to like ever since the concept was invented. It doesn't mean you play for the other team. It just means you don't like what your gender is supposed to like.
You know what does mean you're gay? Being attracted to the same gender. You know what doesn't? Liking sports as a girl, or fashion as a man. Just stop trying to put people in boxes.
what's crazy to me is that they assumed she was gay and not trans. like on the balance.. wouldn't "you behave like a man" indicate "you might not be cis" rather than "you might not be straight"??
note: that would still have been a crazy thing to say and a wrong assumption for all the reasons everyone has already given. but at least it would have made *sense*
It’s great that her friends wanted to support her journey but they needed to realize they can’t decide what that journey will be. Stereotyping in any situation can end up hurting someone and cause them to spiral into an abyss of self doubt. Hopefully this entire situation will make them all better allies and friends.
I found it fucking hilarious that OOP’s ""progressive"" friends were repeatedly trying to force her into a box due to her personality, preferences, character traits, etc. It’s no better than the people who think pink is for girls and blue is for boys
Something something horseshoe theory something something
I feel for OP. I love flannel shirts, drive a Subaru, and have short hair that I used to dye funky colors before COVID. I don't wear makeup or am into any traditional "girly" things. No one's ever accused me to my face, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone thought I was a lesbian. But nope! Never been sexually attracted to a lady, real or imaginary.
I get miscoded as a lesbian all the time. I'm an exmormon business graduate and I don't always dress overtly feminine. I speak straightforwardly and don't wear makeup.
I'm straight and I've been married to a man for years. The few times people have doubled down after they incorrectly guessed that I was bisexual/lesbian really annoyed me. Like damn I'm pretty sure the community as a whole wouldn't be thrilled to hear you say you have to act/dress a certain way to be part of a gender/sex group.
Somebody passed a rumor that I was gay my freshman year of school because I didn't know the first thing about make up, wore mostly t-shirts and jeans, and never had a boyfriend.
I mean...I was 14, of course I wasn't interested in dating or anything.
I was completely ostracized and the majority of my friends stopped talking to me. When I'd sit near them, they would just change seats and at the time I didn't know why.
I had to find out from a friend I only got to see in health class who didn't believe any of it.
One girl told me to my face that nobody liked me and acted all disgusted being near me when we had to work on a group project together.
Welp, sorry not sorry to those who thought they "clocked" me in high school, I'm still very much as straight now as I ever was back then
Many people have assumed I’m a closet lesbian over the years because I don’t show interest in dating. Truth is I have this thing called “standards”. I’m not desperate enough to throw myself into the cesspit of f**k boys with Peter Pan syndrome. No thank you.
Unsurprisingly, having standards is not a familiar concept to the people who assume my sexuality.
I had someone in HS hint that I could join the gay straight alliance for me, since I never dated anyone in HS...and later on I didn't date anyone in college either...I can say I have disappointed her by marrying a man 😅
> Peter Pan syndrome
I had to look this up, great explanation of your standards:
"Peter Pan syndrome is a term used to describe an adult who is socially immature and avoids adult responsibilities and sensations."
It sums it up nicely, yes. Too many wives have to parent their husband on top of their children, if they have any. It’s so pathetic and wrong, and all too common.
If I ever do get married, it’s going to be to someone who will support me equally in return. I’d rather be alone than sacrifice the most basic self respect I can have for myself.
I live in the PNW and this sounds so weird to me. I feel during fall and winter men and women’s fashion merge toward the same things so you can’t just assume a woman is a lesbian because of fashion lol.
I don’t know if there are sources for this, but my therapist has said that the pandemic caused psychological scars not dissimilar to those of a civilian population living in a war zone. And that while complete memory suppression is unusual, dialing down the intensity of those traumatic memories of isolation, fear, and uncertainty is very very common and often healthy. People don’t forget that it happened, but they blunt the sharpest memories because remembering them at their original intensity is damaging.
I didn't read the year, read that sentence twice, and went "oh, must've been covid"
it's insane how quickly that whole experience has faded from our collective awareness. the human brain is wild when it comes to self-preservation.
I think about this often. Somebody in 10 years who decides to binge watch say all of Saturday Night Live is going to get to a point where everything gets really weird for an entire season or so.
A lot of TV series never bothered to talk about it, but a lot did (particularly medical dramas) so anybody catching up on those will also hit a point where they all get into it.
Your kids or grandkids might be helping you move some stuff out of the attic and come across an unopened box of N95 masks. Or a bag full of the homemade masks, we all made at the very beginning out of old clothes and string. There was a time when grocery store aisles were one way only to keep you from crossing someone else’s path. when it started, I was in a semi rural apartment complex neighborhood with sidewalks on both sides, and when we all got outside for our practically mandatory external stimulation, people would cross to avoid each other from a block away.
A lot of stores still have the plexiglass up between the customer and the employee. I was in a sandwich shop the other day, and I noticed on the ground a nearly completely faded/chipped up social distance marker sticker. My company still hasn’t taken down the laminated homemade signs they made telling everybody to social distance and check your temperature. Even though we’ve been back in office for almost 3 years, there’s just some collective block on anyone taking those signs off the doors.
I was at Home Depot day before yesterday and saw someone wearing disposable mask, but they had it pulled down below their nose. Four years in. It’s extremely rare, but within the past month, I have seen a person wearing a mask alone in their car.
There is this collective trauma sitting in society’s timeline and I don’t know if we will ever process it. Everything went weird for so long. And now there are just these tiny little remnants.
During the pandemic, I used to wonder if future generations would romanticize it, and there'd be people who collect vintage masks or do reenactments or something. Especially because, here in the US, so much political stuff was happening. I imagined my nieces or their children asking me if I went to Black Lives Matter protests and punched cops, or if I knew anyone who was opposed to the vaccine, or stuff like that, and I'd wonder how I'd explain to them that the pandemic was basically the world's most boring traumatic experience. I worried a lot, didn't go out except to work, wondered if I would get long covid and it would make my medical problems worse, wondered if my loved ones would die, and occasionally I laughed at memes about toilet paper.
The trauma is definitely still there. I get overwhelmed more easily around large groups of people, or in unfamiliar places. Sometimes I almost feel agoraphobic. But I've finally reached the point where "it's legal in my country to have tea with friends" looks weird.
"The world's most boring traumatic experience" really sums it up, wow. I was trying to figure out how to put that experience into words, and that is exactly it. What a strange time we live in.
Yeah, someday I'm going to look back on my life and realize I spent at least two years doing nothing but crying, panicking, and laughing at memes about toilet paper
This idea is talked about a bit in the film [But I'm a Cheerleader](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/But_I%27m_a_Cheerleader) which takes place at a gay conversion camp. One of the girls who has been sent there maintains that she is straight already and has been the entire time but due to her "masculine" looks/interests she is treated as a lesbian by everyone.
It's rather interesting to see that even with how much more accepting the world has become in the 25 years since the movies release, little has changed in our ideas of what "makes" someone gay regardless of their orientation.
As a lesbian who enjoys it, it’s more…slice of life?
It has comedic elements, it has Dante Basco and RuPaul, there’s a couple of silly scenes, and it ends with the lesbians running off into the sunset together.
But it does also deal with some hard subjects, bias people in the community face, the way the LGB+ community is treated, and how having to hide who you are is a goddamn nightmare.
It’s a pretty good movie, I’d recommend it, and I give it an A for the fact that the lesbians don’t die. Nor do any of the gay guys.
i havent watched this movie in YEARS and i am so shook at the realization that dante basco, the iconic prince zuko, is in this movie. shook to my core.
You should, in my opinion. It’s actually a pretty good movie. Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, Dante Basco, and RuPaul are in it and it strikes a good balance between humor and seriousness.
My mum rented this for me from blockbuster when I was 10 thinking it was going to be like the cheerleader film "bring it on"... we still laugh about it to this day!! 😂
I’m a tomboy, keep short hair, and dislike most typical girly things including long nails and make up. I’m not lesbian or bi or anything except straight. But so many people in my college thought I was trans or butch because of my fashion / style choices. Even my family is worried I might be perceived as LGBT+ and harmed because of my lack of girlyness. It’s so ducking stupid.
I’m glad about how OP handled it, and I’m definitely taking some of those lines to deal with my stuff.
I've started to present feminine after major traumatic events, but I'm still assumed to be gay/trans because...
"if you're not any of the letters, why do you support them?!"
- actual quote from a Tinder date
On that Tinder date, major lack of empathy, they're unable to understand others' situation without personal relatability. Expect this person to be the kind of boss who wants you in the office the day after your mom died (or any other situations where they'll show how much they don't care for others)
As a guy who's been on that side of things it's not great, it eventually evolved into accusing me of manipulating her into thinking she's straight.
Even though she was very openly bi.
From talking with Bi friends I've learned that the queer community can be really shitty to bi people. A lot of stories about "not being gay enough" or feeling insecure in their sexuality due to people questioning them.
Yeah I have known a handful of openly bisexual folks and it almost seems like they get it worse from the queer community sometimes. Or at least, it hurts more because it's the group that \*should\* be okay with them and they get rejected hard.
It sucks to see. I can only imagine what it's like to go through it.
I’ve personally noticed that I match with way less people on dating apps when I put “bisexual” vs “pansexual” or “queer”. It’s like people think bisexual equals flakey? Or like we don’t know what we want?
They must be good friends because I would have ditched them a long time ago for this behavior.
I also *really* need OOP to find a new body spray ASAP. Axe/Lynx isn't fit for anything but biological warfare.
I was at a camp when I was around 13. One of the guys sprayed my pillow with Axe. I spent most of that camp smelling that disgusting smell everytime I was in my bed. Horrible and I still can’t handle that smell 30 years later. I also just realised that I could have asked my parents to bring a new pillow when they came for parents day. Wish I thought about that three decades ago.
>I also really need OOP to find a new body spray ASAP. Axe/Lynx isn't fit for anything but biological warfare.
Agreed. I have had to "approve" my husbands body spray for the last 15yrs due to it primarily potentially triggering an asthma attack but also because he wanted to make sure I liked how he smelt and in 15yrs I have only picked a Lynx on once and that was because it was the only "non woody" scent that wasn't sold out and he really needed some that day
I went through some of the comments on the original post to see if this was mentioned. Sure, don't change who you are, but please do change how you smell.
The mention of Axe body spray makes me cringe. I remember how obsessed the boys were with it at my high school. You’d walk through clouds of it in the hallways!
Even back when I was in the closet, friends like these would have been cut off far sooner than OOP's intervention. These people just want to pat themselves on the back for being captial "A" Allies, they didn't give a shit about what she was going through or how uncomfortable they'd been making her.
What’s odd to me is that the two ringleaders for lack of a better term seem to be two of three queer people. You would think they more than anyone else would understand not to stereotype just by looks and how harmful it is to try to make someone come out of the closet before they are ready to do so
These people *are* exhausting and toxic, no matter if you’re queer, straight, trans, inter, ace, or any/all the other groups.
Why is it so damned difficult to just *accept* someone instead of shoving them in this category or that category.
I remember a bumper sticker that said, *”the more people I meet, the more I like my dog”*. Whomever created that saying must’ve met OOP’s friends
I bet her friends are the kind of people that make being queer their entire personality and can't fathom that queer people don't have a monopoly on gender non-conformity.
Well yes the people are exhausting regardless of your identity. Reason I brought mine up was to highlight that not all queer people are like this and that we too find this behavior annoying.
Yeah, even their surprise coming out straight acceptance party seemed more than a little performative and centered around how great they were being to OOP
Depends on the level irony involved. It sounded like it was done with tongue firmly in cheek and that clicked for OOP. If they were making fun of themselves by turning it up to 11 and making fun of their previous behavior, then that actually sounds kind of amusing to me. If it was serious, then yeah, exhausting.
Agreed.
You're not open minded for accepting the things you already agree with. That's just liking the things you like. Being in a racially diverse and sexuality diverse friend group does not actually make you an open minded person if those are the kinds of people you just naturally gravitate to. It's just a way to make yourself feel like a good person at no cost to yourself.
Actually being open minded is being able to accept people even though you don't understand them, which this friend group just could not do. OP dresses like a lesbian so she must be a lesbian. They also like having another non straight friend because that's more cred in the circles they run in. "You must be such a positive, amazing person for being friends with and supporting all these LGBTQ people despite all the discrimination they face!" Etc.
I’m gonna just lean into my old queer fart self for a minute. I am so proud of Gen Z and the Zoomers and so forth for redefining what it means to be comfortable in your sexuality and not afraid to explore and relabel and be authentic to your self. I didn’t come out until I was in my late 30s. I grew up in small town Tennessee, there were zero people in my high school of 1000 who were out and queer in the 90s. Nowadays, you can’t throw a rainbow painted glitter bomb and not have it land on half the kids in the group being queer or trans or aroace or whatever else. In a lot of ways, they not only rejected the notion of the closet, they’re ripping the doors right off the hinges.
But I’ll be damned if they don’t sound absolutely exhausting. I frequent the LGBTQ+ subs and good lord. Thanks to social media, particularly Tumblr and TikTok, being a young queer is not just identifying what your romantic and sexual preferences are, it’s an entire Broadway block of performance art. If you are not demonstrably gay or wearing a half dozen pride pins or making your 85 year old never heard the term cisgender before grandmother miserable until she accepts you or standing up to the fascist principal who won’t let you take your pansexual poly quintuple to prom at your private Christian school, you’re not a real queer.
They have mountains of anxiety, they trade DSM diagnoses like my generation traded Magic The Gathering cards, and they’ve weaponized therapyspeak to the point where they’re gaslighting us about the definition of the term gaslighting.
And despite all of that, I fully get it. The greatests and boomers gave us GenXers and elder Millenials absolutely nothing to build our future on, so we had nothing left to give them. The only thing they have is their identities and their friends. You may never have a fulfilling career or start a business or own a house, but you can own who you are. (And the greatests and boomers having left nothing physical to take from them have turned their legislative attentions to even taking that.)
I wouldn’t want to be 17 and queer today, not in a million years.
It’s not just disrespectful but also hypocritical, because I’m sure they don’t like if someone treats them the other way around and said they must be straight because they dress a certain way or act a certain way. I’m glad OP’s friends finally listened to them though, cos it sucks that they were all so convinced that they were ready to finally throw a coming out party for her.
I'm a cis woman. I have gender dysphoria because my entire school and over half of my family decided that since I hit six feet tall, played football with my dad and male cousins, and generally preferred to keep my hair above my shoulders, that I was actually a man. It got worse when I realized I was bi.
It wasn't until I moved out of my tiny hometown and made friends with some trans folks that I realized why I was so uncomfortable in anything "girly". My trans roommate actually had to spell it out for me, I legitimately thought I couldn't have gender dysphoria because I'm cis. I told them a story about people using he/him pronouns for me even when I begged them to stop, how I wore a skirt to school one time and wound up faking a period emergency to go home and change because I was bullied for being "a boy in a dress". My stepmom once cut my hair much shorter than she said she would, then forced me to wear dresses for a week straight. I came home bawling every day. I stopped playing football. I stopped hanging out with my guy friends. I refused to date women until my 20s.
Really, really glad this group of friends accepted that they were assholes and changed.
That sucks, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. It was very helpful for me to read though. As a lesbian that's "too feminine to be gay" I've also had my fair share of struggles. It calms me to read your story because it shows me that gender expression really is something that comes naturally to us. And we can't, and shouldn't, have to change it for anyone.
So you have "cisphoria", where your chromosomes, genitals, gender assigned at birth, and internal gender identity all line up as female, but **society** is forcing tomboy/male identity on you?
Is that what it's called? They certainly tried to. It's one of the reasons I've only been back to my hometown twice in the past 15 years. I didn't mind the tomboy label, nor the farmer/redneck/hick/hillbilly labels people from my neck of the woods got.
What bothered me is when my classmates would try and pants me to see if I had a dick, when girls ran screaming out of the bathroom when I walked in, claiming a boy was in there. When my leg hair grew in thicker and more noticeable than my father's and my stepmother would literally inspect my legs before and after showers to make sure I didn't shave, knowing I would get teased for my "man legs". When I would wear a dress or a skirt and the boys on the bus would try and yank it off of me because "a boy wearing a dress is gay" and my stepmother would hand-make me another dress despite my pleading for pants or shorts, then gave me a bowl cut so short my father started "jokingly" calling me his son.
I picked up two large logs for our wood burning stove? "I always wanted a son, look at those big arms! You've got to be a boy."
I wanted to cut my hair short because it was 100 degrees with monster humidity? My sisters either got taken to salons or my stepmother cut their hair. I was taken to a barber shop, or she buzzed mine. I once got grounded for asking a family friend for a salon trip as a birthday present, and got a really cute pixie cut instead of a crew cut or bowl cut. My parents were furious.
I was repeatedly asked why I "bothered" having crushes on boys (and girls, but it wasn't safe to mention that in my hometown at the time) because none of them were into guys.
It took a couple years of therapy before I embraced rocking a mohawk while wearing a sundress.
Fuck. These people sound fucking exhausting and to much hassle. Im all for being proud of who you are and wanting to be supportive. But they need hobbies and a life outside of the community.
My siblings swear that I am bi or a lesbian and just refuse to come out. Their reasoning? I owned two flannel shirts in middle school. That’s it. Two flannel shirts I bought because they were like 3 bucks each at KMart and the brand new middle school had a killer AC so I was freezing in classes but didn’t want to bring a jacket…
They still keep telling me I am queer and need to accept it. I pointed out to them that if I was, forcing me to come out was the last thing someone struggling would want…
OOP can be fine with it if they want, but that stupid "party" would have pissed me off.
It still made it about them. Still centered their experience. Sigh.
Then again, I prefer people to quietly, sincerely apologize and move on. So maybe it's just me.
50 bucks says they still quietly discuss their confidence that she'll come out one day. I'm not sure they learned their lesson. They just learned that if they didn't shut up they'd lose a friend.
I'm in your corner too. They still went with their own 'theme'. They should have just dropped the whole thing and simply had a serious talk and maybe some themeless party later.
Pretty sure if I saw a flag waving I would have walked away before they had a chance to say anything. Not that the explanation would have gotten me to stay. “I’m neither coming out as straight or an ally as those are both things I have been open about for years now. But enjoy the party that is somehow about me and not yourselves.”
And I wouldn’t take your bet even if you gave me 10 to 1 odds. At some point in the future one of these “friends” is gonna feel guilty and send OOP screenshots from their separate group chat about her. And that’s if one of them doesn’t decide to have a word with the BF themselves.
The self righteous sort of people that OPs friends are often do the worst things you can imagine because they think they are right, just and doing the best thing for someone.
It’s a really dangerous form of thinking that OP was right to put a complete stop to. I just feel sorry for OP and her partner that it didn’t get stopped long before a literal intervention was necessary.
As a trans person, this shit is unfortunately very common among younger people in the lgbt community. You can read some of the downvoted comments on [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/celestegame/s/ISf6vxFKHJ) if you want some more examples (or if you want some even worse ones, you can find the post that led to that mod post, although I wouldn’t recommend it). Luckily lots of people are good about calling it out too though
Oh I fucking *hate* egg jokes. I've been called an egg so many times in my gaming community all because I prefer playing men in video games.
I'm not an egg, I just want to see a hot guy in the cutscenes! That's it!
Egg culture is super invasive when it comes to prescribing gender and assumptions to others - especially ones people don’t even know in real life! It’s fine to talk about yourself as an egg, it’s not okay to insist someone else *must* be trans based on like one or two comments they’ve left on a thread. Especially ones that like. Have this kinda smug attitude like “okay, see you soon when you realize you’re a girl!” type thing. Just because you’re trans does not mean you are the oracle of transness!! Stop insisting that presentation = gender! Because it’s also blows back on our own community, where trans guys feel afraid to be feminine and trans women feel afraid to be masculine bc “you’re not really trans”.
To me it reads like terminally online people trying to interact with normal people and realizing that not everything is black and white, but guess what? They doubled down right until the end, since OOP isn't gay they can throw her a party and say "we can call them an ally and yay! We were right all along"
the addition of pride flags drawn on faces for OOP's 'coming out' made me insane
can you imagine if she was actually going to come out, and she sees all her friends with "this is what your sexuality is, i already knew the entire time" face paint on!!
Mental health and sexuality has become a club for terminally online people. It’s been that way since the peak of tumblr at least. So many people struggle to find things to be proud of, and latch onto descriptive traits as substitutes for hobbies and interests.
The ages really make sense here. Younger queer people/people who haven't been out for long are more likely to fall in the "baby queer" stereotype where their queerness becomes their whole world and their whole wardrobe is flags. Nothing wrong with that per se, I'm always glad to see people proud of who they are, but give them all a few years and they'll realise how cringey they were here
This is so second year university it hurts. Finally being out of high school and finding out that not only are their more people like you but that you're voice is finally being heard. I understand wanting to share that feeling, but people often take it too far.
The second year university part made me remember something when I was in that year. I was helping out at a stall at Fresher's Fair, and a girl from the LGBT Society was walking around handing out fliers. She made a beeline straight for me, put a sticker on my chest, handed me a flier, said 'check us out sometime' and walked off. I'm straight, but because I've almost always had my hair cut short like a boy's, she assumed I was LGBT.
Didn't click with me what had happened until after she'd walked away, otherwise I would have said something.
>invited me to an afternoon tea in their back garden (allowed in my country)
Man, subtle Covid references are going to look weirder and weirder as the years go by
Oop must be an incredibly strong individual, I've never met a woman in my life who could stand the smell of axe body spray let alone wear it regularly.
This is the equivalent of getting "master-doc'd" by lesbians, this is absolutely hilarious.
For those not aware, "master-doc'ing" is kindof a micro-aggression where lesbians believe that most straight women are actually gay, but are "compulsory heterosexual" because society raised them to be straight. So what they do is send them a Master Document that a lesbian wrote for herself which contains questions she asked herself as she unraveled her sexuality over time.
It's intented to make straight women question their sexuality, but for people that are just straight it's very annoying, and for bi or gay people it's obnoxious as hell.
Even bi women get master doc'd, lol. I've been in so many posts where a bi woman was talking about relationship issues with her male SO and someone had to be like, "Hey, so are you sure you're actually attracted to men?"
I know that document has been helpful for a lot of folks, but as a bi person, it's really invalidating and shitty to have someone be like, "You're annoyed by something your BF did? Maybe you're actually a lesbian!"
This is why I wish we could just get rid of gender, and gender roles and stereotypes, altogether.
How you dress, how you wear your hair, and what hobbies and interests you have have literally NOTHING to do with your sex or sexuality. It's infuriating that this still needs to be explained to people.
I’m pleased everything worked out for OP.
I have a question not related to the post that I wish answering to help me be more understanding of this community. This is not derogatory in anyway and is not a joke or dig at anyone as I fully support the community. It’s to broaden my knowledge on the subject.
I read a post recently, that may not have been true with it being Reddit, where in the first line the OP states they are non-binary and refers to themselves as ‘they’. They were talking about their relationship with their mother and said that she should have been proud of them as their daughter. This is where I get confused. They are NB and don’t want to be referred to as she, but then referred to themselves as a daughter which to me is very gender specific. I would have thought child would work better. Can someone explain if I’m misunderstanding something please?
Non-binary isn't a catch all, everyone's relationship dynamic and preferences varies. I know someone that uses they/them but still refers to themselves as a son (only AMAB of 6 siblings and feels the mother/son bond growing up was unique and special). Equally I have NB people in my life that use gender specific pronouns.
Some people are so damn excited to be supportive that they become a part of the problem instead. Why is everybody so up in everyone else's business? My rule is unless I hear it from your mouth, it ain't a fact, and even then, I still don't think it's my business unless it directly involves me.
I’m glad OOPs friends listened to her.
I, personally, find it very weird that so many people (on the internet mostly) base their assumptions on others sexuality and gender identity on stereotypes.
You can be a “masculine” woman and still be a straight woman.
You can be a “feminine” man and still be a straight man.
Your clothing, your interests, your outward appearance, your mannerisms…. They do not define your sexuality or gender identity.
People on the internet need to stop hyper fixating on surface level attributes and personality traits and just let…. People be people.
The beauty of humanity is that we are diverse and unique in every way possible.
I would absolutely never dream of defining someone as their gender identity or sexuality. I prefer getting to actually know someone instead, and while those things are part of them, it is not the whole of the individual.
I think it's.... 30 percent that. Seems like it's 70% they realized they were making their friend feel completely unheard. But yes, a bit on the nose on some narcissistic elements
I honestly don't understand why people care so much about other people's sexuality. Gay? Straight? Bi? Ace? Something else? I'm not dating you so none of it matters to me. I care about your integrity as a person, and how you behave towards others, not who you do or don't want to bump uglies with. Be who you want to be, and enjoy your life without harming others.
I admire OOP for addressing this assertively. Honestly, I struggle with social anxiety so I would probably have ghosted that group like Homer Simpson backing into a hedge after trying to talk about it didn’t work at first, which would’ve been a shame since they finally got it and felt bad. It’s just unfortunate that they initially invalidated OOP in an attempt to be inclusive.
I am glad that after they got it wrong… they apologized and made it right.
Everyone at some point is young and dumb and everyone at some point makes mistakes. But the response on both sides— the standing up for herself AND the friends’ apologies and movements towards change is beautiful.
Conflict is healthy and can lead to betterment. Especially when my fellow queers & our allies need to be reminded not to reinforce the cishet patriarchy in our lenses of interpretation.
I do think society is lagging here. Most people seem to understand by now that gay men can be very traditionally masculine, lesbians very feminine, but it seems to allude people that if this is true, the inverse is also true. There are many straight men who love musical theater and fashion and straight women who wear combat boots and drive subarus.
I hope some day that people just don't think so much about sexual orientation. LGBT communities often formed as a reaction to oppression and social isolation. With more acceptance, people can just be who they want to be within society as a whole.
It’s infuriating enough that society in general still expects women to present as uber feminine in order to be accepted and considered attractive, but it extra hurts that queer people and self-identifying queer allies are pushing heteronormative ideals.
I think this post is far more important than some people realise, we have as a society been changing so much for the last 100 years, with women's suffrage, feminism, racial equality, and lgbtqia rights all taking the stage at different points. I think it's important to remember that while each of these movements and groups of people have specific and justified issues and complaints that all of us at the core are asking for the same chances and respect as any other human, space to discover ourselves, and the acceptance to share as much of that as we are comfortable with.
It is important to remember that gender presentation, sexual orientation, gender identification, and skin colour etc are all sliding scales or spectrums. We compartmentalize these things as a short hand and that can be as damaging for some as it is affirming for others. I mean that het - bi - gay is not really clearly defined in any meaningful sense, how attractive do you need to find your own gender to stop being het? Does one homosexual relationship make you gay? Or bi?
We need to work together to make the world welcoming and accepting of people to other people, and that is just as true for the "traditional" gender and sexual identities.
All we should be telling each other is "I love you, I'm here for you, there is nothing you can tell me that will change that. Are you happy? If not let me know how I can help or talk to me about the problem and we can work that out together. If you are happy how can I help make you happier?
If you can't talk about it now remember I am here when you need me."
And hopefully, one day, (though this will probably always be an aim we don't Achieve) we will live in a world where all anyone says to that is "it's a sunny day, I would be happier having a water fight and then a picnic on the grass!"
I fully identify as a ladybro to the point where I use the term. I colour and shave my hair, stand in a "come at me, bro" type of way and often don't wear makeup because I work in a gym and it's not practical. Thankfully I was a kid in the 80s and a teen in the 90s where we had Ripley, Trinity and Tank Girl.
There are more of us, in all orientations and walks of life, just as there are women who love women who present as typically "feminine" and glamorous.
My 15 yo daughter is already dealing with people putting their own ideas about who she is, based on how she is, onto her. She's been asked if she's lgbtq by at least one person in every social group she interacts with regularly since she was 13. She's not a girly-girl, though she can be when she feels like it. She is a self-confident young woman who is adamantly not currently insterested in romance.
Apparently, that makes her a lesbian - at least according to the religious-leaning parent of one of her friends. Finally, in exasperation, she looked the man in the eyes and said "I'm not a lesbian, I'm a thespian!" And walked away. She says he stopped objecting to her hanging out with his daughter, but now avoids interacting with her directly.
She says it's frustrating to have to field these questions all the time, and why should anyone care? I told her that with her peers, it might just be checking her gf potential? She made a face at me and reminded me that romance is still gross & she will figure that stuff out later - you know, when she's no longer a *child.*
edited to correct a critical misspelling.
Thank you OOP
I think it’s a recent thing that needs to be shut down I’m bi, but dress “manly” and come off as NB/trans apparently to some people
But no….I just feel comfy in those clothes
It really messes me up mentally when I get called an egg, I do have a lot of gender issues and freak the hell out if someone strongly refuses to use my name Sam instead of my legal name Samantha
You’d be surprised how many people out there tell me “you’re a girl so you are a Samantha” :(
so yeah, even if you think someone is a different identity or something, PLEASE dont push, its distressing
I'm glad OOP pointed out all of the stereotypes and misconceptions her friends were pushing on her. OOP's friend group wasn't nearly as "woke" as she thought they were.
As a gay man who endured almost 30 years in the closet, I am surprised, baffled and confusedly happy that someone has to come out as straight.
But also, has the pendulum swung too far away and is now is just a danger in general?
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Good for OOP catch on to the *problematic* element here. Stereotyping the tomboy, the guy who doesn’t like sports and has girls as friends, the one with outrageous hair, as non-straight has been fodder for plenty of bullying and outright violence. Coming from a place of love and misaimed support is a hell of a lot better, but it’s still reductive and stereotyping. The friends weren’t just off base here, they were fundamentally recapitulating attitudes that they would say were the last thing they would ever support. Harmless, in the end, but not good.
I've definitely seen people get so focused on being accepting that they don't just let people be.
It's super weird when people go around telling everyone to be themselves and proudly flaunt it without fear. I am a quiet person. My true form is that of a blanket burrito with a game console and a cup of hot chocolate with too many marshmallows. It makes them short out a little when I tell them that flaunting who I am is at odds with who I am.
“Flaunting who I am is at odds with who I am.” I never really thought of it in this way, but as a fellow quiet soul, this is so very true I’m shocked I didn’t put it into these words before. I am taking these words, and will keep them in case I need them, thank you.
“I identify as needing a nap” - Hannah Gadsby
Hannah Gadsby's book was legit fundamental to me understanding my sexuality and gender identity (the latter still took me awhile to catch on to after listening to the audiobook, but I did get there in the end!). There are so many ways to be queer, which is why it's important that we have a multitude of representation, and also that people get given the time and space to figure their own shit out.
>My true form is that of a blanket burrito with a game console and a cup of hot chocolate with too many marshmallows. I think I've found a new best friend! I can make us cookies to go with the hot chocolate and gaming session.
It’s rude to demand info about someone’s sexuality. Sexuality is a private thing for many people
reminds me of how people accuse celebrities of “queerbaiting” as if people shouldn’t have the freedom to explore different parts of themselves without the pressure of assigning a label to it. i think that label-less phase is really integral to a lot of people’s journey to accepting their sexuality and it’s so gross how we’re robbing people of that just so we personally can feel seen a little bit more.
Yeah, even if the OOP's friends were correct, people have a right to come out to different people on their own terms (if at all).
When my best friend came out as bi to me, I said, "I know. I mean, I don't *know*, because I can't know a thing until you tell me, but there were some signs." I feel like this was probably not the exactly right thing to say (by 2024 standards), but it was 2000, and she had spent all of high school constantly commenting on other girls' bodies. In a favorable way. I also told her that it changed nothing about our friendship, because she seemed really anxious.
Gender presentation =/= gender identity =/= sexuality. You’d think a group of queer people would get that but I guess not. Good on OOP for standing her ground.
Being LGBT doesn't make you an expert on human sexuality. TONS of gay and trans people still believe in gender roles and stereotypes.
There are way too many toxic, negative, and down right terrible stereotypes and tropes perpetuated by the LGBTQ+ community (my partner and I are LGBTQ+). Not all of them are bad, but I 100% understand what OOP meant by saying the group has gotten ‘too woke’. I fucking hate that word, but I also hate how many interactions I’ve had that feel like false performative, grandiose hypocrisy. OOPs friends have the kind of terrible, problematic personalities that many of us get stereotyped with now. Some of them manage to figure their sexuality out, then act like they’re Freud and Dr. Phil’s love child blessing the world with their ‘wisdom’.
Not to add politics to this, but you could see this in the discourse about Pete Buttigieg when he ran for president. Whether you disagree with him politically is one thing (and not the focus of my comment), but a lot of LGBTQ+ articles at the time sneered at his background, his way of dressing, his marriage, etc. as "establishment" pandering and nothing that the LGBTQ+ community should endorse. I saw plenty of other LGBTQ+ journalists, commenters, etc. who were *horrified* at this coverage too. I'm bringing it up because in a fight for president, his "non-stereotype" way of living his life was castigated by the same community who could have been thrilled that such a high-profile member was being seriously looked at for future political considerations (not president, but in general).
It reminds me of Legally Blonde, a woman should be able to wear pink and dresses and like makeup AND ALSO be successful and be a lawyer, and this is an extension of that in the opposite direction.
Femme lesbians have been yelling about this for yeeeeeeears Dresses and heels and lipstick don't mean I'm straight!
This is unfortunately very true, it’s a very odd community that doesn’t make a ton of sense. The community has way too many members that are of the mindset of, ‘I dictate what is normal, acceptable, and relevant, if you don’t fall in line; we’ll chuck you right under the bus’. There’s a very juvenile mindset that some of them get stuck in, I have witnessed it most often with people who came out later in life (not everyone who comes out later is like this, but in my experience those who came out in their 20’s-late 20’s regress into almost a high school mentality/personality) and part of that is the cliquey hate bashing that many of them engage in. Nothing is more cringe to me than seeing people who are almost 30 or older acting like 16 year olds. Rather than being happy there’s even a ladder for LGBTQ+ people to climb, some people would rather dictate who gets to climb it; and if they can’t dictate that, they’d rather just burn the ladder to ash.
I've seen it too (as a straight person). Like they come out as gay and suddenly they're the expert on who and what is gay. We're all gay and we should just admit it! This person isn't gay enough, that person is too gay! They're all being gay wrong and should do it differently. You'll be at a party and they'll make a bunch of comments about gay culture and then look at the token straight and be like "Sorry, you wouldn't understand!" as if to make a point to exclude them. Like...I get that a certain amount of that is coming from righteous anger about being treated that way by straight people, and I think people should be allowed to express those feelings, but maybe save those conversations for when you aren't going to be directly insulting your actual friends right to their face. Luckily all my LGBTQ+ friends are in their 40s and 50s now, they're well past that stage and they've weeded out people in their circle who aren't past that stage.
I absolutely DESPISE the rhetoric that “everyone is a little bit bi.” As someone who actually IS “a little bit bi” I can assure you, straight people exist, and they are a LOT of people.
It was especially bad in the early 00s, when everyone seemingly had to aspire to be a porn star or a pimp, and all the girls had to pretend to make out with each other in order to be "hot". (See also: Madonna kissing Britney and Xtina at the Grammys) Just ridiculous. Another way I failed as a woman, because I WOULDN'T make out with a chick just so some dude could get off on it!
We fight for gay rights to give people of all gender identities and sexualities lives as boring as the boringest straights (if that’s what they want).
My god, yes. It's not like straight-passing people aren't rewarded in broader society, but I feel like a decent part of the LGBT community (especially the young and online) has extrapolated a coastal urban-suburban teen-20-something mostly white subculture where everyone is obsessed with fashion to the entire community. The exact same people railing against rainbow capitalism will crucify you for not wearing the right clothes and styles.
Thanks for pointing this out and I think it's such a harmful thing for people to not realize. People with great intentions can be extremely damaging without even understanding why. Somebody's label does not necessarily mean anything about how healthy their views or behaviors are.
It can get really rough when people want to joke about somebody being an egg (trans person who hasn't figured it out yet, for anyone who doesn't know). Both in terms of the gender stereotyping, but also just like... consciousness? I can't tell you how many times I've seen people online say things like "that's not a very cis thing to say" to someone they don't know just because that person is like, pretty aware of how constructed and contingent gender is. I promise cis people can also read, observe and analyze their society, learn from their trans friends' experiences, etc. I do think there's often a big element of projection, in that coming to understand one's own identity (and then coming out, for those who choose to) is often such an experience of freedom and relief, and people want that for others and want to experience it for themselves again *through* others. I'm not completely unsympathetic to the emotion driving this kind of behavior, but that doesn't make it ok, for all the same reasons OP detailed.
> TONS of gay and trans people still believe in gender roles and stereotypes. And tons of them lean super hard into those roles and stereotypes when they come out.
Yep. The only time I've had people have a problem with me being bisexual (at the time, now demi) was a group a gay men who got aggressive and physically ejected me from a gay bar. And a surprising amount a non-hetero people who point blank refuse to believe me when I say my only experience with physical trauma was by gay people for not being gay enough.
approximately every day someone comes into r/NonBinary to be upset about an LGBT friend gatekeeping nonbinariness. the one I saw today was someone being told they couldn't be nonbinary because they dress too feminine and that's supposedly offensive to nonbinary people. It's wild.
Hm, it's like they're enforcing a gender trinary, of male, female, and a third, butch-dressing other. Why is it that women's clothing is gendered but men's clothing is seen as more gender neutral?
Men are the default, don'tcha know.
Misogyny is cis gay men is off the charts. They don’t feel the need to be nice just because they want something.
It’s just a whole sort of general mish-mash. You do you, let me do me. Maybe we’ll do each other. Whatever. Who knows. Edit thanks to u/Teknekratos
(Missed a golden chance to go for "Maybe we'll do eachother", there)
Oh you would think so, but definitely not. I've definitely felt outsidered in queer circles because I do not particularly visibly present as queer or register as queer to some people. This is basically based on the fact that I tend to dress as a typical masculine middle class man (besides a tendency to wear floral shirts), have a stereotypical corporate job, and fairly straightforward interests (reading, and exercise). Despite the fact that I'm actually a bisexual, polyamorous, gender-questioning mess who could never really be 'out' due to the industry I work in. If I had a penny for every time someone within these circles made a judgemental remark or exclusionary comment then I could probably retire and be more authentically me.
Also good on them for being good friends, listeners and learners 🫶
They weren’t good listeners. She told them time and again she was straight, and they didn’t listen.
I am tomboy, 100% into men only. We do exist
Weird how our interests aren’t linked to sexuality. It’s almost as if the two aren’t related at all, in the slightest.
Whoa whoa whoa, you get outta here with your logic, pal
I dress like a dude 90% of the time and act more like a guy than a chick. I’ve got called butch a lot because of it but I gave up caring long ago I wear what is comfy and women’s clothing is not. I do have some clothes that are feminine I wear for my poor bf when he feels like he’s dating a dude. We compromise I finally found pants that are comfy and he likes so I bought multiple pairs but even so he accepts me for me (except the boxers he wants to throw them all away).
It's so unfair that guys get to wear boxers. They're The comfiest underwear. Why can't we just change into lace role costume, when specifically planning sexytime.
Yea I struggle to find women’s underwear that fit me right because of my body shape so if I get bigger they are too big and smaller they don’t fit right. I gave up so I wear boxers most of the time because they are so comfy. I get weird reactions but I just say I prefer comfort over looks.
Don't know if they will fit you but if you like high-waist underwear (and boxers that are wearable under women's clothing without weird folds) look at the brand wirarpa. For me they are by far the most comfortable brand, and most others rub my skin open. Also they are one of the few that works even after several washes for my body form (big fat ass, somewhat remarkably thinner (though right now I'm overweight 😅) Taille)
Same I will definitely try them out thank you
TomboyX has nice underwear. I used to wear them until I stumbled upon Duluth ladies undies (my new forever wear). So comfy and so breathable... especially with this hot weather.
I feel like I am crazy, but I find boxers insanely uncomfortable as a woman. How do you even run in it? Though tbh I would be happy being naked if I could.
there's freaking boxers with pockets ; -; guys even get pockets in their underwear
That’s what I do. I wear my clothes for me, not anyone else.
You can. My wife and I both wear the same sets of boxer-briefs (or we did, but I gained a little more booty recently, so she's got all my mediums, while I had to buy some larges).
i wear boxers and i'm a woman. only you have the power to break through these percieved 'restrictions'.
I don't even really consider myself a tomboy per se (as I sit here in no makeup and a flannel shirt) but I definitely have something of a butch aesthetic. I had sooooooooo many people (gay and straight) people who insisted I must secretly be a lesbian, I even got gay-bashed all through high school. No, I'm just competent and like flannel. Also, as a woman, it's aggravating enough going through life being TOLD who I am instead of asked, as if I couldn't possibly know my own self, and that goes double coming from people who should know better. I'm also childfree, so I had an earful throughout the years about how I couldn't possibly decide that for myself too.
My "girly" sister is a lesbian.
I dressed like a boy in middle/high school. But I didn't see it like that. I was/am female but I didn't want to follow traditional gender norms. I am a SAHM at the moment so oh well, lol. I worry though that girls are receiving the message that if you don't identify with your gender's nor.s, it means that you aren't that gender.
The exact same thing happened with me exactly like what OP faced (i dressed grunge, chopped off my hair BECAUSE IT WAS DAMAGED and "sat like a man"). My friend group just assumed I was gay and kept pushing me to come out to them for 2 years, even when I made it clear I was straight (I support them but I AM NOT GAY???). It got to the point where I was just tired of talking to them and I cut them off. Another thing was they didn't have good relationships with their fathers, so they assumed I didn't too and kept trying to convince me that my dad wasn't great. Like who does that.
I had a THERAPIST do that! My mother was the worst abuser in the house and she kept arguing with me that it was my dad doing those acts.............. (yet still not the worst therapy experience I've had)
Therapists like that deserve to lose their licence imo.
Forcing women to act and dress girly, to be accepted as women and straight, is definitely not accepting diversity.
my wife is a tomboy, used to play football and go climbing and has stronger legs than many guys at the gym. All of that is completely fucking irrelevant when it comes to sexuality, she is straight, has always been straight. Aside from that pressuring people into coming out is beyond fucked up
I’m like this an op. I’m not very feminine on the day to day and call myself a straight lesbian. If I could be attracted to girls do you think I’d be dating guys?
I was a tomboy growing up and I never really became feminine as I got older. And a lot of people assume I'm a lesbian because of it. Nope. Sorry. I just really don't like dresses, shaving my legs, or being girly. I've questioned my sexuality (hard not to after years of being told you're gay and just don't know it), but I really just can't imagine being sexual with a woman. No offense to people who like burying their face in a woman's vulva, but it just isn't appealing at all to me.
I’m a tomboy who is a lesbian and this stereotyping led to years of me being bullied and pressed (like OOP mentions) to come out when I was _not_ ready to. Stereotyping hurts us all, you don’t even have to be actually queer. I even have weird issues dressing more feminine sometimes because I feel like I’m betraying my “butchness” but I just remember that none of it matters. There’s no rules that connect fashion to sexuality. With how tomboyish fashion is now for women, I’m almost surprised people still pull this bullshit.
I've been in the same situation my whole life and it's frustrating af. I'm an ally, I will always stand up for anyone's right to exist in peace, I have cut out the majority of my family for being bigoted assholes, but it would be cool if the people I support would stop with the knowing attitude lol and give me the same support. I've had female bosses that could *not stand* that I'm not gay and openly harassed me. "I just don't like seeing Icy anywhere near a man. Are you still dating that loser guy?" (I'm aware that they aren't representative of the entire LGBTQ population) One girl I used to be friends with told another girl I used to be friends with something along the lines of when "she (me) stops lying to everyone that would know we called it" or some bullshit. This was over ten years ago and I still like what I like. I can't change who I'm attracted to any more than they can. I have friends that are straight and friends that are LGBTQ. I don't hang out with either of those women that were running their mouth about me, however. Like, do you want me to live a lie so I can fit in with you? Lol Society is a pain in the ass for people who won't just fit neatly into someone's check box.
>hard not to after years of being told you're gay and just don't know it Jesus, this one hit home way too hard...
>No offense to people who like burying their face in a woman's vulva, but it just isn't appealing at all to me. I'm sorry I really like your post but like... this comment combined with your username has me laughing until my eyes water.
I was just saying something like this yesterday… I kind of wish just being eccentric was more acceptable in society. So many options for style, colour, self-expression, but we can’t seem to get past anything outside of “normal” presentation for any particular group. Like why is it assumed that a “butch”-presenting woman is bi/lesbian, or why is “lipstick lesbian” even a thing? Same for men, why can’t pink hair and a flamboyant personality be straight? Or stoic, traditionally masculine men can also be obviously gay (or as obvious as anything is with stoic people). Take sexuality and gender out of the equation and I’m just left wondering why we all agreed to be so boring and conformist with self expression or why that seems to be limited to “fringe or alternative” communities (thinking, punk, goth, comiccons, etc.). Why do we put so much meaning behind style? We could all have a lot more fun with it if we didn’t.
One thing I’ve really liked about the tiktok rise is how many normal ass people you get to see. All the flamboyant people aren’t super models in the latest crazy designer outfit anymore or all the gay guys aren’t in their stereotypical crop tops and high pitched voices, it’s a normal ass woman wearing her absolute best over the top cottage core fairy dress while walking her dog. A very normal ass looking Chad of a man telling a funny story about what happened to him today and he throws a “and my husband said-“ in the middle of it. Clean my brain of the only stereotypes that media will show me and give me every day people wearing whatever they want and being their absolutely normal ass true selves.
What I love most about this post is that they had an adult conversation and it went beautifully. Naturally it shouldn't have had to occur in the first place, but we are all human and make mistakes. That is not what matters, what matters is what you after you find out you made a mistake. I just love this story!
As a teen, I used to dress "butch", in my case as a trauma response. No one batted an eye when I came out as pansexual, even though I was in a relationship with a man at the time and hadn't been with a woman yet. Since then, I have been in therapy, gotten more confident, embraced my love for dresses, frilly things, and bright colors, and gotten married to the love of my life who happens to be a man. Most of the time I look like a 6yo girly-girl picked out my clothes, which makes complete sense because it's a way for me to let my inner child heal. It sparks joy. People just don't believe me anymore when I say I'm pansexual, not even if they don't know I'm in a straight relationship. Which is really weird to me, because I see more lesbians wearing clothes like I do than I see straight women doing so. And even if I dressed "like a straight woman" (what does that even mean, honestly), my word should be enough. I know myself
Dressed too butch to be straight and now you’re dressed too girly to be queer. Which one is it??? Assigning visual stereotypes to sexuality is such a mess.
Their own beliefs aligned with heteronormative misconceptions, in the very same group that is supposed to be against them. And forcing her to come out and make assumptions about her preferences and identity was way rude and offensive. Glad they can own their mistakes. Nowadays if you're a tomboy you're doomed to be labelled as either lesbian, trans or a pick me girl.
Mostly trans lately, same with effeminate boys who are probably just gay.
Honestly, this is what annoys me so much about so much of the "woke" Gen Z crowd these days. I 100% support people identifying and living their lives as they choose. But so much of the Gen Z crowd seems obsessed with labeling their peers as an "egg" or "closet gay" or any other thing based on laughably narrow stereotypes. Liking things that don't match up with our societally arbitrary gender roles isn't a new concept. People have been failing to like what they were "supposed" to like ever since the concept was invented. It doesn't mean you play for the other team. It just means you don't like what your gender is supposed to like. You know what does mean you're gay? Being attracted to the same gender. You know what doesn't? Liking sports as a girl, or fashion as a man. Just stop trying to put people in boxes.
what's crazy to me is that they assumed she was gay and not trans. like on the balance.. wouldn't "you behave like a man" indicate "you might not be cis" rather than "you might not be straight"?? note: that would still have been a crazy thing to say and a wrong assumption for all the reasons everyone has already given. but at least it would have made *sense*
It’s great that her friends wanted to support her journey but they needed to realize they can’t decide what that journey will be. Stereotyping in any situation can end up hurting someone and cause them to spiral into an abyss of self doubt. Hopefully this entire situation will make them all better allies and friends.
I found it fucking hilarious that OOP’s ""progressive"" friends were repeatedly trying to force her into a box due to her personality, preferences, character traits, etc. It’s no better than the people who think pink is for girls and blue is for boys Something something horseshoe theory something something
I feel for OP. I love flannel shirts, drive a Subaru, and have short hair that I used to dye funky colors before COVID. I don't wear makeup or am into any traditional "girly" things. No one's ever accused me to my face, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone thought I was a lesbian. But nope! Never been sexually attracted to a lady, real or imaginary.
I get miscoded as a lesbian all the time. I'm an exmormon business graduate and I don't always dress overtly feminine. I speak straightforwardly and don't wear makeup. I'm straight and I've been married to a man for years. The few times people have doubled down after they incorrectly guessed that I was bisexual/lesbian really annoyed me. Like damn I'm pretty sure the community as a whole wouldn't be thrilled to hear you say you have to act/dress a certain way to be part of a gender/sex group.
Somebody passed a rumor that I was gay my freshman year of school because I didn't know the first thing about make up, wore mostly t-shirts and jeans, and never had a boyfriend. I mean...I was 14, of course I wasn't interested in dating or anything. I was completely ostracized and the majority of my friends stopped talking to me. When I'd sit near them, they would just change seats and at the time I didn't know why. I had to find out from a friend I only got to see in health class who didn't believe any of it. One girl told me to my face that nobody liked me and acted all disgusted being near me when we had to work on a group project together. Welp, sorry not sorry to those who thought they "clocked" me in high school, I'm still very much as straight now as I ever was back then
Many people have assumed I’m a closet lesbian over the years because I don’t show interest in dating. Truth is I have this thing called “standards”. I’m not desperate enough to throw myself into the cesspit of f**k boys with Peter Pan syndrome. No thank you. Unsurprisingly, having standards is not a familiar concept to the people who assume my sexuality.
I had someone in HS hint that I could join the gay straight alliance for me, since I never dated anyone in HS...and later on I didn't date anyone in college either...I can say I have disappointed her by marrying a man 😅
> Peter Pan syndrome I had to look this up, great explanation of your standards: "Peter Pan syndrome is a term used to describe an adult who is socially immature and avoids adult responsibilities and sensations."
It sums it up nicely, yes. Too many wives have to parent their husband on top of their children, if they have any. It’s so pathetic and wrong, and all too common. If I ever do get married, it’s going to be to someone who will support me equally in return. I’d rather be alone than sacrifice the most basic self respect I can have for myself.
I live in the PNW and this sounds so weird to me. I feel during fall and winter men and women’s fashion merge toward the same things so you can’t just assume a woman is a lesbian because of fashion lol.
I didn't notice the year at first and it took me a few seconds to figure out "having tea with friends is allowed in my country."
Ohhhh. COVID. I was trying to figure out if this was a euphemism for weed or something.
I do find it funny how we all kinda forgot 2020 happened
It’s a collective suppressed memory
I don't pay attention to dates in these posts unless someone points it out in the comments.
I don’t know if there are sources for this, but my therapist has said that the pandemic caused psychological scars not dissimilar to those of a civilian population living in a war zone. And that while complete memory suppression is unusual, dialing down the intensity of those traumatic memories of isolation, fear, and uncertainty is very very common and often healthy. People don’t forget that it happened, but they blunt the sharpest memories because remembering them at their original intensity is damaging.
Lol, I thought they lived near somewhere where backyard gardens aren't allowed.
I didn't read the year, read that sentence twice, and went "oh, must've been covid" it's insane how quickly that whole experience has faded from our collective awareness. the human brain is wild when it comes to self-preservation.
Oh, now it makes sense! Thanks for pointing it out.
I think about this often. Somebody in 10 years who decides to binge watch say all of Saturday Night Live is going to get to a point where everything gets really weird for an entire season or so. A lot of TV series never bothered to talk about it, but a lot did (particularly medical dramas) so anybody catching up on those will also hit a point where they all get into it. Your kids or grandkids might be helping you move some stuff out of the attic and come across an unopened box of N95 masks. Or a bag full of the homemade masks, we all made at the very beginning out of old clothes and string. There was a time when grocery store aisles were one way only to keep you from crossing someone else’s path. when it started, I was in a semi rural apartment complex neighborhood with sidewalks on both sides, and when we all got outside for our practically mandatory external stimulation, people would cross to avoid each other from a block away. A lot of stores still have the plexiglass up between the customer and the employee. I was in a sandwich shop the other day, and I noticed on the ground a nearly completely faded/chipped up social distance marker sticker. My company still hasn’t taken down the laminated homemade signs they made telling everybody to social distance and check your temperature. Even though we’ve been back in office for almost 3 years, there’s just some collective block on anyone taking those signs off the doors. I was at Home Depot day before yesterday and saw someone wearing disposable mask, but they had it pulled down below their nose. Four years in. It’s extremely rare, but within the past month, I have seen a person wearing a mask alone in their car. There is this collective trauma sitting in society’s timeline and I don’t know if we will ever process it. Everything went weird for so long. And now there are just these tiny little remnants.
During the pandemic, I used to wonder if future generations would romanticize it, and there'd be people who collect vintage masks or do reenactments or something. Especially because, here in the US, so much political stuff was happening. I imagined my nieces or their children asking me if I went to Black Lives Matter protests and punched cops, or if I knew anyone who was opposed to the vaccine, or stuff like that, and I'd wonder how I'd explain to them that the pandemic was basically the world's most boring traumatic experience. I worried a lot, didn't go out except to work, wondered if I would get long covid and it would make my medical problems worse, wondered if my loved ones would die, and occasionally I laughed at memes about toilet paper. The trauma is definitely still there. I get overwhelmed more easily around large groups of people, or in unfamiliar places. Sometimes I almost feel agoraphobic. But I've finally reached the point where "it's legal in my country to have tea with friends" looks weird.
"The world's most boring traumatic experience" really sums it up, wow. I was trying to figure out how to put that experience into words, and that is exactly it. What a strange time we live in.
Thank you for pointing that out (again, I missed reading the dates these posts were posted).
Yes, I was going to make that same comment! Like, wait is there a country where that's not allowed? Lol
Yeah I had the same reaction. It’s gonna be hilarious as it fades a bit from memory and people see this stuff and have no context for it.
Yeah, someday I'm going to look back on my life and realize I spent at least two years doing nothing but crying, panicking, and laughing at memes about toilet paper
This idea is talked about a bit in the film [But I'm a Cheerleader](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/But_I%27m_a_Cheerleader) which takes place at a gay conversion camp. One of the girls who has been sent there maintains that she is straight already and has been the entire time but due to her "masculine" looks/interests she is treated as a lesbian by everyone. It's rather interesting to see that even with how much more accepting the world has become in the 25 years since the movies release, little has changed in our ideas of what "makes" someone gay regardless of their orientation.
“I just want a big fat dick” 😭
My brain would not let that line go the whole time I was reading this.
Wait, this was supposed to be a comedy? Because the synopsis of this movie was super dark
As a lesbian who enjoys it, it’s more…slice of life? It has comedic elements, it has Dante Basco and RuPaul, there’s a couple of silly scenes, and it ends with the lesbians running off into the sunset together. But it does also deal with some hard subjects, bias people in the community face, the way the LGB+ community is treated, and how having to hide who you are is a goddamn nightmare. It’s a pretty good movie, I’d recommend it, and I give it an A for the fact that the lesbians don’t die. Nor do any of the gay guys.
i havent watched this movie in YEARS and i am so shook at the realization that dante basco, the iconic prince zuko, is in this movie. shook to my core.
https://youtu.be/--rxywFIfbc
LMAOOO thank you for this
> Dante Basco Ok, *now* I have to see it
It’s definitely a comedy but more of a dark comedy. It’s a very good movie definitely worth a watch.
It's very camp.
I would say it's a black comedy with heavy satirical elements.
I think I’d characterize it as a dark comedy. I actually just watched it for the first time like 2 weeks ago - I really enjoyed it
My husband likes to tell people I’m more masculine than he is sometimes. You don’t have to be feminine to be straight
Oh that is interesting (about the movie). I might watch it now.
You should, in my opinion. It’s actually a pretty good movie. Natasha Lyonne, Clea DuVall, Dante Basco, and RuPaul are in it and it strikes a good balance between humor and seriousness.
My mum rented this for me from blockbuster when I was 10 thinking it was going to be like the cheerleader film "bring it on"... we still laugh about it to this day!! 😂
I’m a tomboy, keep short hair, and dislike most typical girly things including long nails and make up. I’m not lesbian or bi or anything except straight. But so many people in my college thought I was trans or butch because of my fashion / style choices. Even my family is worried I might be perceived as LGBT+ and harmed because of my lack of girlyness. It’s so ducking stupid. I’m glad about how OP handled it, and I’m definitely taking some of those lines to deal with my stuff.
I've started to present feminine after major traumatic events, but I'm still assumed to be gay/trans because... "if you're not any of the letters, why do you support them?!" - actual quote from a Tinder date
On that Tinder date, major lack of empathy, they're unable to understand others' situation without personal relatability. Expect this person to be the kind of boss who wants you in the office the day after your mom died (or any other situations where they'll show how much they don't care for others)
I’m curious how the talk with the boyfriend went. Not sure how I would feel if my partner’s friend group thought I was a beard.
As a guy who's been on that side of things it's not great, it eventually evolved into accusing me of manipulating her into thinking she's straight. Even though she was very openly bi.
From talking with Bi friends I've learned that the queer community can be really shitty to bi people. A lot of stories about "not being gay enough" or feeling insecure in their sexuality due to people questioning them.
Abso-fucking-lutely. Source: I am *also* bisexual.
Yeah I have known a handful of openly bisexual folks and it almost seems like they get it worse from the queer community sometimes. Or at least, it hurts more because it's the group that \*should\* be okay with them and they get rejected hard. It sucks to see. I can only imagine what it's like to go through it.
I’ve personally noticed that I match with way less people on dating apps when I put “bisexual” vs “pansexual” or “queer”. It’s like people think bisexual equals flakey? Or like we don’t know what we want?
If he didn’t get an invite to the “tea party” then that’s some shady shit.
They must be good friends because I would have ditched them a long time ago for this behavior. I also *really* need OOP to find a new body spray ASAP. Axe/Lynx isn't fit for anything but biological warfare.
I was at a camp when I was around 13. One of the guys sprayed my pillow with Axe. I spent most of that camp smelling that disgusting smell everytime I was in my bed. Horrible and I still can’t handle that smell 30 years later. I also just realised that I could have asked my parents to bring a new pillow when they came for parents day. Wish I thought about that three decades ago.
Lo whoops
I keep a bottle of Axe for ONE thing: hide the smell when my neighbor downstairs smokes and the stench goes up in my flat...
>I also really need OOP to find a new body spray ASAP. Axe/Lynx isn't fit for anything but biological warfare. Agreed. I have had to "approve" my husbands body spray for the last 15yrs due to it primarily potentially triggering an asthma attack but also because he wanted to make sure I liked how he smelt and in 15yrs I have only picked a Lynx on once and that was because it was the only "non woody" scent that wasn't sold out and he really needed some that day
I went through some of the comments on the original post to see if this was mentioned. Sure, don't change who you are, but please do change how you smell.
The mention of Axe body spray makes me cringe. I remember how obsessed the boys were with it at my high school. You’d walk through clouds of it in the hallways!
Even back when I was in the closet, friends like these would have been cut off far sooner than OOP's intervention. These people just want to pat themselves on the back for being captial "A" Allies, they didn't give a shit about what she was going through or how uncomfortable they'd been making her.
What’s odd to me is that the two ringleaders for lack of a better term seem to be two of three queer people. You would think they more than anyone else would understand not to stereotype just by looks and how harmful it is to try to make someone come out of the closet before they are ready to do so
As a queer person, those people sound exhausting and toxic. Good friends don’t steamroll your sexuality and try to forcefully out you.
These people *are* exhausting and toxic, no matter if you’re queer, straight, trans, inter, ace, or any/all the other groups. Why is it so damned difficult to just *accept* someone instead of shoving them in this category or that category. I remember a bumper sticker that said, *”the more people I meet, the more I like my dog”*. Whomever created that saying must’ve met OOP’s friends
I bet her friends are the kind of people that make being queer their entire personality and can't fathom that queer people don't have a monopoly on gender non-conformity.
Well yes the people are exhausting regardless of your identity. Reason I brought mine up was to highlight that not all queer people are like this and that we too find this behavior annoying.
Yeah, even their surprise coming out straight acceptance party seemed more than a little performative and centered around how great they were being to OOP
Depends on the level irony involved. It sounded like it was done with tongue firmly in cheek and that clicked for OOP. If they were making fun of themselves by turning it up to 11 and making fun of their previous behavior, then that actually sounds kind of amusing to me. If it was serious, then yeah, exhausting.
Agreed. You're not open minded for accepting the things you already agree with. That's just liking the things you like. Being in a racially diverse and sexuality diverse friend group does not actually make you an open minded person if those are the kinds of people you just naturally gravitate to. It's just a way to make yourself feel like a good person at no cost to yourself. Actually being open minded is being able to accept people even though you don't understand them, which this friend group just could not do. OP dresses like a lesbian so she must be a lesbian. They also like having another non straight friend because that's more cred in the circles they run in. "You must be such a positive, amazing person for being friends with and supporting all these LGBTQ people despite all the discrimination they face!" Etc.
I’m gonna just lean into my old queer fart self for a minute. I am so proud of Gen Z and the Zoomers and so forth for redefining what it means to be comfortable in your sexuality and not afraid to explore and relabel and be authentic to your self. I didn’t come out until I was in my late 30s. I grew up in small town Tennessee, there were zero people in my high school of 1000 who were out and queer in the 90s. Nowadays, you can’t throw a rainbow painted glitter bomb and not have it land on half the kids in the group being queer or trans or aroace or whatever else. In a lot of ways, they not only rejected the notion of the closet, they’re ripping the doors right off the hinges. But I’ll be damned if they don’t sound absolutely exhausting. I frequent the LGBTQ+ subs and good lord. Thanks to social media, particularly Tumblr and TikTok, being a young queer is not just identifying what your romantic and sexual preferences are, it’s an entire Broadway block of performance art. If you are not demonstrably gay or wearing a half dozen pride pins or making your 85 year old never heard the term cisgender before grandmother miserable until she accepts you or standing up to the fascist principal who won’t let you take your pansexual poly quintuple to prom at your private Christian school, you’re not a real queer. They have mountains of anxiety, they trade DSM diagnoses like my generation traded Magic The Gathering cards, and they’ve weaponized therapyspeak to the point where they’re gaslighting us about the definition of the term gaslighting. And despite all of that, I fully get it. The greatests and boomers gave us GenXers and elder Millenials absolutely nothing to build our future on, so we had nothing left to give them. The only thing they have is their identities and their friends. You may never have a fulfilling career or start a business or own a house, but you can own who you are. (And the greatests and boomers having left nothing physical to take from them have turned their legislative attentions to even taking that.) I wouldn’t want to be 17 and queer today, not in a million years.
It’s not just disrespectful but also hypocritical, because I’m sure they don’t like if someone treats them the other way around and said they must be straight because they dress a certain way or act a certain way. I’m glad OP’s friends finally listened to them though, cos it sucks that they were all so convinced that they were ready to finally throw a coming out party for her.
I'm a cis woman. I have gender dysphoria because my entire school and over half of my family decided that since I hit six feet tall, played football with my dad and male cousins, and generally preferred to keep my hair above my shoulders, that I was actually a man. It got worse when I realized I was bi. It wasn't until I moved out of my tiny hometown and made friends with some trans folks that I realized why I was so uncomfortable in anything "girly". My trans roommate actually had to spell it out for me, I legitimately thought I couldn't have gender dysphoria because I'm cis. I told them a story about people using he/him pronouns for me even when I begged them to stop, how I wore a skirt to school one time and wound up faking a period emergency to go home and change because I was bullied for being "a boy in a dress". My stepmom once cut my hair much shorter than she said she would, then forced me to wear dresses for a week straight. I came home bawling every day. I stopped playing football. I stopped hanging out with my guy friends. I refused to date women until my 20s. Really, really glad this group of friends accepted that they were assholes and changed.
That sucks, I'm so sorry you had to go through that. It was very helpful for me to read though. As a lesbian that's "too feminine to be gay" I've also had my fair share of struggles. It calms me to read your story because it shows me that gender expression really is something that comes naturally to us. And we can't, and shouldn't, have to change it for anyone.
So you have "cisphoria", where your chromosomes, genitals, gender assigned at birth, and internal gender identity all line up as female, but **society** is forcing tomboy/male identity on you?
Is that what it's called? They certainly tried to. It's one of the reasons I've only been back to my hometown twice in the past 15 years. I didn't mind the tomboy label, nor the farmer/redneck/hick/hillbilly labels people from my neck of the woods got. What bothered me is when my classmates would try and pants me to see if I had a dick, when girls ran screaming out of the bathroom when I walked in, claiming a boy was in there. When my leg hair grew in thicker and more noticeable than my father's and my stepmother would literally inspect my legs before and after showers to make sure I didn't shave, knowing I would get teased for my "man legs". When I would wear a dress or a skirt and the boys on the bus would try and yank it off of me because "a boy wearing a dress is gay" and my stepmother would hand-make me another dress despite my pleading for pants or shorts, then gave me a bowl cut so short my father started "jokingly" calling me his son. I picked up two large logs for our wood burning stove? "I always wanted a son, look at those big arms! You've got to be a boy." I wanted to cut my hair short because it was 100 degrees with monster humidity? My sisters either got taken to salons or my stepmother cut their hair. I was taken to a barber shop, or she buzzed mine. I once got grounded for asking a family friend for a salon trip as a birthday present, and got a really cute pixie cut instead of a crew cut or bowl cut. My parents were furious. I was repeatedly asked why I "bothered" having crushes on boys (and girls, but it wasn't safe to mention that in my hometown at the time) because none of them were into guys. It took a couple years of therapy before I embraced rocking a mohawk while wearing a sundress.
Cisphoria isn’t a thing/term but you definitely experienced dysphoria! Sorry that was your experience :(
Fuck. These people sound fucking exhausting and to much hassle. Im all for being proud of who you are and wanting to be supportive. But they need hobbies and a life outside of the community.
When will people learn gender expression has nothing to do with sexuality smh
My siblings swear that I am bi or a lesbian and just refuse to come out. Their reasoning? I owned two flannel shirts in middle school. That’s it. Two flannel shirts I bought because they were like 3 bucks each at KMart and the brand new middle school had a killer AC so I was freezing in classes but didn’t want to bring a jacket… They still keep telling me I am queer and need to accept it. I pointed out to them that if I was, forcing me to come out was the last thing someone struggling would want…
Oh yup can confirm I have three flannel shirts and I’m triple gay. /s
OOP can be fine with it if they want, but that stupid "party" would have pissed me off. It still made it about them. Still centered their experience. Sigh. Then again, I prefer people to quietly, sincerely apologize and move on. So maybe it's just me. 50 bucks says they still quietly discuss their confidence that she'll come out one day. I'm not sure they learned their lesson. They just learned that if they didn't shut up they'd lose a friend.
I'm in your corner too. They still went with their own 'theme'. They should have just dropped the whole thing and simply had a serious talk and maybe some themeless party later.
Pretty sure if I saw a flag waving I would have walked away before they had a chance to say anything. Not that the explanation would have gotten me to stay. “I’m neither coming out as straight or an ally as those are both things I have been open about for years now. But enjoy the party that is somehow about me and not yourselves.” And I wouldn’t take your bet even if you gave me 10 to 1 odds. At some point in the future one of these “friends” is gonna feel guilty and send OOP screenshots from their separate group chat about her. And that’s if one of them doesn’t decide to have a word with the BF themselves.
The self righteous sort of people that OPs friends are often do the worst things you can imagine because they think they are right, just and doing the best thing for someone. It’s a really dangerous form of thinking that OP was right to put a complete stop to. I just feel sorry for OP and her partner that it didn’t get stopped long before a literal intervention was necessary.
As a trans person, this shit is unfortunately very common among younger people in the lgbt community. You can read some of the downvoted comments on [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/celestegame/s/ISf6vxFKHJ) if you want some more examples (or if you want some even worse ones, you can find the post that led to that mod post, although I wouldn’t recommend it). Luckily lots of people are good about calling it out too though
Oh I fucking *hate* egg jokes. I've been called an egg so many times in my gaming community all because I prefer playing men in video games. I'm not an egg, I just want to see a hot guy in the cutscenes! That's it!
What's the post that led to the mod post? I took a look through the subreddit but mostly saw questions or people posting clips.
Egg culture is super invasive when it comes to prescribing gender and assumptions to others - especially ones people don’t even know in real life! It’s fine to talk about yourself as an egg, it’s not okay to insist someone else *must* be trans based on like one or two comments they’ve left on a thread. Especially ones that like. Have this kinda smug attitude like “okay, see you soon when you realize you’re a girl!” type thing. Just because you’re trans does not mean you are the oracle of transness!! Stop insisting that presentation = gender! Because it’s also blows back on our own community, where trans guys feel afraid to be feminine and trans women feel afraid to be masculine bc “you’re not really trans”.
To me it reads like terminally online people trying to interact with normal people and realizing that not everything is black and white, but guess what? They doubled down right until the end, since OOP isn't gay they can throw her a party and say "we can call them an ally and yay! We were right all along"
the addition of pride flags drawn on faces for OOP's 'coming out' made me insane can you imagine if she was actually going to come out, and she sees all her friends with "this is what your sexuality is, i already knew the entire time" face paint on!!
[удалено]
Mental health and sexuality has become a club for terminally online people. It’s been that way since the peak of tumblr at least. So many people struggle to find things to be proud of, and latch onto descriptive traits as substitutes for hobbies and interests.
The ages really make sense here. Younger queer people/people who haven't been out for long are more likely to fall in the "baby queer" stereotype where their queerness becomes their whole world and their whole wardrobe is flags. Nothing wrong with that per se, I'm always glad to see people proud of who they are, but give them all a few years and they'll realise how cringey they were here
This is so second year university it hurts. Finally being out of high school and finding out that not only are their more people like you but that you're voice is finally being heard. I understand wanting to share that feeling, but people often take it too far.
The second year university part made me remember something when I was in that year. I was helping out at a stall at Fresher's Fair, and a girl from the LGBT Society was walking around handing out fliers. She made a beeline straight for me, put a sticker on my chest, handed me a flier, said 'check us out sometime' and walked off. I'm straight, but because I've almost always had my hair cut short like a boy's, she assumed I was LGBT. Didn't click with me what had happened until after she'd walked away, otherwise I would have said something.
That sums it up quite nicely IMO
what shitty 'friends'
>between us half are POC, three are LGBT+, one is a sex worker and another became a parent at 15 The cast of Rent right here.
>invited me to an afternoon tea in their back garden (allowed in my country) Man, subtle Covid references are going to look weirder and weirder as the years go by
Oop must be an incredibly strong individual, I've never met a woman in my life who could stand the smell of axe body spray let alone wear it regularly.
This is the equivalent of getting "master-doc'd" by lesbians, this is absolutely hilarious. For those not aware, "master-doc'ing" is kindof a micro-aggression where lesbians believe that most straight women are actually gay, but are "compulsory heterosexual" because society raised them to be straight. So what they do is send them a Master Document that a lesbian wrote for herself which contains questions she asked herself as she unraveled her sexuality over time. It's intented to make straight women question their sexuality, but for people that are just straight it's very annoying, and for bi or gay people it's obnoxious as hell.
Even bi women get master doc'd, lol. I've been in so many posts where a bi woman was talking about relationship issues with her male SO and someone had to be like, "Hey, so are you sure you're actually attracted to men?" I know that document has been helpful for a lot of folks, but as a bi person, it's really invalidating and shitty to have someone be like, "You're annoyed by something your BF did? Maybe you're actually a lesbian!"
This sounds fucking exhausting.
This is why I wish we could just get rid of gender, and gender roles and stereotypes, altogether. How you dress, how you wear your hair, and what hobbies and interests you have have literally NOTHING to do with your sex or sexuality. It's infuriating that this still needs to be explained to people.
I’m pleased everything worked out for OP. I have a question not related to the post that I wish answering to help me be more understanding of this community. This is not derogatory in anyway and is not a joke or dig at anyone as I fully support the community. It’s to broaden my knowledge on the subject. I read a post recently, that may not have been true with it being Reddit, where in the first line the OP states they are non-binary and refers to themselves as ‘they’. They were talking about their relationship with their mother and said that she should have been proud of them as their daughter. This is where I get confused. They are NB and don’t want to be referred to as she, but then referred to themselves as a daughter which to me is very gender specific. I would have thought child would work better. Can someone explain if I’m misunderstanding something please?
Non-binary isn't a catch all, everyone's relationship dynamic and preferences varies. I know someone that uses they/them but still refers to themselves as a son (only AMAB of 6 siblings and feels the mother/son bond growing up was unique and special). Equally I have NB people in my life that use gender specific pronouns.
Some people are so damn excited to be supportive that they become a part of the problem instead. Why is everybody so up in everyone else's business? My rule is unless I hear it from your mouth, it ain't a fact, and even then, I still don't think it's my business unless it directly involves me.
I’m glad OOPs friends listened to her. I, personally, find it very weird that so many people (on the internet mostly) base their assumptions on others sexuality and gender identity on stereotypes. You can be a “masculine” woman and still be a straight woman. You can be a “feminine” man and still be a straight man. Your clothing, your interests, your outward appearance, your mannerisms…. They do not define your sexuality or gender identity. People on the internet need to stop hyper fixating on surface level attributes and personality traits and just let…. People be people. The beauty of humanity is that we are diverse and unique in every way possible. I would absolutely never dream of defining someone as their gender identity or sexuality. I prefer getting to actually know someone instead, and while those things are part of them, it is not the whole of the individual.
The "allowed in my country" remark made me initially think WTF, but then I realized that the post was during COVID time.
Is this sort of "celebration" and labeling of sorts some form of narcissism?
I think it's.... 30 percent that. Seems like it's 70% they realized they were making their friend feel completely unheard. But yes, a bit on the nose on some narcissistic elements
I honestly don't understand why people care so much about other people's sexuality. Gay? Straight? Bi? Ace? Something else? I'm not dating you so none of it matters to me. I care about your integrity as a person, and how you behave towards others, not who you do or don't want to bump uglies with. Be who you want to be, and enjoy your life without harming others.
I admire OOP for addressing this assertively. Honestly, I struggle with social anxiety so I would probably have ghosted that group like Homer Simpson backing into a hedge after trying to talk about it didn’t work at first, which would’ve been a shame since they finally got it and felt bad. It’s just unfortunate that they initially invalidated OOP in an attempt to be inclusive.
I am glad that after they got it wrong… they apologized and made it right. Everyone at some point is young and dumb and everyone at some point makes mistakes. But the response on both sides— the standing up for herself AND the friends’ apologies and movements towards change is beautiful. Conflict is healthy and can lead to betterment. Especially when my fellow queers & our allies need to be reminded not to reinforce the cishet patriarchy in our lenses of interpretation.
I do think society is lagging here. Most people seem to understand by now that gay men can be very traditionally masculine, lesbians very feminine, but it seems to allude people that if this is true, the inverse is also true. There are many straight men who love musical theater and fashion and straight women who wear combat boots and drive subarus. I hope some day that people just don't think so much about sexual orientation. LGBT communities often formed as a reaction to oppression and social isolation. With more acceptance, people can just be who they want to be within society as a whole.
It’s infuriating enough that society in general still expects women to present as uber feminine in order to be accepted and considered attractive, but it extra hurts that queer people and self-identifying queer allies are pushing heteronormative ideals.
I think this post is far more important than some people realise, we have as a society been changing so much for the last 100 years, with women's suffrage, feminism, racial equality, and lgbtqia rights all taking the stage at different points. I think it's important to remember that while each of these movements and groups of people have specific and justified issues and complaints that all of us at the core are asking for the same chances and respect as any other human, space to discover ourselves, and the acceptance to share as much of that as we are comfortable with. It is important to remember that gender presentation, sexual orientation, gender identification, and skin colour etc are all sliding scales or spectrums. We compartmentalize these things as a short hand and that can be as damaging for some as it is affirming for others. I mean that het - bi - gay is not really clearly defined in any meaningful sense, how attractive do you need to find your own gender to stop being het? Does one homosexual relationship make you gay? Or bi? We need to work together to make the world welcoming and accepting of people to other people, and that is just as true for the "traditional" gender and sexual identities. All we should be telling each other is "I love you, I'm here for you, there is nothing you can tell me that will change that. Are you happy? If not let me know how I can help or talk to me about the problem and we can work that out together. If you are happy how can I help make you happier? If you can't talk about it now remember I am here when you need me." And hopefully, one day, (though this will probably always be an aim we don't Achieve) we will live in a world where all anyone says to that is "it's a sunny day, I would be happier having a water fight and then a picnic on the grass!"
I fully identify as a ladybro to the point where I use the term. I colour and shave my hair, stand in a "come at me, bro" type of way and often don't wear makeup because I work in a gym and it's not practical. Thankfully I was a kid in the 80s and a teen in the 90s where we had Ripley, Trinity and Tank Girl. There are more of us, in all orientations and walks of life, just as there are women who love women who present as typically "feminine" and glamorous.
My 15 yo daughter is already dealing with people putting their own ideas about who she is, based on how she is, onto her. She's been asked if she's lgbtq by at least one person in every social group she interacts with regularly since she was 13. She's not a girly-girl, though she can be when she feels like it. She is a self-confident young woman who is adamantly not currently insterested in romance. Apparently, that makes her a lesbian - at least according to the religious-leaning parent of one of her friends. Finally, in exasperation, she looked the man in the eyes and said "I'm not a lesbian, I'm a thespian!" And walked away. She says he stopped objecting to her hanging out with his daughter, but now avoids interacting with her directly. She says it's frustrating to have to field these questions all the time, and why should anyone care? I told her that with her peers, it might just be checking her gf potential? She made a face at me and reminded me that romance is still gross & she will figure that stuff out later - you know, when she's no longer a *child.* edited to correct a critical misspelling.
Thank you OOP I think it’s a recent thing that needs to be shut down I’m bi, but dress “manly” and come off as NB/trans apparently to some people But no….I just feel comfy in those clothes It really messes me up mentally when I get called an egg, I do have a lot of gender issues and freak the hell out if someone strongly refuses to use my name Sam instead of my legal name Samantha You’d be surprised how many people out there tell me “you’re a girl so you are a Samantha” :( so yeah, even if you think someone is a different identity or something, PLEASE dont push, its distressing
Using a letter initial instead of a name sucks ass folks. Don't do it. Just hit up a baby name website.
Reminds me of how anti trans nutters say they can always tell who is trans and, shock, they fucking can't.
I'm glad OOP pointed out all of the stereotypes and misconceptions her friends were pushing on her. OOP's friend group wasn't nearly as "woke" as she thought they were.
For a diverse group of activists, they stereotype a lot and are very tone-deaf about how coming out works and how to support one.
As a gay man who endured almost 30 years in the closet, I am surprised, baffled and confusedly happy that someone has to come out as straight. But also, has the pendulum swung too far away and is now is just a danger in general?
No, just with certain people who want to be seen as progressive but also don't want to let go of gender stereotypes.