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Thoughts on LGBT memes and cliches
By this i mean things like blahaj, programmer socks, etc. Personally i think theyre kinda funny and i myself have gotten my own blahaj as a way to show my "trans license" but i was wondering how other people might feel about them. Perhaps some people think theyre overdone or they just dont agree with them.
The one thing I do absolutely hate is the whole egg thing and trying to forcefully label any gender nonconforming or experimenting person as trans because they’re projecting their own situation into them is just aghh.
It’s reductive, antiquated and dangerous so I really hope it dies off completely. Even if you were actually right and you correctly figured out someone is trans before they did you can’t just go right you’re trans and they’ll go oh huh thanks I had no idea guess I’ll get on that right now, you’ve got to let them figure stuff out for themselves first and come to that conclusion.
Oh right I forgot lots of people wouldn’t know what it means, but basically ‘egg’ is a term used generally by trans people to label someone who in their view is trans but hasn’t realised it yet. The name coming from the idea that once you realise you’re trans your egg cracks and you emerge from it.
Essentially it’s just projecting things that they experienced before realising they were trans that made sense to them after that realisation. Like for example a trans woman being into makeup or something before they realised they were trans so they project that into some random feminine guy who’s into makeup thinking they must also actually be a trans woman.
It becomes this whole misguided attempt to help trans people when really it’s actually just sexist and shitty to assume someone can’t possibly just be a guy who likes makeup or to think you can decide and label someones gender for them, sometimes even insisting someone’s trans when they say they aren’t. An issue most trans people have to deal with the other way round so to then push that onto others is shit.
The whole concept rubs me the wrong way and I dislike how popular it’s become in online queer spaces and almost treated like a joke with a lot of haha look at this person they’re so obviously an egg posts.
Not trans, but I'm a straight guy who went to theatre school. I'm sure it would surprise nobody to hear that many assume a guy who is into theatre must be gay. What surprised me was how fellow students/colleagues would just assume I was gay and 'take me in' so to speak or hit on me assuming. Personally I had a thick skin and a high tolerance for misdirected flirting so it didn't really bother me in any major way, but it's still shitty to assume someone is gay, straight, transgender or cisgender or anything else just because of their interests or the way they present themselves (to some extent, I suppose once a guy is so feminine that he's dressing in women's clothes, wearing makeup etc and seemingly presenting as a woman it's somewhat reasonable to assume he is a trans woman until informed otherwise).
I say this from the perspective of someone who also enjoyed dressing in women's clothes as a kid. The reason I enjoyed it (and frankly still would) is the theatrical aspect, playing a role -- I don't want to be a woman, I never have. I never got seriously into it but in another life I might have been a drag queen. But I was doing that stuff in middle school in the early 2000s, when people would just call you "gay" for it as an insult. If I was a kid in 2023 doing that I have no doubt that people would be trying to tell me I'm trans and in denial, and if I was an impressionable kid I'd probably think, "maybe they're right, maybe I am" and that would cause a whole host of self-image/identity problems.
Maybe I am misunderstanding your comment or reading into it or something. But if you are insinuating that kids in 2023 are being tricked or talked into being trans or something, then I'm not really sure how to respond to that...
There is an important distinction between being transgender and gender non-conforming though. Those distinction has been blurred in recent years but they are two really very separate things.
I don't get that impression from the comment you're replying to.
My impression is of that comment is...
Sometimes children and teenagers listen to what adults are telling them (who'd'a thunk it?), and internalise what they hear. If an adult looks at a teenaged boy who likes dressing up in women's clothes, and tells the boy that he's obviously trans (because why else would he be wearing dresses?), then the teenager might start questioning his own gender. "Well, if an adult thinks I'm transgender - and adults know more about life than I do - then maybe I am trans. Am I trans?" The adult might just be trying to be helpful, but if the adult doesn't truly understand gender and gender expression and gender identity, then they're going to give the youngster some unintentionally bad advice.
It's not about tricking young people. It's about ignorant adults projecting ther ignorance onto impressionable young people, and the young people not knowing enough to reject that projection.
Thank you for explaining. I am glad I misunderstood things
I don't think they're being "tricked" into it at all. "Talked" into it might be more accurate, but not necessarily in a malicious way. If a young boy finds himself interested in wearing women's clothing in 2023, people are going to suggest that he could be trans. That wouldn't have happened 20 years ago. And it isn't necessarily a bad thing, leading someone to question their own gender is not in itself a bad thing. The problem comes if someone is questioning and repeatedly faces outside pressure in the form of people saying "oh, you're definitely trans" - which totally does happen, again, not in a malicious way. I think it's people who are projecting themselves and their own history on someone else and insisting that they're in denial when they may not be.
Think of the inverse situation -- people who are actually trans, but lived many many years being told that they're a boy/girl/man/woman when they don't identify with that. Having that reinforced over and over again. You're a boy -- you do X. It's essentially the same thing. You do X? You're so clearly trans. And when you are an impressionable kid, it's hard to put that aside and say "no, they're wrong, I am who I feel I am."
Agreed, but unfortunately I think the trans community is becoming comfortable enough that some - a small minority - of trans people are becoming more vocally anti-NB, and view their experiences as invalid. In the same way that there are gays and lesbians who try to invalidate bisexuals' experiences. The whole "you're gay, you just don't want to admit it" or "you're straight, but you're just faking". Where it feels like it's not okay to question unless you're committed one way or the other so to speak.
And I just want to add I'm not just talking about adults influencing youth, but also OTHER youth influencing youth, even kids who may not have fully grasped all of these concepts (I'm a 32 year old adult and I'm not gonna pretend I understand everything 100% either).
Frankly I’m not sure.
My son has a friend who he knew since childhood who (like my son) had behavioral issues in school. I would say this kid is an American Hikikomori and is highly isolated. I’ve witnessed this person’s behavioral issues firsthand since this person was a first grader and I find it hard to believe that the cause of these were that this person was a “girl trapped in a boy’s body” (never said that, showed no sign of anything “girly”, …) but more the kind of neurodivergence which is often diagnosed as ADHD but may really be an anxiety disorder, schizotypy or some other ill-defined neurodivergence.
This kid watches Hololive (I’ve gotten in trouble with the law for being a weeaboo and I find Hololive squicky as hell; the running gag where Mori Calliope makes sexual innuendo that goes over Kiara Takanashi’s head looks increasingly worn as Youtube’s prudishness prevents them from saying any real sexual innuendo causing them to run skits that seem to be designed to elicit intense feelings of disgust as a substitute for innuendo.). This kid talks like a VTuber, screams “BOOBA AND THIGH! BOOBA AND THIGH!” and “HENTAI HEE HEE HEE!” and some of the few people that person talks to online refer to themselves as “egg hatchers”.
This kid is so isolated I don’t think any real world woman has made an impression on that kid except for that kid’s mom. I suspect that kid really wants to be an anime girl (so do I!) and have doesn’t a clear idea of what it means to be a woman or a man for that matter.
I don’t think this kid has told their mother about plans to transition yet. This kid is so depressed, lives in squalor, hasn’t cleaned their room for years, I tried to get my son to use reverse psychology like “You know a girl wouldn’t live in filth like this” to no avail. If anything saves this kid from serious consequences it is this kid is too depressed to even leave the house and seems unlikely to do all the work involved in a social and/or medical transition. Furthermore this kid is completely confused about the vocabulary of sexual identity, for instance this kid masturbates to anime porn but also claims to be asexual.
People who are vulnerable can be led into rabbit holes, we see that in cases like Patty Hearst and cults like Scientology, Heaven’s Gate, People’s Temple, etc. The CIA never developed a formula that could turn anybody into a Manchurian Candidate but it’s clear you can cast a wide net and find somebody who is vulnerable.
Consider this very strange story for instance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IPtLvxO8hs
I’ve seen trans people put through the wringer, knew a trans person who dropped out of the officer track in the Air Force and went sideways career wise for years working for failing projects in the defense industry before finally getting a job at NASA where she’s planning on flying a rocket full of Mars rocks back to Earth. (In college she never got as much crap as “Gays and Friends” and supporters like myself did because everybody knew she had more guns than anybody else on campus.). I’ll also admit that I don’t completely understand this person’s situation, but it doesn’t seem right to me.
Hey respectfully, I don't really have the mental energy to respond in depth to this comment at the moment, but please please don't refer to trans people (or anyone) as 'it'. It's a pronoun with a really nasty history and currency of being used to dehumanise trans people and it's kind of a gut punch to read here. If you don't know what pronoun to use for someone, 'they' is pretty much always safe.
Thanks for the feedback. I went back and edited the post accordingly.
Thanks for doing so :)
Just to confuse matters: some transgender people want to be referred to as "it". I've seen online posts from a few transgender people insisting that their preferred pronoun is "it", even though other people have given feedback that they're uncomfortable with using "it" to refer to a person.
Yeah, although that's something I've seen only a few times online and literally never in person (and I know a bunch of other trans people in my city), so I'm not sure how much stock I put in it as an issue.
That said, I have thought about whether if I ever met anyone who used 'it' pronouns, if I'd be able to use them, and decided that for me the answer was no. I'd probably just avoid pronouns for that person wholesale.
If that person had a problem with that, it'd be a bit of a red flag for me in terms of spending time together, just because it indicates a lack of knowledge/caring about oppression and discrimination. Just like anyone who calls themself queer, and wants to be called queer by others, and isn't ok with folk uncomfortable with that due to its history as a slur. I think that people who legitimately and sincerely want to use 'it' pronouns (if those people even exist, which I'm sceptical of) have a responsibility to understand the effect that has on others. Which wouldn't be an excuse for me to misgender these people, but I think it's necessary to allow leeway for people who are uncomfortable due to discrimination.
I wouldn't use "it" pronouns, or any neo-pronouns. We already have a perfectly good gender-neutral third-person pronoun in English: "them". Everyone's a "them": men, women, non-binary people, genderfluid people, anyone else you can possibly imagine. "Look! Someone dropped their wallet." "The user should enter their password before gaining entry." "Them" is for everyone.
Totally with you on this one. I find neo-pronouns pretty ridiculous. It seems like a bit of a teenager thing though, and I have only ever seen them used online. I will try to use them even though it's weird, but I'm probably not going to become friends with that person because it genuinely is that strange to me.
And in line with "it/its" pronouns, it's something I've also only ever seen online with one exception, and I'm fairly certain that person is also fine with they/them, so... It thankfully seems like a bit of a nothing problem 😅
ha, I learned a new term today :) And I totally see your point. See, I've been somewhere in between genders my whole life. Sure, I was born male, I present male, and I'm ok with that, but the way I feel inside is floating somewhere in the middle, sometimes tilting towards one side, sometimes towards the other (but never really fully reaching either side), and often floating in an ambiguous nothing where I don't feel like any gender at all. I'm just... me. When I was a kid, I had no terminology for this. I went through the whole gamut of denial, shame, thinking I'm broken. But over the 40+ years of my life I've accepted that this is me. And I've learn terminology to define it, like "genderfluid", "non-binary". And I'm happy and fulfilled with who and how I am. I never felt that I'd want to become a woman. Doing that would deny a whole chunk of me. I totally see how calling me "an egg" would basically deny that acceptance and my sense of self-fulfilment and try to tell me "no, you're incomplete, you're not done yet, you haven't achieved your true self and potential, you shouldn't be happy with who you are".
I feel like the concept of an "Egg" can actually be very useful. I totally agree that it shouldn't be used to label other people all willy-nilly. I also don't want to downplay any negative experiences you might have had where people used Egg to describe other people. I haven't spent much time in trans communities that use the term Egg, especially in the last year. It's more than possible that the meaning has warped quite a bit in the last 12 months.
(I don't know if you're trans or not, so I'm going to write this comment so assuming the reader isn't trans. Apologies if it comes across as condescending)
All of that being said, I don't agree that the whole concept is negative. I think that the process of accepting that you might be trans is a long and intense one, and its a step that often gets overlooked in topics about the trans experience. I think that, with the general political climate around transgender people, most trans folk are defensive about their identity. So it's very appealing to stick the narrative of "Oh I've always known I was a girl, when I was a kid I wouldn't stop wearing my mom's dresses," with the opposite narrative for trans men. It attempts to establish that trans people are, and have always been the gender that they say they are. It has be explained this narrative, because that's the one that fits with society's views on gender.
A lot of trans people don't fit that narrative though. I know I don't. As far as I'm concerned, for the first 18 years of my life, I was a guy (for context, I am a trans woman). It's almost impossible to go from the mindset of "I am a man" to "I am a woman" directly. For me, and a lot of other trans people, the process goes something like.
I would like to focus on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th statement there. If you are a trans person in one of those stages, it is very hard to explain what you're feeling. It's such a scary experience, you feel like you're teetering on the edge of a cliff, about to fall into the abyss. It a tug of war in your head as you come to realize that the statements "I want to be a woman" and "I am a woman", while not synonymous, are coming from the same reason.
It's these 3 stages that I think the term Egg is useful. It's nice to be able share that label; and the word has meaning. Not all trans people go through this process. and most people who have finished their transition don't feel like that anymore. It fits all the criteria I can think of for a word to exist.
Again, just because this is what it used to mean, doesn't mean that's still the case. If it got morphed, and loses it's definition, than yeah, I agree that's it not a good word. There's still the concept tho, that will need a term to describe the unique stage of transitioning.
Yes, I don't think the majority of people calling themselves trans are anything other than gender non-conforming currently. I read a study recently where the incidence of self-diagnoses to actual diagnosis/medical intervention was 100:1. I think that's mostly due to all the memes TBH.
I liked the memes 10 years ago, but now they rub me the wrong way in most cases as they seem to be primarily fetishistic, infantilizing, sexist or just plain wrong.
Holy cow, you weren't kidding. The ratio really is anywhere from 30:1 to 100:1 for people that mark transgender in surveys versus those that pursue any kind of medical treatment or even have a diagnosis from a mental healthcare provider.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4823815/
Yep, that's precisely the study I read, and I've also seen other studies (and my own experience) that support that. TBH, it's making me quite bitter right now. There is a cultural war being egged on by both sides, that results in a very tiny and vulnerable minority being discriminated against and their vital healthcare being taken away. This wasn't as big of an issue 10 years ago and even most conservatives were understanding, especially if I explained the medical/neurological background. Why are drag readings necessary? And nuance on both sides regarding puberty blockers is also wholly unacceptable apparently.
It infuriates me that the supposed allies are basically fanning the flames of the culture war and the trans youths (see UK, US, etc.) and some adults are bearing the consequences. Don't misunderstand me, the conservatives are far worse with their legislation, I'm not blaming noth sides equally at all, but still infuriating. My niece says half of the girls in her class call themselves trans - from what she told me about them, there's only one actual trans boy in the school - the rest are either GNC or trying to be trendy.
[Rant over. There was a drag reading here in Munich with a drag king called BigClit. For kids over age 4. Wildly inappropriate and in my opinion offensive to trans people]
I mean, I get what you're saying to a certain extent. But also it's necessary to consider how transphobia exacerbates the impacts of kids/teenagers calling themselves trans when they're not.
(And also, the number of trans ppl shouldn't be conflated with the number of people who seek medical treatment. Even without every barrier, whether financial or social or whatever, medical intervention can be scary and can take time. I'm a 30 year old trans guy, realised at 28, and it took me a good year and a half of living as a man before going on hormones. It's a big decision, I wanted to be informed and also certain before I made it. Does that mean I wasn't trans up until a few months ago? Of course not.)
Re. transphobia impacting how trans people, and particularly trans teenagers, are read: I thought I wanted to be a doctor in high school, briefly. I didn't and was misguided. Nobody takes that as some sort of statement on doctors.
And they shouldn't, obviously. And if anyone takes that as a statement on doctors, or on kids/teens who legitimately want to be doctors, then that's obviously a problem with the people interpreting it that way, and not on the kid/teen who incorrectly thinks they want to be a doctor.
Obviously it's not a perfect analogy; among many differences, people choose to be doctors where, by and large, they don't choose to be trans. But many of the same things apply, namely that in most scenarios we don't (and shouldn't) take kids who are mistaken about their wants/identities as evidence against those who actually have those wants/identities.
I don't think I quite understand your doctor analogy, or at least how it relates to trans people?
Obviously, the increase in young people thinking they are trans doesn't mean trans people don't exist. And the way it was defined in past decades where you had to end up straight and gender-conforning also isn't correct. But I am quite hesitant(?)/apprehensive about how much 'trans' as an identity without any concrete meaning is pushed onto people.
IMO, cis people simply can't easily understand the difference between physical and neurological sex and so you have a lot of people thinking that they are trans/agender/nonbinary because they don't 'feel' gender. Or, you have others who think they are trans because they are vaguely uncomfortable with imposed stereotypes or body changes due to puberty.
So, I think you definitely have an increase in the number of people who are trans as more people across all generations learn that transitioning is people and it isn't as much a social suicide as it was earlier, and getting a diagnosis can be quite hard/expensive depending on country, but there also seems to be a general confusion among all groups as to what 'trans' actually is.
This isn't really a huge problem, as language typically evolves, except for using data from studies to justify medical or political decisions. A lot of old studies had a very strict definition of transsexuality and they showed that medical interventions like genital surgery had a massively positive outcome. The problem, however, is that you can't apply that data to the "new cohort" of trans people and so the medical advice is a bit unsure right now on how to handle things, especially young transitioners. Obviously all sorts of interventions (and non-interventions) have side effects and I think with the looser definitions, it isn't more or less guaranteed anymore that transitioning would improve people's lives.
One of the main reasons I decided to start pursueing phalloplasty 4 years ago (rather than wait a few more years), was that I was relatively certain that medical access would start being more difficult to get as I saw how the community was changing. TBH, I'm very sad and somewhat shocked that I was right - I wasn't expecting to be. Luckily for me, I'm still mostly unaffected here in Germany, but the far-right anti-trans talking points are starting to take root here as well :/
Fair enough, it was a bit muddied the way I put it. I just meant, that my thinking I wanted to be a doctor in high school was not something I'd thought about much, hadn't really researched, and was mostly influenced by cool media portrayals of doctors.
This is very similar to the accusations (whether accurate or inaccurate) levelled at trans teenagers, or teenagers who think they're trans. That they haven't thought about it enough, haven't done enough research, and are influenced by media.
But people take this differently - when it comes to trans people, the fact that some teenagers are mistaken is weaponised against trans people who aren't mistaken. As if the fact that people thinking/saying they're trans when they're not is some sort of evidence against anyone who says they're trans. But nobody does that with doctors - we accept that teenagers don't think enough about these things, or change their minds, or have phases, or whatever. I want to be a doctor in year 10, change my mind in year 11. Nobody says to the other teenagers who want to be doctors, "Look, Hadrian changed his mind, so you're probably wrong as well!" But they say these things all the time to trans teenagers (and adults).
Does that make more sense? It's one of those analogies that's very clear in my head but not so clear when I say it out loud, lol
As ftm, I initially believed that "egg" is a term for anybody trying to identify their gender. You do often see posts in subs like r/egg_irl reminding people that "egg" doesn't necessarily mean trans. It's just someone experimenting.
From what I've seen, the people who mostly make "egg" memes are teens who are trying to find a safe space where they can be validated. I don't see anything wrong with that, especially if they only joke about it in their own circle (which is the case for many discord servers). But I do agree that forcing this idea unto people who aren't actually trans is harmful. After all, it's forcing people to be a different identity, which is ironic.
i never really saw that as an issue personally but i can see how some might find it annoying or uncomfortable, i never really considered it. within my friend group we have a lot of trans people who have an insane ability to be able to tell whether or not someone will be trans or not, usually by the way they act and so far theyve been right a couple times. They dont really mention it a lot because you shouldnt be labeling people, especially if you dont know them a lot. also they never tell them to their face theyll just discuss it in private which i think is a better way to go about it because then theyre able to kinda lead the other person into self discovery.
I'm still queer, but I don't really seek out any LGBTQ communities or content since my life is stable and satisfying. I'm fortunate enough to live in a safe place with supportive friends and family that don't care one way or the other, so I only think about being queer when I see depressing news.
Some queer people say I'm too heternormative or boring but eh. Right now, I'm happy as I am. People should be able to find their own happiness and live their lives to the fullest!
This hits home. It's one of the reasons why I don't really ever call myself "part of the community", but a strong ally instead. I feel like I'm way too "light" on the LGBTQ scale and would somehow usurp the term by calling myself part of it, since I never really had to experience the hardship, abuse and even life-threatening situations that many LGBTQ people face daily. I was born with a male body, I look like a guy, I dress pretty plain & boring, like many guys do, I only date women. People can't really see that my brain is not really a guy (or a girl, for that matter), but a continuous pendulum of feeling this way and that way, and most times not feeling like any gender at all. I fly under the radar and only a few very close people know about my fluidity. I never got discriminated for it, so I feel like an impostor even calling myself LGBTQ.
Imposter syndrome is hard to get past when you're coming to terms with your identity. For the longest time while I was getting to grips with being trans I was convinced that I wasn't "queer enough," and it slowed a lot of my progress down. For better or worse, a lot of LGBTQ people make being queer a huge or central plank of their identity. And why wouldn't they? It's an important part of who they are, and pride in that after hiding it for years or even decades is a good way to recover from the trauma of suppressing one's identity. But I found that it made me feel "not queer enough," because I didn't want being trans to be my whole life.
Long before my egg cracked (apologies to those in the thread that hate the term! I find it a fun shorthand for referring to The Before Time), I often used to imagine how I would introduce myself if I were going on a TV game show. The order of things that you use to define yourself can be very telling, IMHO. My gender and sexuality were never on that list to begin with, and I wouldn't want to put them there now. Not that I'm not proud of being queer, I love it, and I've never been happier. But being trans shouldn't take away from the fact that I'm a parent, a musician, a writer, a (board) gamer, a linguist, etc. For some people, their gender and sexuality comes at the forefront of that list, and I am proud of them for having that joy in their identity. But I have always maintained that I would like being trans to be the least interesting thing about me, and while I am proud of being trans, I don't feel the need to shout it from the rooftops, as I have much more to give than my gender.
So well said! I'm in the same boat. I feel like my concrete accomplishments (parenthood, profession - hi, fellow linguist!, hobbies) define me much better than stuff like nationality, gender identity, religion or lack thereof, the type of food I prefer, etc. If I had to introduce myself to a new person, I'd probably lead with: "computer geek, language nerd, father of amazing kids".
I won't let any single trait be the predominant thing about me. I'm the sum of all my accomplishments and failures over the past 40+ years, for better or worse.
I'm a cis, het, straight, white man so I come to this thread from a position of enormous privilege but I see echos of what you're saying in a different community I'm part of.
Way back in the day, shortly after the earth cooled, I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. This story has a point; I promise.
I was 9 at the time, which makes sense because ALL is a pediatric cancer (usually). Among kids it has a very high survival rate as cancers go and treatment is well understood. My treatment went 100% according to plan. No relapses, no serious complications, nothing. I'm 43 years old now and I've got a successful job and a wonderful family and that sets me aside from a lot of other pediatric cancer patients. So... I get where you're coming from.
See, among the community of pediatric cancer patients, my experience was an absolute cake-walk. I look at my friends who had super-agressive brain tumors or who lost motor function in their legs or who just straight up lost limbs to ostiosacromas and I feel like I'm taking something from them by saying that we're both cancer survivors. We both had it; but they had it bad.
Except.... that's not how it is. First, everyone's "hard" is hard. Being treated for cancer sucked and the fact that other people had it worse doesn't mean that my experience ages 9-11 was full of rainbows and puppydogs. Likewise, I'm sure that your experience as a gender fluid person has been hard at times; the fact that other people might have had it harder doesn't change that.
What I found, as I aged, is that my experience as a more privileged survivor allowed me to help the community in ways that less lucky people can't. I can talk to the parents of new pediatric patients and give them hope for the future -- for grandkids even. I can use my legitimacy as a patient to get current patients to listen to advice like "no seriously, you need to take your meds on time" and I can likewise use my lack of obvious, long term side effects to carry a message from my community to places they're shut out of due to disability or cognitive impairment.
All of which is to say that your queeerness isn't less valid or less real than anyone else's queerness. That wonderful family I've got? It include a transgender kid. Zie has a lot of challenges before zir and I do everything I can to support zir but... I'm a cis, het dude. So, I'm glad that zie has people like you in zir corner and I would encourage you to use your privilege as an LGBTQ person who can easily "pass" to advocate for and protect those in your community who can't.
I commented above about my interactions with the queer community as someone who is “straight passing”, but I wanted to say that I relate to your cancer story too. I was treated for testicular cancer earlier this year and I still feel weird talking about it. The sum total of my cancer treatment was two surgeries and some follow up testing. No chemo, no radiation. I actually had a fairly rare, potentially aggressive form of it too, I just happened to get lucky with what treatment was needed. It feels weird to describe myself as a cancer survivor when my experience was so “easy” compared to most people.
That's the most common cancer for men aged 18-35. Your story can be a cautionary tale for others. Regular self exams lead to early detection. Early detection leads to early treatment and early treatment saves lives.
Thank you for your well thought-out response. Yeah, you're right, all experiences matter and there should be no gatekeeping. I must say that I never felt unwelcome. Nobody ever denied the validity of my gender identity or belonging to the community. This was just me being extra-careful to not "steal the thunder" from a community that's been through a lot of pain already.
On a separate note, I'm really happy that you've beaten cancer and are living a healthy, happy life! :)
I'm a man who identifies as straight, but in reality if you put the screws to me, I would say I'm bisexual. But I don't identify that way because I've never had a serious relationship with a man, never had sex with a man, and am married to a woman. But the "LGBTQ community" can be so loud (not always in a bad way) and aggressive (usually in a bad way) that I don't really have desire to be a part of it.
There are people who find value in placing a label on themselves and identifying strongly with that label. I don't, and I feel weird about labelling myself as "bisexual" when it means nothing to me, and when I know there are people who shit on bisexual people who are in heterosexual relationships. I'd just rather avoid the conversation entirely most of the time.
This hits home for me. I’m also a man married to a woman and have also experienced that negativity from the queer community about being in a “straight” relationship. I have the benefit of having had experiences with other guys in the past, but people still tend to see my relationship and assume I’m straight. My wife and I are open about my sexuality (and we have fun conversations about guys we find cute), but I usually just keep it to myself outside of that. It’s something I’d like to be more open about, but it usually just makes my interactions more difficult in both straight and queer spaces.
While direct discrimination is part of just about every queer person's experience, the idea that "you must have suffered this much to enter" is... hm. I guess I just generally don't like it, but I'm having trouble being articulate about it. Maybe it's just a bit sad. While the community can be important as a refuge, I also hope for it to be joyful. I want to be able to share connections and be open with others outside of the context of suffering.
I'm struck a bit by your use of the phrase "to fly under the radar" as well because I see that same phrase sometimes used by gay people to justify pretty overt biphobia. They'll say that a person who has the "option" of dating a heterosexual partner can avoid "coming out" indefinitely, and therefore they are (at best) lesser members of the LGBTQ+ community. To me this feels obviously wrong - "passing" and "being" are different.
I am not accusing you of being -phobic, of course. But you're using a phrase for yourself that I see as pretty negative in this context, something that is often used to exclude people or treat them poorly. It's not my place to speculate on your feelings, but I do want express that I hope you are not treating yourself poorly. From what you have shared I believe you should be welcome even if you do not feel that way currently & I wish you the very best.
Thanks for the concern, there's no need to worry, haha. In my mind, I know where I stand, but when I talk to others I identify as straight simply for the simplicity of it. I don't want to get into a whole conversation about it, I'm not defined by my sexuality, and I don't need to tell others about it.
I don't think it is okay to gatekeep others based on how much "suffering" they've endured. At the same time, I can recognize that as someone who has always been able to present heterosexually, I don't have to worry about prejudice in the way others do. Someone who is gay may be more defined by their sexuality than me, because that sexuality may have kept them from living the life they've wanted in various ways -- from facing bigotry from others for being with a same-sex romantic partner, to logistical things like having kids becoming much more complicated. I've never had to worry about any of that. Hypothetically if I had fallen in love with entered a committed relationship with a man, I would have, but I didn't.
At the end of the day, being bisexual means very little to me and identifying as such means even less. I'm married to a woman in a monogamous relationship and I like it that way, she knows I find men attractive, but it's not like I'm out looking for sexual partners of either gender or have any desire to.
OMG, I did not intend to use it in that way at all. I had no idea this phrase has negative connotations, sorry. I only meant to say that I never experienced such discrimination simply because people can't really tell. I definitely don't treat myself poorly. After 43 years of life, I've come to embrace and love who I am, and I do my best to help others as I can. My "flying under the radar" is not an intentional effort to hide who I am. It occurs naturally because I'm a very private person by definition, and pretty boring in general, lol. I live as my true self and I'm not afraid/ashamed to show it when needed. The great thing about growing old is that you stop giving a crap about what others think of you. Wish I could go back in time and teach my teenage self this important life hack :)
Ah, no worries - I didn't mean that as a call-out, and it's more of the general idea than of the exact phrase - I just wanted to use it as an example of how we can internalize negative ideas about ourselves. I still struggle with that sometimes, not as much with internalized homophobia but more with internalized sexism, so when I saw that that's where my mind went.
I guess it's also kind of an is/ought thing. There "ought" to be no radar to fly under, no worry about someone's opinion of you tanking if you were to open up about some (harmless) part of your identity for whatever reason. I know that's not how it is in the real world and how it's not always safe to be open, so I believe that the LGBTQ+ community should not be strongly gatekept. It'd be pretty tragic if someone who was questioning was "pre-rejecting" themselves on the basis of not being LGBTQ+ enough while at the same time feeling like they need to repress their own feelings - there'd be no outlet at all. I am glad that does not seem to be the case for you but I couldn't help but say something just in case. :)
That's kind of a dumb thing to say I think...
The vast majority of queer people are normative. Contrary to popular belief, queer people as a whole are not that visible, and we are not actually going to take over the world with our gay agendas.
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that at least something like 80% or 90% of queer people are hetero-passing and the actual cishets out there would never know they were queer unless specifically told.
Right? I mention my wife sometimes, and since I look like a man, people assume a bunch of stuff. That I'm hetero-sexual, hetero-romantic. That those things (that they assumed to begin with) are the extent of me. Most of what we "know" about acquaintances and coworkers is assumptions backed up by contextual clues, and strangers are assumed to be "normal" unless they really stand out.
As an aside, my lesbian mother had an explicit assumption that everyone was queer unless they came out as straight. She made a lot of friends that way, and very quickly found out who she wouldn't want to spend time around.
Maybe you can find an LGBT community to be happy with so you don't accosate being queer with depression? Not saying that meanly but just the way I read it sounded worrying.
To clarify, I'm referring specifically to depressing news about repressive laws in the US and abroad.
My heart hurts because I know there are real people just like me suffering for no damn good reason. I grew up in the southern US, so I already knew there's no hate like Christian love. It just sucks seeing the theocrats pass laws like they did in Uganda (I still have mixed feelings about Ted Cruz defending gay people now).
I will say there are definitely some vocal minorities out there in the communities that will chastise people for not being "enough" when the whole point of the LGBT+ movement is for people to accept who they are. There shouldnt be such a thing as "gay enough", it just doesnt make sense. glad you can at least find a way to be happy with yourself and who you are though, theres definitely people that still struggle with that.
I don't care for them because I believe the stereotype has moved beyond harmless.
I had a blahaj because I thought it was cute. I was having a bad day and my wife bought it for me. It was fun and entertaining to find out it was an above average correlation.
However, I am a programmer, and I'm frequently harassed by other LGBT people because I don't wear the socks or cat ears. Everything we fight for is to let us be who we wanna be. If you wanna wear knee socks and fluffy cat ears and carry a plushie sylveon everywhere, go for it, but I'm allowed to be me, too.
Thigh high socks are often used by MtF people beginning to experiment with their gender as a way to be incognito: wearing normal trousers and feminine socks means you get to experience some of that femininity without any risk of getting caught out for wearing women's clothing. It wasn't ever for me, but I have known several trans girls who found it to be a gateway item of clothing. I assume that the name "programmer socks" comes from the perception that an above-average number of trans women work in IT, and particularly programming.
The cat ears thing I'm less sure about, but I think it's anime-related? Cute cat-girls are something of a staple in manga/anime, and everyone wants to feel cute at some stage or other. If you associate cat-girl with cuteness, then I can see wanting to emulate a bit of that. It may also be linked to furry subculture, but that's a tenuous guess, so don't hold me to it!
I feel stupid right now. I've seen "programmer socks" referenced in the past and just assumed they were like compression socks to help with the problem of sitting at the computer for long periods of time (a common programmer problem). I don't even know if that's how compression socks work, now that I think about it. It baffled me how that had anything to do with being trans, but the actual meaning makes a little bit more sense.
It's basically just weeb stuff - there's a pretty big overlap between online trans girls and weebs. I'm trans and I find it pretty cringe although I will say I have 3 Blåhaj so I'm not innocent lol
lol, as the OP says, we need some way of showing our trans credentials!
I would imagine it's because trans people have faced a lot of shit in real life and continue to do so, and it's much much easier to present as the person you want to be online so a lot of trans people are more internet-savvy.
And if you're internet-savvy, you're gonna know more about anime than the average person, because I feel like Japanese culture/Japanese tech being ahead of the west thru the 90s/early 2000s especially meant a lot of people spending time online became much more familiar with weebery. Then lately it seems like Gen Zers are deep into the weebery because of the rise of Twitch/gaming culture which has big anime energy too bc of Japan's deep roots as part of video game history.
I think it's cute when it's harmless. Specifically for trans people there exist some less wholesome memes and stereotypes, mostly on the chan communities, that horrify me (and that I won't repeat to avoid exposing people to the brainworms).
I adore the trans community and our in-jokes. I've been a part of a lot of communities in my life and none were as accepting.
The only mainstream "meme" I dislike like another commenter said are the egg_irl posts that used to creep into my front page. To make it short, I think we have a responsibility to maintain that transitioning is a serious and dramatic change in someone's life, even if it's positive one. When I started trying on feminine clothing I got comments online how my "egg is starting to crack", which really made me uncomfortable, as I was just experimenting and wasn't necessarily dead set on going through with it.
Garlic bread memes essentially got me to accept I was ace. /r/me_irlgbt was the only memes sub I actually subscribed to and this is a corner of reddit I definitely miss here, ~lgbt is far too bleak for me since it's mostly news and news are currently not fun
There are some great queer communities to be found on Mastodon, which might be much closer to what you're after :)
Seconding Mastodon, I'm still getting the hang of it but i know there are several lovely communities I've heard about. If i need additional social media outside this, I'll be trying Mastodon.
Been kind of apprehensive about fediverse stuff but that might make me want to try it out! Are there any in particular that you like and recommend?
https://mastodonservers.net/servers/lgbtq has a good list of them, but I can't say I've looked at many! I'm resident on https://chaosfem.tw and it's a really nice environment. I also follow cool people on
Your mileage can and will vary for each of these places, and I tend to prefer smaller instances, as the local timeline can get very noisy on larger servers. Smaller (<100 members) servers means that even if you're not following people on the local timeline, you get to see the same names and faces, and can actually forge relationships with other humans, rather than just consuming content :)
I will look into this, thank you very much! 😊
This is just youth baby gay stuff, I think. I'm happy to leave people to it and I hope they're staying safe and having fun. When I went through my "explosive decompression" phase I did much riskier stuff than sharing memes or purchasing a shark toy.
I view it as a natural part of culture. While there isn't a monolithic LGBT+ culture necessarily, the shared experiences and cultures that we have result in there being jokes and ideas that are shared and repeated throughout Queer spaces.
The same happens with religious groups, people on specific college courses, specific genders, you name it. It's just that now we live in an age where more lgbt+ people than ever before are comfortable being open and out, and the anonymity of social media enhances that. While I don't personally enjoy every joke or meme that is shared, it's nice seeing them because it's indicative of wider acceptance and people feeling safe being themselves.
While some can be problematic (As someone else noted about "egg" being used inappropriately) most are in good faith and are positive in my experience.
Ultimately I see them as a healthy part of culture and shared experiences, and as mentioned, make for a decent indicator of how things are going these days.
Agree, the memes helped me accept myself more after coming out.
I find a lot of the memes kind of cringey, especially because so much of it is based on anime which I've never been able to get into. But keep in mind that this stuff is all very, very online, especially the programmer socks, cat ears, uwu language, ikea sharks, etc.
Actual trans and queer communities in real life are nothing like that. It's a bit more normal, dare I say...
ETA: I will also say that queer communities, especially on Reddit, lean very heavily into the baby queer segment. So it makes sense that these subreddits never really mature, because once you're more or less done questioning your identity, and settle into yourself, you no longer need those places. So instead it perpetually has newcomers and the topics or themes don't go beyond the newness of the queer experience. I'm personally very settled in my identity and barely visit subreddits like that anymore because the posts are largely about things I've long moved on from. Transitioning is no longer new and exciting, nowadays it's just life - and I don't feel the need to talk about every little bit of it.
True, that. I run some gay subreddits (on another account), and the number of questions we get about "Am I gay?", "Does this boy like me?", "What is gay sex like?", and so on, is astounding. The majority of people there are obviously young, or at least inexperienced.
There are the old settled people, the givers of advice rather than the askers of questions, but the focus is very much on the baby-gays and their issues with growing up, coming out, self-acceptance, and such.
This is a really good point I never thought about before. It also connects with something I see personally -- I have a toddler and started going on parenting subreddits in the last couple years as a result, and probably 90% of the posts you see revolve around babies/very young kids. I think it's because that's when people are new to parenting and have the most questions/concerns and need the most support, and after that get much more comfortable.
Acceptance is a virtue, and even if memes and cliches aren't everyone's bag, some people really enjoy them. My partner (FTM) has a blahaj and a mini blahaj! They're super cute and they sometimes share the bed with us at night.
... Now that you mention it, we also have programmer socks. Hmmmm.
All I'm saying is, it's nice to feel like you're part of something!
Honestly... I have no idea what you all are talking about. All these memes and cliches are totally foreign to me, as a middle-aged gay man who came of age before the World-Wide Web even existed.
While those "stereotypes" are absolutely a bit consumeristic (or, well, more than just a bit), I don't particularly have any thoughts against them, as long as everyone is having fun. I kind of like them meme-wise, so I don't take these stereotypes very seriously. I understand that some – mostly younger – people may take them a bit too seriously (like @teruma said above).
I've always assumed that companies were behind some of these "memes" (e.g. blahaj) to boost sales, but I don't have any actual proof.
Actually, to IKEAs credit, they only lgbt-advertised exactly once with Blahaj, only few years after the establishment of the meme, and they used that ad in support of lgbt rights. I also recall that blahaj was scheduled for the end of production but they decided to extend it because it was so important to the community? They've actually been a really good sport about it.
That is something I hadn't considered; good point. I was always assuming it was used as an unofficial advertisement at some point, but what you said is a good point that could make my hypothesis more unlikely.
i feel like thats a little bit of a cynical response, especially when i havent really seen any companies try and take advantage of these things. the only thing that might be close is some trans clinics in canada(?) using special blahajs as a way to comfort people(?) i dont remember the exact source but someone could probably find this
I understand why it sounds cynical; it's just that, in the era of advertisements-eveeywhere™, I sometimes "default" to this sort of thinking when I see certain types of content. I don't deny that I may be wrong with this thought process, of course! :)
Some tropes are overplayed but I'm fine with them. The one thing I've seen is hostility toward transgender men who want to appear as cis heterosexual men, and lookism in certain transgender women communities. And LGB terfs, really? They are aware that the Republicans don't think of them as "better" or "more worthy" than transgender people right? They're practically in the same boat.
Edit: didn't see the meme part, I thought this post was about trends or something.
I think LGB terfs are probably funded by 'divide & conquer' groups to make us easier to divide. Fuck that noise.
I found the tropes a nice, silly gateway to feel accepted and included pretty easily, but to force it on anyone is crazy. Were all a little different, that's fantastic!
Variety is the spice of life and the whole LGBTQIA+ bunch of us are wonderfully unique, why put us in a box?
I agree. I see a lot of folks here are discussing trans memes, in particular. While I don't have more than a surface-level knowledge of the culture of online trans communities beyond what I hear from my friends and see occasionally surface to
/r/all, I can't imagine that these sorts of in-jokes are anything other than well-intentioned.A bit more lighthearted of an example, but it's a common (albeit cliché at this point) joke among folks that gay men walk exceedingly fast. Obviously, this isn't a universal experience, but at the same time it isn't meant to pigeonhole. I think for so many people—myself included—that spent formative years conditioned to reject certain parts of themselves as to not give away their secret... it can be so fun to be in on the joke now. If I'm walking alongside a good friend and can't keep up, a quick rib along the lines of "jeez, slow down, what're ya queer?" followed by shared laughter can be so damn soul-nourishing. It's so freeing to not only embrace all of the things we used to self-censor, but acknowledge our loved ones doing the same... even in a cheeky way.
That being said, it's easy to understand how these sorts of things can make folks feel excluded or stereotyped, and I think that's reasonable. The folks who say it contributes to them feeling unable to call themselves a member of the community (despite their own gender/sexual identity absolutely being included) definitely breaks my heart a little. However, I think it's important to root for folks and their differences. You'd never see me in full leather gear on a pride parade float, but I am so proud of the people who want to do that, and do. I'll keep rooting for folks' differences. Hopefully in return, they'll celebrate the ways in which I challenge their assumptions of what it means to be in this community.
Hell yes. I also sort of wallow in the silly stuff, too, cause why not? I have a 'Be gay, do crimes' shirt i love! It's disappointing that it may keep some folks from embracing the scene, but I'm not sure i know how to exist without tongue firmly in cheek.
I certainly wouldn't purposely set up a bar for entry to the 'queer scene', but the attitude is sort of built in from being ostracized from larger society.
The variety if people is one of the best things about us!