How to deal with straight hypocrisy...

submitted by [deleted] from (self.Lesbians)

This is a repost of the post I made on r/lgbdropthet. I just wanted to hear some of your thoughts:

So, I am following this straight author on Twitter and she honestly seems like such a lovely person. However, yesterday after the Ian McKellen thing she mad a post that was very angry towards gay people who do not stand up for trans people. But she also made a post agreeing with another straight women saying that we need to define sex from gender on the same day.

I honestly really don't care about her tweets, but I want to use them as a way to discuss the wider issue of straights feeling justified in being angry against gay people for not standing up for TRA. But, then also turning around and supporting the exact same shit we were saying and acting brand new.

Do you thing this is all just virtue signaling? Also do you think that some of these older liberal people (30+) just feel guilty for probably bullying gay people when they were younger and that why they are super pro-trans right activism.

Lastly, how should one ideally respond when straight people try to make homophobia and transphobia into the same thing? Do you think just staying silent the best option? Also in these discussions is it best to try to leave out the fact that you are gay because straight people like to believe that straight opinion is more "objective".

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[–]lovelyspearmint 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The main difference between not supporting gay people in the past and not supporting trans people now is that you can get yourself cancelled if you say anything they don't like, so people tend to virtue signal simply to save their own skins.

It's difficult to gauge whether to stay silent or not. Because if you do, the misinformation continues, but if you don't, it can have consequences.

The main talking point I'd use is that the word phobia means an irrational fear of. While homophobia is an irrational fear, transphobia often isn't. Wanting sex-based protections isn't irritational, wanting sex-specific services isn't irrational. They wouldn't exist if there was no need for them.

[–]homosomes 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

While homophobia is an irrational fear, transphobia often isn't.

This is because transphobia can be literally anything. Trans people keep adding and removing things to the list of what is or isn't transphobic and expect us all to keep up. Seen them flip flop so much on whether or not drag is transphobic for example.

And trying to get a straight answer from them is so hard. If they're not namecalling you for daring to ask a question, they're giving non-answers or falling back on stock phrases that they refuse to clarify. It would be so much easier to work out compromise if they would actually talk. But they don't want to talk, they want total submission. So people either give in after abuse, pay lip service to trans rhetoric to avoid cancellation, or just remove themselves from the conversation entirely.

Honestly, seeing this all unfold convinces me that a lot of straight "allies" back in the day were also performatively virtue signalling for LGB rights. I hate to think it, but it's probably true. So many of these straight people are so comfortable being woke homophobic now that it doesn't make sense if they didn't hold homophobic beliefs before.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Damn. I didn't think about performative support for LGB people, like I understood what the straight "queers" were up to but thinking about the others make me sad. At least I know what to expect.

[–]Icebridge 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Probably a lost cause, if you're willing to talk its better to do so over dm. But i guess i would wonder why she feels that a community (younger gays/lesbians) with much more direct experience interacting with trans communities than the straight community or older community in general is terrible for expressing the issues they have with it, or having reservations toward supporting the movement as a result, as well as why she would prefer not to listen. The majority of us were very supportive until we gave an inch and the movement took a mile. The overwheming majority support anti discrimination laws for gender/sex non conformity, and many are okay with calling someone their preferred pronoun if it makes their mental health better, but the movement has gone on to demand more and more, and is trying to pretend sex is fake and irrelevant at this point, as well as spouting conversion therapy rhetoric. What right does a straight person have to tell gays and lesbians to fall on a sword?