I don’t see how those two are related at all and honestly treating them as interchangeable is… cringe.
There is no harm in suggesting you thought someone was gay or straight, especially because sexuality has nothing to do with outward appearance and can be kinda nebulous to infer at all. If you’re not comfortable with the idea of being lgbt+, how are you an ally? Nothing differentiates a gay man from a straight one, outside of attraction to other men.
Whereas so much of trans struggles and validity relate to how they’re/we’re perceived. Do I pass enough to shit in the restroom that conforms to my identity?
So you think there isn’t a lot of extremely toxic male culture that will make men feel invalid for not being perceived as straight? Because that shits everywhere. It’s perfectly normal to struggle with that, feeling insecure about your self image has nothing to do with your support of others.
And insecurities can come from very personal things and no one should be judged for them. Lying about how you perceived someone as a “test” is toxic as fuck.
So you think the amount of toxic male culture making men feel invalid for not being masculine enough is comparable the current level of toxicity, discrimination and legal persecution that is making trans people feel invalid ?
I also explicitly, at several occasions and in several comments pointed out that I fully agree that it’s toxic and dick move to call straight people gay as some kind of test, so the fact that everyone repeatedly keeps arguing against me with a position that I’ve literally explicitly agreed with several times, sure seems very indicative of you guys not actually bothering to read or understand my comments.
My sole argument has been not that it’s fine to call straight people gay, merely that whilst being toxic, it’s not remotely comparable to the level of toxicity of deliberately misgendering a trans person, and it’s demeaning and disrespectful towards the very real struggles of trans people to compare the two to each other.
Despite dozens of downvotes and replies, literally not a single person has yet replied to, countered, or even acknowledged this explicitly stated stance of mine. All the replies and downvotes are coming from the POV of me supposedly having said that it’s perfectly fine and acceptable to call straight people gay.
I disagree about it not being remotely comparable. There’s little doubt that on average it’s gonna be far worse to misgender a transperson in that way (though “i thought you were x when i first met you” isn’t really misgendering either since it’s explicitly saying they’re not that, but w/e we all know what we’re talking about here) since there’s a very high chance they have some degree of trauma associated with it.
But I think in individual cases the “i thought you were gay” can be just as bad, so I do think it’s entirely comparable. I think it’s important to also think about the worst effect it could have, and it’s such an unnecessary action that both cases are just toxic and never a good thing, so I don’t think there’s a need to rank one as worse than the other. (And ofc both can also be fine if it’s clear everyones comfortable with it, and that’s more likely in the gay case, but hopefully that’s obvious).
So of according to you, if there is a single guy on earth who gets just as upset from being called “doofus” as a black person from being called the N-Word, that in your mind makes calling someone a doofus and calling a black person the N-Word comparable ?
Did you skip over the part of it being completely unnecessary? Insults are a part of human communication, you can’t just erase them, so of course it makes sense to classify some as worse than others. It’s a fundamental part of insults even.
You literally just argued, verbatim, that because being called gay in isolated cases can be just as bad as a trans person being misgendered, that makes deliberately misgendering and calling someone gay comparable.
That was your verbatim argument. And you’ve suddenly moved the goal posts to “of course it makes sense to classify some as worse than others”
As someone agender this entire thread is wild to me. I accept any gender, any pronouns, and do not care how people percieve me. None of this seems offensive to me, whether people thought i was trans or gay or whatever. Pretty sure the offense is mostly just whether offense was intended.
Pretty sure the offense is mostly just whether offense was intended.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but since I read this sentence I understand why I dislike this suggestion. Saying something to your friend to see if they’ll be uncomfortable is intending offense, imo. You should be kind to your friends and not give them shit tests, or else just don’t be friends with them anymore. It honestly feels like OOP is suggesting your straight friend isn’t really your friend, but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The premise of this post of an openly gay person talking to their straight friend/acquaintance. Pretty sure it’s fairly safe to assume that this isn’t set in Uganda or Saudi Arabia. And even in the deepest fucking south of the USA, no straight person is getting hate crimed because one time their gay friend called them gay as a stupid bit.
Pretending this is relevant to the discussion is disengenous.
Yeah, calling a straight person gay as a joke/bit is not even remotely comparable to deliberately misgendering a trans person, and it’s kinda crass and disgusting to pretend it is. Screams to me that you don’t actually know any trans people, or at least no closely enough to understand how devastating such a comment can be to them.
Straight people, with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay. Being forced by society to express themselves as gay, even though it made them feel awful. They didn’t spend potentially decades feeling unwelcome in their own skin. They don’t spend hours upon hours worrying that society won’t accept than as “a real straight”. They don’t spend days worrying about the hate crime, discrimination and legal persecution they are susceptible to if they don’t look straight enough. Triggering that level of trauma isn’t the same as making someone slightly uncomfortable because they found out they unknowingly didn’t express their outward sexuality as strongly as they felt. It isn’t remotely, on any level, comparable, and that is an objective truth.
I am also notably not defending calling straight people gay. I’m just pointing out that deliberately misgendering a trans person is on a completely different plane of shitty behaviours. Not every shitty behaviour is automatically equally shitty.
Classic straight people. You’re just completely unwilling accept that some mildly crappy behaviour towards you isn’t universally described as the worst behaviour ever. I bet you people also think that calling a white person a cracker is exactly the same as calling a black person the N-Word.
with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay
Except just about every guy who has ever been bullied. While the bullies usually don’t actually believe that, it certainly explains why straight men get defensive about someone thinking that they’re gay. Plus it’s just inconvenient if you’re trying to find a girlfriend.
I also like how I gave an entire paragraph of the hardships of that trans people face day in and day out, prior to coming out they have to listen to even their closest friends and loved ones seeing them as the wrong gender every day, in every interaction, in every conversation, and you literally just picked out the very first sentence, ignored everything else, and went “Um akshually straight people get this occasionally too, in very different context and with very different conotations, so equatingthem is fine”
You can’t seriously think that some bullies insulting you by calling you gay, whilst clearly and evidently and outwardly just using is a generic insult, rather than actually meaning it, is even in the same universe as a trans person being forced to express the wrong gender identity for several decades.
IMO, it’s a difference in severity, not in kind. It’s a fairly regular thing for bullying victims to kill themselves or get seriously injured or killed by their bullies. Go a couple of decades back and out homosexuals, especially men, were exactly where trans people are now. Remember how the Republicans handled AIDS, or how male homosexual acts were literally illegal in many western countries until like the 90s or early 00s?
Bottomline is, don’t say your “friend” is a different sexuality or gender than you know they are, just as a test.
IMO, it’s a difference in severity, not in kind. It’s a fairly regular thing for bullying victims to kill themselves or get seriously injured or killed by their bullies.
That true, and it’s awful, but it’s not BECAUSE they were called specifically gay, at least in the majority of cases. Switching “gay” for any other generic insult/slur wouldn’t make the bullying less bad or impactful in the vast majority of cases, whereas for a trans person there is virtually always a massive, massive
difference between just being genericly insulted/harassed and it being specifically misgendered/targeted at their gender identity. So IMO, it also very much is a difference in kind.
Go a couple of decades back and out homosexuals, especially men, were exactly where trans people are now. Remember how the Republicans handled AIDS, or how male homosexual acts were literally illegal in many western countries until like the 90s or early 00s?
We’re not IN the 90s or 00s anymore. Trans people are facing this level of persecution and discrimination today. It’s also not comparable, because it is much easier to keep gayness a secret Vs keeping transness a secret. That isn’t supposed to make light of the suffering of gay people in 80s to 00s, just pointing out that gayness isn’t necessary an outward expressing. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Being trans is directly, intrinsically and inseparably linked with your outward expression.
Bottomline is, don’t say your “friend” is a different sexuality or gender than you know they are, just as a test.
Yes. A point that I have literally made explicitly several times already, and yet everyone here is pretending as though I said it’s perfectly fine, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it to do pull this shit. The only point I’ve made is that, as sucky and shitty as it is to call a straight person gay, it’s demeaning and insulting to the struggles of trans people to equate it to being deliberately misgendered.
A fact that you can literally survey in this comment section where there’s tons of straight men commenting that they wouldn’t be upset/insulted by such a statement, and merely point out the inaccuracy, and I’m willing to bet every penny I own, that the amount of open trans people who would react comparably mildly to being misgendered is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the men commenting here that it wouldn’t really upset them that much.
Oppression olympics never gets anyone anywhere. The people who were bullying and persecuting gay men 20-30 years ago are often literally the same ones who are bullying and persecuting trans people right now.
It’s not “oppression Olympics” to point out that it’s insulting to equate a minor dick move towards straight people with the ongoing systemic persecution of trans people.
Most notably and importantly because straight people AREN’T oppressed. There is no large scale legal systemic discrimination or oppression of straight people, anywhere on earth. Individual dick heads being asses is not the same as large scale, systemic and legal persecution.
Here’s a question for you: Rape “jokes” are never acceptable. But, would you consider making rape “jokes” towards a woman who was never victimised the same level of shitty behaviour as making a rape “joke” towards a woman who you know is a rape survivor. And how would you react if someone was arguing that those two situations are totally comparable and equally bad.
If your answers to those questions are “of course not” and “outraged”, congratulations, you agree with my point.
Why is this okay because they are straight? Imagine saying you thought your Trans friend was a man, when they are trying to present as a woman.
These kind of tests are so toxic, and serve nothing but to spark an argument and hurt feelings.
You are part of the problem.
100% agree. It’s only going to alienate people who would have otherwise been supporters.
Crappy comparison…
I don’t see how those two are related at all and honestly treating them as interchangeable is… cringe.
There is no harm in suggesting you thought someone was gay or straight, especially because sexuality has nothing to do with outward appearance and can be kinda nebulous to infer at all. If you’re not comfortable with the idea of being lgbt+, how are you an ally? Nothing differentiates a gay man from a straight one, outside of attraction to other men.
Whereas so much of trans struggles and validity relate to how they’re/we’re perceived. Do I pass enough to shit in the restroom that conforms to my identity?
So you think there isn’t a lot of extremely toxic male culture that will make men feel invalid for not being perceived as straight? Because that shits everywhere. It’s perfectly normal to struggle with that, feeling insecure about your self image has nothing to do with your support of others.
And insecurities can come from very personal things and no one should be judged for them. Lying about how you perceived someone as a “test” is toxic as fuck.
Yeah, it’s bad to ask if your friends are comfortable being viewed as gay because they might have insecurities from toxic masculinity 🙄🙄🙄
So you think the amount of toxic male culture making men feel invalid for not being masculine enough is comparable the current level of toxicity, discrimination and legal persecution that is making trans people feel invalid ?
I also explicitly, at several occasions and in several comments pointed out that I fully agree that it’s toxic and dick move to call straight people gay as some kind of test, so the fact that everyone repeatedly keeps arguing against me with a position that I’ve literally explicitly agreed with several times, sure seems very indicative of you guys not actually bothering to read or understand my comments.
My sole argument has been not that it’s fine to call straight people gay, merely that whilst being toxic, it’s not remotely comparable to the level of toxicity of deliberately misgendering a trans person, and it’s demeaning and disrespectful towards the very real struggles of trans people to compare the two to each other.
Despite dozens of downvotes and replies, literally not a single person has yet replied to, countered, or even acknowledged this explicitly stated stance of mine. All the replies and downvotes are coming from the POV of me supposedly having said that it’s perfectly fine and acceptable to call straight people gay.
I disagree about it not being remotely comparable. There’s little doubt that on average it’s gonna be far worse to misgender a transperson in that way (though “i thought you were x when i first met you” isn’t really misgendering either since it’s explicitly saying they’re not that, but w/e we all know what we’re talking about here) since there’s a very high chance they have some degree of trauma associated with it.
But I think in individual cases the “i thought you were gay” can be just as bad, so I do think it’s entirely comparable. I think it’s important to also think about the worst effect it could have, and it’s such an unnecessary action that both cases are just toxic and never a good thing, so I don’t think there’s a need to rank one as worse than the other. (And ofc both can also be fine if it’s clear everyones comfortable with it, and that’s more likely in the gay case, but hopefully that’s obvious).
So of according to you, if there is a single guy on earth who gets just as upset from being called “doofus” as a black person from being called the N-Word, that in your mind makes calling someone a doofus and calling a black person the N-Word comparable ?
Did you skip over the part of it being completely unnecessary? Insults are a part of human communication, you can’t just erase them, so of course it makes sense to classify some as worse than others. It’s a fundamental part of insults even.
You literally just argued, verbatim, that because being called gay in isolated cases can be just as bad as a trans person being misgendered, that makes deliberately misgendering and calling someone gay comparable.
That was your verbatim argument. And you’ve suddenly moved the goal posts to “of course it makes sense to classify some as worse than others”
Yea ok reading comprehension is just a losy cause with you lmao
As someone agender this entire thread is wild to me. I accept any gender, any pronouns, and do not care how people percieve me. None of this seems offensive to me, whether people thought i was trans or gay or whatever. Pretty sure the offense is mostly just whether offense was intended.
I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but since I read this sentence I understand why I dislike this suggestion. Saying something to your friend to see if they’ll be uncomfortable is intending offense, imo. You should be kind to your friends and not give them shit tests, or else just don’t be friends with them anymore. It honestly feels like OOP is suggesting your straight friend isn’t really your friend, but a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
What do you mean there’s no harm? People still get killed for being gay, yeah?
The premise of this post of an openly gay person talking to their straight friend/acquaintance. Pretty sure it’s fairly safe to assume that this isn’t set in Uganda or Saudi Arabia. And even in the deepest fucking south of the USA, no straight person is getting hate crimed because one time their gay friend called them gay as a stupid bit.
Pretending this is relevant to the discussion is disengenous.
Irrelevant to the discussion at hand
Yeah, calling a straight person gay as a joke/bit is not even remotely comparable to deliberately misgendering a trans person, and it’s kinda crass and disgusting to pretend it is. Screams to me that you don’t actually know any trans people, or at least no closely enough to understand how devastating such a comment can be to them.
Straight people, with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay. Being forced by society to express themselves as gay, even though it made them feel awful. They didn’t spend potentially decades feeling unwelcome in their own skin. They don’t spend hours upon hours worrying that society won’t accept than as “a real straight”. They don’t spend days worrying about the hate crime, discrimination and legal persecution they are susceptible to if they don’t look straight enough. Triggering that level of trauma isn’t the same as making someone slightly uncomfortable because they found out they unknowingly didn’t express their outward sexuality as strongly as they felt. It isn’t remotely, on any level, comparable, and that is an objective truth.
I am also notably not defending calling straight people gay. I’m just pointing out that deliberately misgendering a trans person is on a completely different plane of shitty behaviours. Not every shitty behaviour is automatically equally shitty.
Classic straight people. You’re just completely unwilling accept that some mildly crappy behaviour towards you isn’t universally described as the worst behaviour ever. I bet you people also think that calling a white person a cracker is exactly the same as calling a black person the N-Word.
Except just about every guy who has ever been bullied. While the bullies usually don’t actually believe that, it certainly explains why straight men get defensive about someone thinking that they’re gay. Plus it’s just inconvenient if you’re trying to find a girlfriend.
I also like how I gave an entire paragraph of the hardships of that trans people face day in and day out, prior to coming out they have to listen to even their closest friends and loved ones seeing them as the wrong gender every day, in every interaction, in every conversation, and you literally just picked out the very first sentence, ignored everything else, and went “Um akshually straight people get this occasionally too, in very different context and with very different conotations, so equatingthem is fine”
You can’t seriously think that some bullies insulting you by calling you gay, whilst clearly and evidently and outwardly just using is a generic insult, rather than actually meaning it, is even in the same universe as a trans person being forced to express the wrong gender identity for several decades.
IMO, it’s a difference in severity, not in kind. It’s a fairly regular thing for bullying victims to kill themselves or get seriously injured or killed by their bullies. Go a couple of decades back and out homosexuals, especially men, were exactly where trans people are now. Remember how the Republicans handled AIDS, or how male homosexual acts were literally illegal in many western countries until like the 90s or early 00s?
Bottomline is, don’t say your “friend” is a different sexuality or gender than you know they are, just as a test.
That true, and it’s awful, but it’s not BECAUSE they were called specifically gay, at least in the majority of cases. Switching “gay” for any other generic insult/slur wouldn’t make the bullying less bad or impactful in the vast majority of cases, whereas for a trans person there is virtually always a massive, massive difference between just being genericly insulted/harassed and it being specifically misgendered/targeted at their gender identity. So IMO, it also very much is a difference in kind.
We’re not IN the 90s or 00s anymore. Trans people are facing this level of persecution and discrimination today. It’s also not comparable, because it is much easier to keep gayness a secret Vs keeping transness a secret. That isn’t supposed to make light of the suffering of gay people in 80s to 00s, just pointing out that gayness isn’t necessary an outward expressing. It can be, but it doesn’t have to be. Being trans is directly, intrinsically and inseparably linked with your outward expression.
Yes. A point that I have literally made explicitly several times already, and yet everyone here is pretending as though I said it’s perfectly fine, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it to do pull this shit. The only point I’ve made is that, as sucky and shitty as it is to call a straight person gay, it’s demeaning and insulting to the struggles of trans people to equate it to being deliberately misgendered.
A fact that you can literally survey in this comment section where there’s tons of straight men commenting that they wouldn’t be upset/insulted by such a statement, and merely point out the inaccuracy, and I’m willing to bet every penny I own, that the amount of open trans people who would react comparably mildly to being misgendered is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the men commenting here that it wouldn’t really upset them that much.
Oppression olympics never gets anyone anywhere. The people who were bullying and persecuting gay men 20-30 years ago are often literally the same ones who are bullying and persecuting trans people right now.
It’s not “oppression Olympics” to point out that it’s insulting to equate a minor dick move towards straight people with the ongoing systemic persecution of trans people.
Most notably and importantly because straight people AREN’T oppressed. There is no large scale legal systemic discrimination or oppression of straight people, anywhere on earth. Individual dick heads being asses is not the same as large scale, systemic and legal persecution.
Here’s a question for you: Rape “jokes” are never acceptable. But, would you consider making rape “jokes” towards a woman who was never victimised the same level of shitty behaviour as making a rape “joke” towards a woman who you know is a rape survivor. And how would you react if someone was arguing that those two situations are totally comparable and equally bad.
If your answers to those questions are “of course not” and “outraged”, congratulations, you agree with my point.
Shit, you’re right. Without allies like you, how would we learn and grow? Thank you for your insights.
Not an ally, Im a member bitch. And this aint okay
I’m glad you understood the point so well. I’m so glad you’re here.