As a queer person, I have a duty to dispel falsehoods about what it means to be identify somewhere under the LGBTQ+ spectrum. If I do not live up to that duty, they I am being untrue to myself. And with that responsibility, I have to make clear to people when their beliefs and statements are dangerous and oppressive to these demographics.
When you say you don’t want to teach your child it’s ok to be gay or trans or any other gender or sexual identity, you are saying that those people lives are less valuable. Teaching your child that these things are ok is not pressuring them to be those things.
When you attach masculinity and being a ‘real man’ to being straight, you are once again devaluing the lives and identities of non-straight people. Masculinity does not belong to straight men only, and femininity does not belong to straight women only. They are in every human in varying amounts. It is not gender specific.
When you say that tv programming that displays trans and gay characters living their lives is somehow destroying family values, you are saying that trans and gay families stories are not equally as important as yours. Straight people have been the primary characters in media for the majority of its history, and gay/trans people have had to watch you live your lives and pretend that we don’t exist.
When you state that you believe there is a ‘gay agenda’, in which some entity or group wants people to be gay to make the population weaker, you are saying that you think gay people are less than, and that being gay is a negative thing.
If you say that LGBTQ+ people do not deserve to have the same rights as you, to marry, to use a bathroom, to be called what they identify as, you are saying that gay and trans people’s lives are not as valid as your straight and cisgender experience.
If you perpetuate stereotypes about LGBTQ+ people being child molesters, dangerous people, products of sexual assault, confused about their identity, or that we are trying to make others gay/trans/etc, you are creating unsafe realities for those people, and also you are choosing not to educate yourself about anything but your own reality.
If you believe that being gay or trans is a choice, and that children are not able to grasp this, you are saying that you aren’t willing to accept a child’s autonomy, you don’t trust them to know themselves, and that you would rather push your own agenda on your child instead of giving them freedom to be whoever they are.
Teaching your child that many realities exist will not make them gay or trans or anything they are not, but it will allow them to understand others and have compassion for them, as well as allow space for them to learn about themselves. How can you know for sure if you are straight or gay or trans or anything if you don’t have context?
Children know when they are gay, trans, straight, different, or whatever else they may be, usually before they become adults, and often before they are even teens, and by creating a standard where straightness is the norm, many children aren’t able to live their truth until much later in their lives, leading to many years of confusion, self hate, and depression.
By blaming gay people or a gay agenda for making your life harder, forcing you to teach your children about them, for the decay of family, for weakening the population, for any of these falsehoods, you are subscribing to an agenda of hate. If you believe these things, you are allowing fear to control your thoughts. If you believe we are the enemy, you are allowing divisiveness perpetuated by the powers at be to distract you from real issues and real problems that you could be putting positive energy into.
EDUCATE YOURSELVES. STOP FALLING PREY TO PROPAGANDA. LEARN ABOUT PEOPLE THAT ARE DIFFERENT THAN YOU. EMBRACE WHAT MAKES US DIFFERENT. STOP LIVING IN FEAR OF YOUR NEIGHBOR.
MY LIBERATION DOES NOT EQUAL YOUR OPPRESSION.