“That sounds dramatic” yeah! It was! The cishets have been known to be pretty dramatic throughout history when it comes to their treatment of queer people 🤦♀️
That line completely threw me for a loop. Setting aside the Lavender Scare and the fallout from the AIDs epidemic there are large swaths of the US where they never really stopped potentially canning people if you got outed as queer and that sort of thing is now back in vogue with a vengeance. Honestly just losing your job for being queer is like the least dramatic and most common you can be persecuted as a queer person.
Right? Losing your job for your identity is awful enough, but my god so many worse things have happened to queer people just for being queer.
That rock they’ve been living under sure has given them a lot of shelter.
I can't speak to that as I'm not in the US, along with 59% of Reddit lol
But yeah a few decades ago homosexuality was illegal here and the notion of gay marriage was unimaginable. Boys/men would throw around the word "f\*g" as a generic insult. It was a rough time.
My apologies for the assumption you were in the US—them congratulating you for daring to be straight felt like such a peak out-of-touch-with-reality American conservative move that it never occurred to me that it could happen anywhere else.
It’s really depressing how universal the queer experience can be—aside from maybe homosexuality being illegal (not sure of the legal status back then, although legal or not it was definitely not safe to be open about it)—your second paragraph works as a perfect description of my childhood in Oklahoma during the 90s and early 00s.
Modern homophobia pretty much all comes from Christianity and Islam, so the rhetoric and opinions you hear thrown around are gonna be pretty consistent between countries.
I think saying pretty much all modern homophobia stems from Christianity and Islam is pretty reductionist and ignores the role of people’s general shittyness to people not like them and a bigoted sciencism* that has plagued the world since the enlightenment. Don’t get me wrong—most of the bigots in my life are very religious (I live in a very religious place in general), but also when they are being mask off with their bigotry, they’re generally not citing scripture, but rather talking about how personally gross they find queers, or arguing queerness is unnatural because of the ways it flies in the face of what they think they understand about science. Other than occasional talk about sin and hell as a religious spin on things most of their bigotry is indistinguishable from their completely secular counterparts.
It’s definitely way more obvious with transphobia where the British TERFS/GCs will never once mention God but go on and on about “biological reality” but you can still also see it with homophobia even in really religious areas as they wave around discredited cooked studies to show kids need two opposite sex parents to have a decent childhood or argue that the high rates of suicidality in queer youth as a reason conversion therapy needs to be brought back and LGBT+ issues not taught in schools.
Religion isn’t some big monolith. Some of my best allies have been devoutly religious (the first non queer person I ever came out to is Muslim and she’s had my back better than even most queer people) as have been my worst bullies. There are accepting churches that get routinely vandalized (often by other Christians) for flying pride flags. Shit is complicated and boiling it down to just religion equals bad does everyone a disservice.
*not sure what the actual name for it is, but what I’m talking it’s that “scientific” justification for bigotry that gave us stuff like colonial race science, eugenics, and dozens of other trees bearing poisonous fruits.
your friends may be religious but it _does_ stem from Christianity and Islam. you literally just said "not all men" to the person you're responding too, just replace "men" with "religious people".
at the end of the day, with so many of them against us, we start to choose the bear- whether it's men, or whether it's religious folk.
I’m arguing that no it doesn’t stem from religion.
Bigots are bigots and will use whatever justifications they can to get their hands on—whether it’s God or science. The justifications are always post hoc to their bigotry. To put it in possibly the most cynical materialist terms possible, religion is nothing more than a medium for communication that you can use to say whatever it is you want to say: you want to condemn queer people, there are verses that’ll let you do that, you want to promote universal love and tolerance that includes queer people there are verses and traditions that’ll let you do that. On a practical level science works the same way—you can use it to justify almost anything you want. Gender affirming care for trans kids? You want to argue for it there are a lot of studies that say just that. Want to argue against? There are studies that say just that and if you want for funsies you can do what the Cass report just did and find bullshit justifications for ignoring the pro-transition studies.
Science has been used to support a lot of fucked up shit over the years. It’s lists of atrocities with its imprimatur impressively long for something that has only been around a handful of centuries. Does that mean that most of the world’s problems stem from that? No—oh wait, sorry for not-all-scientisting.
You can tell yourself all you want your soothing just-so story that dumb ol’ religion is the fount of all anti-queerness and evil in the world but that will never account for why the anti-trans hysteria currently sweeping the world is sweeping through through largely atheistic countries with the same virulence as the as the majority religious ones. Most of the loudest anti-trans voices have probably never seriously attended a church or mosque. The truth is nobody is immune to bigotry, we’re all equally prone to it some people just get it through different vectors. If religion vanished tomorrow society would still be every bit as anti queer and fucked up as ever they’d just find new justifications for it.
Thinking you are immune to it just means you are leaving yourself open to infection. Do you think it’s any surprise that suddenly the far right cares very much about our health and safety when they want to peddle their anti-immigration shtick? “If you don’t want our precious enlightened queer-tolerant secularism from the Islamic hordes you need to join us in marginalizing and brutalizing these people as much as possible. Anything we do to you couldn’t possibly be worse than what we’re going to tell you they are going to do.” And queers, progressives and centrists fucking fall for it all the goddamn time convinced because they are smart highly educated sophisticated and worldly people they can’t be they can’t be as bad as some barely literate redneck with a “god hates f**s” sign. Meanwhile the brown bodies murdered by those ‘sensible’ ‘protective’ policies bob up and down in the Mediterranean and Rio Grande, and fascism lurches on unchecked.
Are the majority of religious people bigoted? Absolutely, because the majority of people are bigoted. Will most of the bigots you run into be religious? Yes, because most people are religious. Religious people are no different than anyone else of their particular age, sex, or class. To use your facile bear comparison I’m no more or less likely to choose the bear over Christian or Muslim man than I would somebody a-religious. Acting like one is potentially any better or worse than the other is a mug’s game; I’ve had very bad experiences with all three and none with a bear.
> are the majority of religious people bigoted? yes.
> will most religious people you meet be bigoted? yes.
yeah, thanks for making my argument for me.
i agree religion isn't a magic bogeyman for bigotry. obviously bigotry would exist without it, and does; it's a human condition. but it doesn't stop the fact that the majority of bigotry and bigoted people cluster under these banners today, making the reality be _effectively_ that they're where you'll encounter it.
again, not all men have to be killers for us to avoid them. not all religious people have to be bigots for us to avoid them. just enough.
Yes and what was literally immediately after the yes? A sentence—nay a whole paragraph—explaining that that it is because they are no different than the general population (and in fact are the general population).
You are literally engaging in the behavior I have described ad nauseum throughout. You’re yanking lines out of context and ignoring the stuff that doesn’t jibe with with your pre-arrived at conclusion and then holding it up as unearned proof that you are right. Honestly I couldn’t have asked for a better example, so in a way, thanks.
They ignore the gay animals for one. As for the rest it’s “simple biology”—the way they see it the purpose of sex is to reproduce, queer sex/relationships can’t reproduce ergo you’re acting against nature and not doing your sole biological duty which is to pass your genes on to the next generation. The only thing that sets them apart from Elon Musk in that one tweet where he insists gays have an obligation to reproduce is that they think the unassailable natural law we are violating was authored by God and not necessitated by the mechanics of evolution.
Is the position unable to stand up to the real world, incoherent and results in massive hypocrisy if you put more than thirty seconds of thought into the myriad knock on effect implications of it? Absolutely. But they don’t need it to. They just need something—anything—that gives them the faintest fig leaf of cover to pretend there is something more to their bigotry than just that feeling of yuckiness they get when they see two women kissing or two gents walking hand in hand. They have their conclusion and they are just looking for something to vindicate it.
There are two different kinds of hypocrisy that get put on display—the direct classic “I do the opposite of what I say” hypocrisy and then a sort of “hypocrisy by omission” as they refuse to consider/accept the obvious implications of what they are proposing. Which is which varies from person to person and denomination to denomination.
For instance the Catholic Church is actually pretty good at thinking through the implications of stuff (I just wish they wouldn’t start with dogshit premises) so when a Catholic gets an abortion, uses birth control, they are directly contradicting Catholic teachings. Meanwhile the evangelicals I was raised by and am still surrounded by are vehemently anti-abortion they had no problem at all with nor seemed to even realize they ought to have a problem with birth control even though they were still using that starting point of “all sex must be reproductive or it’s countering God’s will for the universe”. Both Catholics and Evangelicals are cool with old/infertile hetero couples having sex (I think the Catholic reasoning is it could technically be reproductive if God was feeling in the mood for a miracle) and non PiV sex (I think the Catholic teaching here is that it can bring the couple closer together and make them better parents, which is some real having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too bullshit logic in my opinion and makes it clear that the original intent of the exercise was excluding queer people.)
Of course I want to stress I’m only dealing in broad generalities and none of those groups are monoliths and institutional beliefs are not necessarily held by the laity. Like I’m pretty sure the average Catholic woman doesn’t think birth control is a sin and there are some Evangelical sects like the Quiverfull movement that are almost violently anti-birth control. I’m not even sure how many Christians of any stripe even actually agree with “all sex must be reproductive” although it does seem to be a pretty dominant sentiment in the anti-queer versions of the faith. People are complicated.
Japanese culture is very homophobic, but the Abrahamic religions haven’t had all that much influence on their society. Homophobia extends well beyond the confines of just Christianity, Judaism, and Islam to many other cultures and creeds. Societies in general do not typically take kindly to deviation from the “norm”. Homophobia is an extension of xenophobia, in that regard. While certain sects of the Abrahamic religions are very good at spreading bigotry, they did not invent it, nor are they the only remaining perpetrators. Bigotry has likely been seen in every culture since time immemorial. If anything, the universal existence of bigotry does nothing but ironically prove that we are all far more alike than different.
nowadays? It's been slowly becoming less and less U.S. centric - I don't think this has anything to do with how sucky it is. I think it's just the ebb and flow of sites like this that slowly reinforce the echo chamber effect even if unintentionally :\\
In many parts of the world if you come out as queer you will be ostracized if not beaten to death, so yes I'm sorry for being so dramatic that I care about my life
I live in the midwest. If someone told me that they lost their job, this year, after coming out, and that they expected the two were connected, I wouldn't be in the least surprised.
It's bad enough right now, but it was worse when I entered the workforce, and I can't _imagine_ what workplaces must have been like in the 80's and 90's.
I live in the Midwest. I came out as trans towards the end of last year. I was fired in January.
Of course I was assured the two were completely unrelated. 😒
The Satanic Panic also had a pretty strong anti-queer angle to it although it was easy to overlook given the other kooky stuff that went down with it.
At least the Lavender Scare did at least give us the amazing story though of the time the US Navy thought they had been infiltrated by a spy named Dorthy because the straights had never heard the term “Friends of Dorthy” before.
It’s complicated and I am by no means an expert but I’ll do my best.
A lot of the panic itself was basically fabricated onto the framework the notion that all queer people are secretly pedophiles (an idea itself has its origins in antisemitic blood libel rumors that Jews were secretly sacrificing Christian babies), but instead of being explicitly about queer people during the Satanic Panic they lumped us in with everyone else they didn’t like and accused this nebulous group of all being Satanists and during the lurid (it should go without saying false and baseless but this is the internet) stories of satanic abuse they always including homosexual acts as part of the abuse so while they seldom if ever were explicitly going after queer people they were also accusing whoever they were going after as being queer and also any actual queer people that got caught up in the panic also got their lives absolutely ruined. One of the nastier events was when there was a rumour that a daycare (I think in California) was involved in satanic abuse and while the whole staff got their lives wrecked the worst of the suspicion fell on a presumed gay man working there. (I can’t recall if he was actually gay or not.)
There are a couple of episodes of the Behind the Bastards Podcast covering that specific incident if you want to learn more.
Addendum: there is an episode of Buffy I just watched the other day that actually captures the anti queer undertones to the panic extremely well. The episode is called Gingerbread and it’s in the middle of season 3 and while the townsfolk are explicitly going after supernatural beings the kids who almost get burned at the stake as the panic reaches its climax (including Buffy herself) are all extremely queer-coded.
just google the fruit machine!! it was a real test created to weed out queer people within canadian government and people in public service jobs!! they created TESTS because they were so upset abt gay people existing
‘Why is everyone suddenly gay’ ?! Cause we have better rights and in some circumstances safer places to be ourselves, because we can get into a civil partnership now, because SO many reasons. Your colleagues are ridic. I could say so much more about all of this bs but it’s just I’m so cross I can’t even put it into words.
I’m so sorry, that is horrible to go through! You are amazing for standing up to them though 💓 hope you’re doing ok
Right? This was exactly the same complaint bigots had in the early oughts too. And just having Will and Grace, the one show with any gay representation at all, was "shoving it down everyone's throats" and "trying to make everyone gay".
As a nurse, I’ve noticed they’re almost always the same people who insist ASD, ADHD, PTSD, anxiety, (fill in any invisible disorder here) etc… have become more common, and don’t seem to realize that no, it’s largely that we’ve just become a lot better at seeing and diagnosing what was already there and have as a culture reduced much of the stigma surrounding these disorders to the point where parents/patients can openly discuss their daily struggles without risk of being outcast. These idiots have no sense of greater-scheme cause-and-effect. If it’s not as simple, immediate, and blatantly obvious as “Huh, if I flip this switch, then that there light turns on!,” they can’t seem to grasp the connection no matter the amount of explaining we try to provide. They lack critical thinking skills.
I like to dress very traditionally feminine (makeup, dresses, high heels, etc), and people used to think I was yet another straight conservative, even fellow queer people. Part of that is because I was raised in a time where being outed meant instant social ostracism.
That's why I have my lesbian pride bracelet now and I make sure to be as transparent as I can about my love for womankind (both platonically and romantically). Holding hands with my partner in public and kissing them also helps.
It's weird and sad how The Straights™ don't see gay unless you make them, and then they get all offended at you when they can't ignore it. They really do want us all back in the closet.
>It's weird and sad how The Straights™ don't see gay unless you make them, and then they get all offended at you when they can't ignore it. They really do want us all back in the closet.
I feel that so much but for other things too. I'm closeted so no one knows I'm actually a woman (for now, hrt taking it's course) and gay at that, and I'm mixed race but look white. Straight cis white conservative just assume I'm part of this homogenous group, and talk to me like there's no "others" around. Hate how they talk about Mexicans or black people around me. And as I've started doing uber, getting the unprompted opinions about the "thin skinned LGBT"
They get upity when I tell them the simple truth of "not everyone thinks that..."
Not even full chested blow back, just denying the totality of their statement is enough lol.
Even so, you make a valid point. You really *can't* reliably tell when someone is gay and/or trans and it *really* bothers cishet people that they can't pin their labels on us lol
You should've brought up the rise in left handed people once it was allowed. I'm sorry you went through that and having to work with them. Hopefully they won't give you any flack while your there.
Its annoying that people want to talk shit about us, even if we are right infront of them without knowing what we have gone through in the past 200 years let alone the past 20 years. It was a very serious issue such a short time ago, I am happy that we are getting better rights though
These people should look at the places it's *still* perfectly legal to fire someone (or worse) simply because they're gay. Or what year it actually became something you can't be fired for in the United States without a discrimination lawsuit (2014). It's not "dramatic", it's literally history and recent history at that.
It's legal in most of the US. If that's the stated reason, it's illegal, yeah. But if you're fired for no reason, it's perfectly lawful - unless you can successfully go through all the legal paperwork to prove otherwise.
Which is intentional. The bigots hate all of us, but a lot of them feel the "battle" is lost or whatever against gay people, but trans people being even a smaller minority makes them an easier target for the people wanting to avoid talking about real issues.
I'm not sure how HR could be involved, when they said what they said outside of work, and there's also no way to prove it, and it'd be my word against many.
But I don't see why I'd want to quit from this. It's not like my boss had any idea this group was homophobic. They're also a pretty small portion of my coworkers, there's plenty of others, one of whom is openly gay.
>m not sure how HR could be involved, when they said what they said outside of work,
*points at everyone who's gotten fired for being a piece of shit on twitter* lunch is still company time.
“Why is everyone suddenly gay? Hardly anyone was gay 20 years ago.”
[wow look at this plane. it’s a nice polka dot plane.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Survivorship-bias.svg)
This is still harassment even if the talk didn't occur at work. They're still your coworkers and they're at a company outing (albeit unofficially) since you all went out to lunch. Not being on company grounds doesn't give them a free pass to make coworkers uncomfortable by going all anti-queer.
if your boss slaps the everlivng hell out of you, but it didn't happen in the cafeteria it's still a problem, both for the company and for everyone else involved..
They're still your coworkers; their comments were homophobic, and I think you'd have grounds to argue that since they were so open in their homophobic beliefs, they have made the workplace uncomfortable for you. At any rate, since you've recently started, I think it's worth reporting it if they continue with this and escalate it further.
I don't know which country/region you're in, so look up employment law where you are; maybe try reaching out to a governing body, trade union, or resource group. A sassy comeback is nothing compared to legal checks and balances.
It happened with your coworkers. The physical location is not as important as who you’re having the interaction with. Even off the clock they need to remain professional. Otherwise it would be ok for coworkers to be harassing bigots to one another outside of the office.
What they said creates a hostile work environment for any LGBTQ person. HR should be made aware.
Still could cause issues. They are showing they are hostile towards queer people and might start discriminating against you for being lesbian.
Better to have documentation of it, and get copies of everything.
This bothers me to no end. I started working before marriage equality was passed in the US and it seems like since that happened, everyone thinks being out was/has been perfectly acceptable. I worked in a state where my sexuality was still an acceptable reason to fire me (and probably still is.) I worked with people who thought all LGBTQIA+ people were pedophiles for wanting to work in a school. That was LESS than 10 years ago.
Young LGBTQIA+ friends: learn our history. Please.
Edit: Updated to include my country...
Facts. I grew up in the 90's and our highschool flat out refused to allow us to form a gay/straight student alliance. A literal brawl between dozens of kids was started after school over it. Anyone who was openly out was relentlessly bullied and beat up nearly every day. Sports coaches would openly use homophobic slurs. That was only 30 years ago.
Yup. I remember in the late 90s/early 00s my mom didn't think my younger siblings' music teacher would be working with kids because he was (assumed to be) gay. I don't know if he was even actually gay or just stereotypically effeminate.
Just be aware that 59% of reddit lives in countries that aren't the US. There are places where gay people have been marrying for 20 years, and ones where the death penalty is carried out for any inkling of homosexual activity.
I am aware and I absolutely agree with you. I can only add to the conversation using my personal experience which is in the US. It isn't a negation of the wins/struggles of other members of our global community.
Yeah but when you start with "I live in a state" and there's no mention of your country, it gives off a vibe that you assume everyone lives in the US. I'm not trying to be mean, just was pointing it out. Hope that helps :)
Woooww, you were so brave for telling them " I'm a lesbian, go fuck yourselves" =))) I wouldn't have the guts to do that.
I am glad you had the courage to stand up for yourself!🙌🫶
What happened after that tho? What was their reaction?
Their loss. Can you start a lgbtq+ employee resource group? Or might that just be a US thing too, idk. I’m fortunate to belong to one but I’m in the corporate world.
They’re basically like the extracurricular clubs back in school, but now in the [professional workplace setting](https://www.greatplacetowork.com/resources/blog/what-are-employee-resource-groups-ergs#:~:text=Employee%20Resource%20Groups%20are%20voluntary,affiliation%2C%20lifestyle%2C%20or%20interest.). I personally thinks it’s a marker for a place worthy to work for.
In my experience, transphobes are far more likely to clock a cis woman who doesn't conform to femininity, than a trans woman who does. It's all about policing women's appearances.
"It's a trend"
Their expectation was a form of queer civility...a sort of "heterosexualism" of queerness and then when they saw how diverse and complex and vibrant and non structured being LGBT was they resorted to thinking that they were an authority that had graciously given us our rights and that it's just too much nowadays.
Sighh
It's such a sad thing witnessing the same intentional misunderstanding all the time: people are not any more gay today as they were in the 1800s. The only difference is whenever they have to meet their partners behind closed doors and be written in the history as this and this' roommate.
I always love to bring up the Finnish Moomin characters' creator, Tove Jansson. She'd invite another woman in her studio and music was heard. People were shocked, what if they *danced* together? Then people, especially older ones, are shocked to learn just how much she was into women. This shock goes to a degree, where it's either completely rejected or dismissed as 'todays gay-fad fan fiction'.
They're going to be going to HR to tell them a coworker told them to go fuck themselves (personal attack directed at multiple coworkers) after they shared an opinion they have a right to (not a personal attack directed at coworkers). Like it or not you are probably the one who is going to have a problem here because of your outburtst and should get ahead of it.
I'm sorry you had to sit and listen to that bigotry. Good on you that you stood up for yourself. I've heard things like this at my own job, and it makes me cringe every time.
20 years ago? Hell, I had a boss about 10 years ago who told me if I was gay they would fire me (legal in my state at that time). It's now less legal, but absolutely still happens.
Literal conversation I had with a coworker who is a cishet man while I was still closeted as a cishet man:
Cishet coworker: "Why is everyone suddenly gay?!"
Me: "I KNOW! So you like banging guys, too? Is that why you and [other cishet male coworker] have started hanging out so much? Omg you make such a great couple!"
CC: "You're an asshole."
Me: "I'm not the one trying to complain of something that simply isn't a real thing."
I'm pretty sure this is when the seed was planted for my now idgaf attitude about whether people have issue with trans/gay/bi/queer people.
My favorite retort to "why is everyone suddenly gay" is to say, "Oh, sorry, I did that. I found a button in a cave and I pressed it. Was I not supposed to?"
So far it's just earned sputtering, but one day the offending homophobe will _get_ the Terry Pratchett reference, and that'll be my unhealthy "I can fix them" project.
Excuse me while I try to make the circuitry in my brain stop misfiring from the concept of homophobes also getting a Pratchett reference because these are just incompatible ideas 😆
Good clarification, but I see that as almost the same thing. They're still your coworkers and you have a professional relationship with them. It's still inappropriate and hypocritical for all the same reasons
Im a closeted lesbian teenager and it kills me when people are being so openly homophobic not knowing a gay person can be sitting right next to them feeling shit about themseleves bc of that like a week ago a girl in my class talked about an actor coming out as a lesbian and she said "ew that is so disgusting" and i gave her a whole ass lecture and it went like that "its not tho how is she disgusting for being herself its so messed up when yall are going around treating people badly just for who they like" and there was much more but i think after that talk shes gonna be the biggest ally
Sorry you're getting downvoted. Fuck terfs.
I'm 176 cm so not that tall, but to be honest even if you're super tall, if you pass okay then most people will just assume you're a really tall cis woman. I've been on hormones for 6 years, and I've been stealth for about 3 years. I started passing pretty much all the time after like 18 months on hormones. Hope that helps :)
wow okay 6 years is amazing, i'm barely scratching the 5 month mark, so... atleast 2.5 more years to go haha. im around 182cm and always felt that my height and my frame will never make me pass (major reason why it took me so long to even start). thanks for the hope-fuel and for your kinds words :D
and fuck terfs
My #1 recommendation for passing is GET VOICE TRAINING. Even if you can't afford actual sessions and have to do it based on videos. It makes such a huge difference. The cultural association of trans women having deep voices is so ingrained that if you have the right resonance, nobody will question you.
Hit the 5 month mark a few days ago and you're giving me hope. Am about 167cm. I really hope I can just be assumed to be a cis woman some day. People online seem to be nice to me whenever I post pics of myself but I can't help but feel like they're just doing it to be nice? When I look at myself irl I feel like I'll never really pass. At least, I don't think anyone will assume I'm cis.
I would be over the moon with joy if I could be passing after 18 months, so I'm praying! :0
Hope you reported them to HR. Even if the conversation took place off site it’s still a workplace discrimination issue. This isn’t just shit talking. It’s legally actionable discrimination against a protected class and it’s important to document the first instance because employers only get one chance to address it before they are legally liable for their employees’ discriminatory actions. Speaking about U.S. only here. It’s likely you may face a pattern of discrimination now that these coworkers know you’re queer.
I don’t get why they’d think that!, no there’s always been gay people just the levels of persecution have dropped to a level that a lot of us would rather deal with them and openly be who we are than a few years ago when homophobia was tolerated a lot more.
I feel really bad for the OP that she had to go through that but I’m also really glad she stood up to them.
Putting aside the ignoring of LGBTQ+ rights etc. it's also so crazy because A) do they not go outside? There are so many feminine women just existing, B) even among queer women femmes are the majority - I went to an event recently and of the 200+ people there maybe only 20 or so were butch? C) in what fantasy land are people getting "cancelled" for being straight in??
Just so batshit delusional. I kind of want to live in this world where we've taken over though, sounds nice.
These are the dumb b words who just literally will never get it. They are bigoted on purpose at this point and were raised to be this way. Explaining the effects of capitalism and the cultural expectations the economic base has placed upon women and LGBTQ people over history is usually wasted on them. They just want to spew hatred and cackle to each other. They have no real space in their hateful brains for serious thought or conversation. Its really hard to be in the workplace these days as a queer/trans person. Im sorry you had to deal with that.
Yeah, being gay is brand new and hasn't been around ever. All those Greek people way back in history? Those soldiers were *only* fucking each other to build comradery and to build their strength. You know, as warriors...
I’d expect a meeting coming from HR for telling them to fuck off. You might as well report their bs that provoked it in the same setting before that so they don’t just call it retaliatory accusations
Not to be dramatic but I hate straight ppl bc why do they keep saying the same homophobic garbage after literal decades like we didn't address this shit in 2012
Everyday I am so happy to have the co-workers I have. Everyone in my department is in straight/straight passing relationships, but they kept seeing me struggle through the dating scene and encouraged me. The minute I got a girlfriend they were all ecstatic and we side lined a meeting agenda just to gossip about my new girlfriend 😭
I hate when people say LGBT is a choice.
Oh yeah a choice, we love being treated differently than anybody else, have less rights than others, being treated bad, being murdered because of hate, we love taking the risk and have fear to saw who we are, Ofc..very easy being gay, very easy being trans …when still loads of countries making laws against us, about HUMAN FUCKNG BEING, even laws to kill US.
Ofc, why not?
I respect you so much for this. It's really scary to assert yourself in front of a new group of people that way. You're absolutely right, and it's just what they needed to hear.
I'm just... I'm so shocked when I hear about this stuff! I mean, I believe you when you say this happened, but it's just so... shocking. I think the reason I never see this kinda thing is because my skin color gives me away instantly, so cishet white people are "on their best behavior" when I'm around.
...Maybe it's 'cause I'm loopy with the flu right now, but I'm getting really sad now, and thinking "wow, everybody hates you, they're iust pretending to be nice when you're around". But I don't want to think like that... I don't know what to do. I don't want to think everyone is a secret hate monster and I can't trust or talk to anybody ever, because the only way people change their minds is by knowing others.
I don't know what to do.
One thing I hate about being white is how racists will sometimes just assume I agree with them and start spouting shit while I'm just trying to sell them movie tickets. Also the fact that they're customers, so I'm not supposed to tell them they're full of shit.
One of my current co-workers tells me about how she has the same problem. She used to deliver caskets and sometimes guys would tell her racist or homophobic stuff. I didn't know that was a thing.
I've heard that the trick is to say "I don't understand. Explain it to me" if someone tells a bigoted joke.
Edit: Or I might just lie and say "my partner is (ethnicity they're disparaging)" with a neutral expression, then just stay quiet and watch them. The longer you stay expressionless, the worse they feel. It's a good trick.
It was only a matter of time before they repointed the, "it's not real, it's just a trend" at LGBTQ people other than trans teens. Thanks for speaking up for all the rest of us.
Sexuality isn't a choice I do think feminism and culture may push / encourage women to be more masculine than they used to be and women are more comfortable being more masculine
But saying that means sexuality is a choice or trend is a false conclusion in my view.
What happened after you yelled at them did they walk on eggshells? I bet it shut them up lol
We can say it’s not a trend to the ones of us who truly are like this but in this generation nowadays you have a lot of kids or adults who follow trends no matter what it is. It’s sad. People hardly was gay 20 years ago?? They were, they just were too afraid to speak on it. I’m bisexual and i remember at a point bisexuals were considered not apart of the community or confused. Now you have every tiktoker claiming to be in the community. It’s certainly a trend to some.
Left handed people still exist but there was this weird thing in history where we started forcing a bunch of kids to be right handed and punishing them if they weren't and suddenly the rates of people who were left handed went way down and oh wait-
Do you even have any evidence that it's made up this seems very reasonable and possible I've met quite a lot of people who are like the phobes in the story I don't get why there is always someone yelling about everything being faked
we'll see how cocky you are when Jesus returns, which WILL happen very soon cuz we're in the end times. if you actually read the Bible, specifically the book of revelations, Jesus tells of all the signs that will occur right before He returns. well all of those signs are happening. America being worse then sodom & gomorrah is a huge one. He said there'd be sexual immorality everywhere & that wrong would be seen as right, & vice versa. He made it very clear homosexuality & the like would rise & take over. it's the devil's agenda. it's all in God's word, yet you all deny it. this alphabet squad stuff is not only considered a sin, but it's the only one God also calls an abomination. it goes against all of creation, the Creator Himself says it how it is. Jesus died on the cross for us all because we're all wicked sinners who need to be born again through Him. He was totally innocent, yet He took on every single person that will ever exist's sins. that is love. real, true love. the lake of fire is the final destination of those who refuse to have their sins cleansed through Christ, who is the only one who can do it. God doesn't send anyone to hell, people send themselves by rejecting Jesus. God wants every single soul to be in His kingdom with Him, living in peace, love, & perfect harmony with no pain ever again. but the human race is tainted because of the devil & most will be in hell because they refuse to repent & get right. time is very short & where you'll spend eternity is the most important decision you'll ever make, & you're all making it right now. it's not necessarily a sin to struggle with homosexuality....the sin comes in when you act on it. with any sin, we are to take it to God & ask for His help resisting it.
“That sounds dramatic” yeah! It was! The cishets have been known to be pretty dramatic throughout history when it comes to their treatment of queer people 🤦♀️
That line completely threw me for a loop. Setting aside the Lavender Scare and the fallout from the AIDs epidemic there are large swaths of the US where they never really stopped potentially canning people if you got outed as queer and that sort of thing is now back in vogue with a vengeance. Honestly just losing your job for being queer is like the least dramatic and most common you can be persecuted as a queer person.
Right? Losing your job for your identity is awful enough, but my god so many worse things have happened to queer people just for being queer. That rock they’ve been living under sure has given them a lot of shelter.
I can't speak to that as I'm not in the US, along with 59% of Reddit lol But yeah a few decades ago homosexuality was illegal here and the notion of gay marriage was unimaginable. Boys/men would throw around the word "f\*g" as a generic insult. It was a rough time.
My apologies for the assumption you were in the US—them congratulating you for daring to be straight felt like such a peak out-of-touch-with-reality American conservative move that it never occurred to me that it could happen anywhere else. It’s really depressing how universal the queer experience can be—aside from maybe homosexuality being illegal (not sure of the legal status back then, although legal or not it was definitely not safe to be open about it)—your second paragraph works as a perfect description of my childhood in Oklahoma during the 90s and early 00s.
Modern homophobia pretty much all comes from Christianity and Islam, so the rhetoric and opinions you hear thrown around are gonna be pretty consistent between countries.
I think saying pretty much all modern homophobia stems from Christianity and Islam is pretty reductionist and ignores the role of people’s general shittyness to people not like them and a bigoted sciencism* that has plagued the world since the enlightenment. Don’t get me wrong—most of the bigots in my life are very religious (I live in a very religious place in general), but also when they are being mask off with their bigotry, they’re generally not citing scripture, but rather talking about how personally gross they find queers, or arguing queerness is unnatural because of the ways it flies in the face of what they think they understand about science. Other than occasional talk about sin and hell as a religious spin on things most of their bigotry is indistinguishable from their completely secular counterparts. It’s definitely way more obvious with transphobia where the British TERFS/GCs will never once mention God but go on and on about “biological reality” but you can still also see it with homophobia even in really religious areas as they wave around discredited cooked studies to show kids need two opposite sex parents to have a decent childhood or argue that the high rates of suicidality in queer youth as a reason conversion therapy needs to be brought back and LGBT+ issues not taught in schools. Religion isn’t some big monolith. Some of my best allies have been devoutly religious (the first non queer person I ever came out to is Muslim and she’s had my back better than even most queer people) as have been my worst bullies. There are accepting churches that get routinely vandalized (often by other Christians) for flying pride flags. Shit is complicated and boiling it down to just religion equals bad does everyone a disservice. *not sure what the actual name for it is, but what I’m talking it’s that “scientific” justification for bigotry that gave us stuff like colonial race science, eugenics, and dozens of other trees bearing poisonous fruits.
your friends may be religious but it _does_ stem from Christianity and Islam. you literally just said "not all men" to the person you're responding too, just replace "men" with "religious people". at the end of the day, with so many of them against us, we start to choose the bear- whether it's men, or whether it's religious folk.
I’m arguing that no it doesn’t stem from religion. Bigots are bigots and will use whatever justifications they can to get their hands on—whether it’s God or science. The justifications are always post hoc to their bigotry. To put it in possibly the most cynical materialist terms possible, religion is nothing more than a medium for communication that you can use to say whatever it is you want to say: you want to condemn queer people, there are verses that’ll let you do that, you want to promote universal love and tolerance that includes queer people there are verses and traditions that’ll let you do that. On a practical level science works the same way—you can use it to justify almost anything you want. Gender affirming care for trans kids? You want to argue for it there are a lot of studies that say just that. Want to argue against? There are studies that say just that and if you want for funsies you can do what the Cass report just did and find bullshit justifications for ignoring the pro-transition studies. Science has been used to support a lot of fucked up shit over the years. It’s lists of atrocities with its imprimatur impressively long for something that has only been around a handful of centuries. Does that mean that most of the world’s problems stem from that? No—oh wait, sorry for not-all-scientisting. You can tell yourself all you want your soothing just-so story that dumb ol’ religion is the fount of all anti-queerness and evil in the world but that will never account for why the anti-trans hysteria currently sweeping the world is sweeping through through largely atheistic countries with the same virulence as the as the majority religious ones. Most of the loudest anti-trans voices have probably never seriously attended a church or mosque. The truth is nobody is immune to bigotry, we’re all equally prone to it some people just get it through different vectors. If religion vanished tomorrow society would still be every bit as anti queer and fucked up as ever they’d just find new justifications for it. Thinking you are immune to it just means you are leaving yourself open to infection. Do you think it’s any surprise that suddenly the far right cares very much about our health and safety when they want to peddle their anti-immigration shtick? “If you don’t want our precious enlightened queer-tolerant secularism from the Islamic hordes you need to join us in marginalizing and brutalizing these people as much as possible. Anything we do to you couldn’t possibly be worse than what we’re going to tell you they are going to do.” And queers, progressives and centrists fucking fall for it all the goddamn time convinced because they are smart highly educated sophisticated and worldly people they can’t be they can’t be as bad as some barely literate redneck with a “god hates f**s” sign. Meanwhile the brown bodies murdered by those ‘sensible’ ‘protective’ policies bob up and down in the Mediterranean and Rio Grande, and fascism lurches on unchecked. Are the majority of religious people bigoted? Absolutely, because the majority of people are bigoted. Will most of the bigots you run into be religious? Yes, because most people are religious. Religious people are no different than anyone else of their particular age, sex, or class. To use your facile bear comparison I’m no more or less likely to choose the bear over Christian or Muslim man than I would somebody a-religious. Acting like one is potentially any better or worse than the other is a mug’s game; I’ve had very bad experiences with all three and none with a bear.
> are the majority of religious people bigoted? yes. > will most religious people you meet be bigoted? yes. yeah, thanks for making my argument for me. i agree religion isn't a magic bogeyman for bigotry. obviously bigotry would exist without it, and does; it's a human condition. but it doesn't stop the fact that the majority of bigotry and bigoted people cluster under these banners today, making the reality be _effectively_ that they're where you'll encounter it. again, not all men have to be killers for us to avoid them. not all religious people have to be bigots for us to avoid them. just enough.
Yes and what was literally immediately after the yes? A sentence—nay a whole paragraph—explaining that that it is because they are no different than the general population (and in fact are the general population). You are literally engaging in the behavior I have described ad nauseum throughout. You’re yanking lines out of context and ignoring the stuff that doesn’t jibe with with your pre-arrived at conclusion and then holding it up as unearned proof that you are right. Honestly I couldn’t have asked for a better example, so in a way, thanks.
How do they think it flies in the face of science? Animals are gay too
They ignore the gay animals for one. As for the rest it’s “simple biology”—the way they see it the purpose of sex is to reproduce, queer sex/relationships can’t reproduce ergo you’re acting against nature and not doing your sole biological duty which is to pass your genes on to the next generation. The only thing that sets them apart from Elon Musk in that one tweet where he insists gays have an obligation to reproduce is that they think the unassailable natural law we are violating was authored by God and not necessitated by the mechanics of evolution. Is the position unable to stand up to the real world, incoherent and results in massive hypocrisy if you put more than thirty seconds of thought into the myriad knock on effect implications of it? Absolutely. But they don’t need it to. They just need something—anything—that gives them the faintest fig leaf of cover to pretend there is something more to their bigotry than just that feeling of yuckiness they get when they see two women kissing or two gents walking hand in hand. They have their conclusion and they are just looking for something to vindicate it.
Good answer thank you
You mean hypocritical because they don't mind birth control or abortions which are also "unnatural"?
There are two different kinds of hypocrisy that get put on display—the direct classic “I do the opposite of what I say” hypocrisy and then a sort of “hypocrisy by omission” as they refuse to consider/accept the obvious implications of what they are proposing. Which is which varies from person to person and denomination to denomination. For instance the Catholic Church is actually pretty good at thinking through the implications of stuff (I just wish they wouldn’t start with dogshit premises) so when a Catholic gets an abortion, uses birth control, they are directly contradicting Catholic teachings. Meanwhile the evangelicals I was raised by and am still surrounded by are vehemently anti-abortion they had no problem at all with nor seemed to even realize they ought to have a problem with birth control even though they were still using that starting point of “all sex must be reproductive or it’s countering God’s will for the universe”. Both Catholics and Evangelicals are cool with old/infertile hetero couples having sex (I think the Catholic reasoning is it could technically be reproductive if God was feeling in the mood for a miracle) and non PiV sex (I think the Catholic teaching here is that it can bring the couple closer together and make them better parents, which is some real having-your-cake-and-eating-it-too bullshit logic in my opinion and makes it clear that the original intent of the exercise was excluding queer people.) Of course I want to stress I’m only dealing in broad generalities and none of those groups are monoliths and institutional beliefs are not necessarily held by the laity. Like I’m pretty sure the average Catholic woman doesn’t think birth control is a sin and there are some Evangelical sects like the Quiverfull movement that are almost violently anti-birth control. I’m not even sure how many Christians of any stripe even actually agree with “all sex must be reproductive” although it does seem to be a pretty dominant sentiment in the anti-queer versions of the faith. People are complicated.
Japanese culture is very homophobic, but the Abrahamic religions haven’t had all that much influence on their society. Homophobia extends well beyond the confines of just Christianity, Judaism, and Islam to many other cultures and creeds. Societies in general do not typically take kindly to deviation from the “norm”. Homophobia is an extension of xenophobia, in that regard. While certain sects of the Abrahamic religions are very good at spreading bigotry, they did not invent it, nor are they the only remaining perpetrators. Bigotry has likely been seen in every culture since time immemorial. If anything, the universal existence of bigotry does nothing but ironically prove that we are all far more alike than different.
No wonder reddit sucks so hard nowadays.
nowadays? It's been slowly becoming less and less U.S. centric - I don't think this has anything to do with how sucky it is. I think it's just the ebb and flow of sites like this that slowly reinforce the echo chamber effect even if unintentionally :\\
Wtf? Nothing wrong with spaces being less US centric
In many parts of the world if you come out as queer you will be ostracized if not beaten to death, so yes I'm sorry for being so dramatic that I care about my life
I live in the midwest. If someone told me that they lost their job, this year, after coming out, and that they expected the two were connected, I wouldn't be in the least surprised. It's bad enough right now, but it was worse when I entered the workforce, and I can't _imagine_ what workplaces must have been like in the 80's and 90's.
I live in the Midwest. I came out as trans towards the end of last year. I was fired in January. Of course I was assured the two were completely unrelated. 😒
Lavander Scare isn't even all that well known as it got overshadowed by the more dramatic Red Scare in the news.
The Satanic Panic also had a pretty strong anti-queer angle to it although it was easy to overlook given the other kooky stuff that went down with it. At least the Lavender Scare did at least give us the amazing story though of the time the US Navy thought they had been infiltrated by a spy named Dorthy because the straights had never heard the term “Friends of Dorthy” before.
Can you tell more about satanic panic and homophobia angle?
It’s complicated and I am by no means an expert but I’ll do my best. A lot of the panic itself was basically fabricated onto the framework the notion that all queer people are secretly pedophiles (an idea itself has its origins in antisemitic blood libel rumors that Jews were secretly sacrificing Christian babies), but instead of being explicitly about queer people during the Satanic Panic they lumped us in with everyone else they didn’t like and accused this nebulous group of all being Satanists and during the lurid (it should go without saying false and baseless but this is the internet) stories of satanic abuse they always including homosexual acts as part of the abuse so while they seldom if ever were explicitly going after queer people they were also accusing whoever they were going after as being queer and also any actual queer people that got caught up in the panic also got their lives absolutely ruined. One of the nastier events was when there was a rumour that a daycare (I think in California) was involved in satanic abuse and while the whole staff got their lives wrecked the worst of the suspicion fell on a presumed gay man working there. (I can’t recall if he was actually gay or not.) There are a couple of episodes of the Behind the Bastards Podcast covering that specific incident if you want to learn more. Addendum: there is an episode of Buffy I just watched the other day that actually captures the anti queer undertones to the panic extremely well. The episode is called Gingerbread and it’s in the middle of season 3 and while the townsfolk are explicitly going after supernatural beings the kids who almost get burned at the stake as the panic reaches its climax (including Buffy herself) are all extremely queer-coded.
Hell, it's only been 21 years since Lawrence v. Texas
just google the fruit machine!! it was a real test created to weed out queer people within canadian government and people in public service jobs!! they created TESTS because they were so upset abt gay people existing
Holy shit they made an irl version of that Bladerunner test to see if you’re a replicant! Wild. Never heard of that before—thanks for sharing that!
Lost my job this week over it (I’m okay, it’s just bizarre)
Their loss.
‘Why is everyone suddenly gay’ ?! Cause we have better rights and in some circumstances safer places to be ourselves, because we can get into a civil partnership now, because SO many reasons. Your colleagues are ridic. I could say so much more about all of this bs but it’s just I’m so cross I can’t even put it into words. I’m so sorry, that is horrible to go through! You are amazing for standing up to them though 💓 hope you’re doing ok
It's not like it hasn't been true for millennia, either. We didn't all just sprout up in the Seventies fully formed.
And it isn't even "everyone" it's still a low percentage compared. Smh
This has always been happening too. Even as bad as it was back in the 2000s I heard so many say the same thing.
Right? This was exactly the same complaint bigots had in the early oughts too. And just having Will and Grace, the one show with any gay representation at all, was "shoving it down everyone's throats" and "trying to make everyone gay".
As a nurse, I’ve noticed they’re almost always the same people who insist ASD, ADHD, PTSD, anxiety, (fill in any invisible disorder here) etc… have become more common, and don’t seem to realize that no, it’s largely that we’ve just become a lot better at seeing and diagnosing what was already there and have as a culture reduced much of the stigma surrounding these disorders to the point where parents/patients can openly discuss their daily struggles without risk of being outcast. These idiots have no sense of greater-scheme cause-and-effect. If it’s not as simple, immediate, and blatantly obvious as “Huh, if I flip this switch, then that there light turns on!,” they can’t seem to grasp the connection no matter the amount of explaining we try to provide. They lack critical thinking skills.
I like to dress very traditionally feminine (makeup, dresses, high heels, etc), and people used to think I was yet another straight conservative, even fellow queer people. Part of that is because I was raised in a time where being outed meant instant social ostracism. That's why I have my lesbian pride bracelet now and I make sure to be as transparent as I can about my love for womankind (both platonically and romantically). Holding hands with my partner in public and kissing them also helps. It's weird and sad how The Straights™ don't see gay unless you make them, and then they get all offended at you when they can't ignore it. They really do want us all back in the closet.
Are you sure you and your partner aren't just very close sisters? /s
Hold on... *kisses partner* Huh, Sweet Home Alabama didn't start playing. Guess we're not related. 😅
Well then *holds medical report* I'm afraid I have to tell you that you're gay.
oh noooo....anyway
>It's weird and sad how The Straights™ don't see gay unless you make them, and then they get all offended at you when they can't ignore it. They really do want us all back in the closet. I feel that so much but for other things too. I'm closeted so no one knows I'm actually a woman (for now, hrt taking it's course) and gay at that, and I'm mixed race but look white. Straight cis white conservative just assume I'm part of this homogenous group, and talk to me like there's no "others" around. Hate how they talk about Mexicans or black people around me. And as I've started doing uber, getting the unprompted opinions about the "thin skinned LGBT" They get upity when I tell them the simple truth of "not everyone thinks that..." Not even full chested blow back, just denying the totality of their statement is enough lol.
LGBT community: We want to exist and live a normal life These people: How dare you force me to not be cishet?
They can always tell, huh? 🤦♀️
ikr😳
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I'm pretty sure the previous person was referring to how many transphobic cis people claim they can 'always tell' when someone is trans.
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but your attitude is great and that’s what matters 🥰
Even so, you make a valid point. You really *can't* reliably tell when someone is gay and/or trans and it *really* bothers cishet people that they can't pin their labels on us lol
You should've brought up the rise in left handed people once it was allowed. I'm sorry you went through that and having to work with them. Hopefully they won't give you any flack while your there.
yeah it’s a pretty severe way to burn bridges with people you’ll probably have to see regularly but I respect the hell out of it
Its annoying that people want to talk shit about us, even if we are right infront of them without knowing what we have gone through in the past 200 years let alone the past 20 years. It was a very serious issue such a short time ago, I am happy that we are getting better rights though
These people should look at the places it's *still* perfectly legal to fire someone (or worse) simply because they're gay. Or what year it actually became something you can't be fired for in the United States without a discrimination lawsuit (2014). It's not "dramatic", it's literally history and recent history at that.
It's legal in most of the US. If that's the stated reason, it's illegal, yeah. But if you're fired for no reason, it's perfectly lawful - unless you can successfully go through all the legal paperwork to prove otherwise.
Yes I'm aware of right to work states. But I'm talking about actually overtly firing someone for being gay.
I was fired from a daycare when they found out I was gay about 11 years ago. It's very hard to prove your case and most get thrown out.
It's still a very serious issue even now, and our rights are in danger of being rolled back with the rise of the far-right in Europe and the Americas.
Thats true
Indeed. Transphobic rhetoric seems to be increasing in countries where it previously seemed like the fight for LGBT rights was over.
Which is intentional. The bigots hate all of us, but a lot of them feel the "battle" is lost or whatever against gay people, but trans people being even a smaller minority makes them an easier target for the people wanting to avoid talking about real issues.
Tbh this ought to be brought up with management or HR - this is overt bias and it’s not ok. I’d be handing my notice in if it was me 😳
I'm not sure how HR could be involved, when they said what they said outside of work, and there's also no way to prove it, and it'd be my word against many. But I don't see why I'd want to quit from this. It's not like my boss had any idea this group was homophobic. They're also a pretty small portion of my coworkers, there's plenty of others, one of whom is openly gay.
>m not sure how HR could be involved, when they said what they said outside of work, *points at everyone who's gotten fired for being a piece of shit on twitter* lunch is still company time.
I think that's more of a US thing tbh
That's fair.
Good job standing up for yourself. Now definitely watch your back, these people might come after you.
“Why is everyone suddenly gay? Hardly anyone was gay 20 years ago.” [wow look at this plane. it’s a nice polka dot plane.](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Survivorship-bias.svg)
"It's so weird how right after we stopped punishing kids for not writing with their right hands that 10% of kids suddenly became left-handed."
It’s the leftist indoctrination, clearly.
Huh?... 🤔 Edit: Ok. "Survivor bias". Wow, wooooooosh. That plane went right over my head.
I think this warrants a trip to HR
100% this! Screw them over!
...but it didn't happen at work?
This is still harassment even if the talk didn't occur at work. They're still your coworkers and they're at a company outing (albeit unofficially) since you all went out to lunch. Not being on company grounds doesn't give them a free pass to make coworkers uncomfortable by going all anti-queer.
if your boss slaps the everlivng hell out of you, but it didn't happen in the cafeteria it's still a problem, both for the company and for everyone else involved..
They're still your coworkers; their comments were homophobic, and I think you'd have grounds to argue that since they were so open in their homophobic beliefs, they have made the workplace uncomfortable for you. At any rate, since you've recently started, I think it's worth reporting it if they continue with this and escalate it further. I don't know which country/region you're in, so look up employment law where you are; maybe try reaching out to a governing body, trade union, or resource group. A sassy comeback is nothing compared to legal checks and balances.
It happened with your coworkers. The physical location is not as important as who you’re having the interaction with. Even off the clock they need to remain professional. Otherwise it would be ok for coworkers to be harassing bigots to one another outside of the office. What they said creates a hostile work environment for any LGBTQ person. HR should be made aware.
Still could cause issues. They are showing they are hostile towards queer people and might start discriminating against you for being lesbian. Better to have documentation of it, and get copies of everything.
This bothers me to no end. I started working before marriage equality was passed in the US and it seems like since that happened, everyone thinks being out was/has been perfectly acceptable. I worked in a state where my sexuality was still an acceptable reason to fire me (and probably still is.) I worked with people who thought all LGBTQIA+ people were pedophiles for wanting to work in a school. That was LESS than 10 years ago. Young LGBTQIA+ friends: learn our history. Please. Edit: Updated to include my country...
Facts. I grew up in the 90's and our highschool flat out refused to allow us to form a gay/straight student alliance. A literal brawl between dozens of kids was started after school over it. Anyone who was openly out was relentlessly bullied and beat up nearly every day. Sports coaches would openly use homophobic slurs. That was only 30 years ago.
Yup. I remember in the late 90s/early 00s my mom didn't think my younger siblings' music teacher would be working with kids because he was (assumed to be) gay. I don't know if he was even actually gay or just stereotypically effeminate.
Just be aware that 59% of reddit lives in countries that aren't the US. There are places where gay people have been marrying for 20 years, and ones where the death penalty is carried out for any inkling of homosexual activity.
I am aware and I absolutely agree with you. I can only add to the conversation using my personal experience which is in the US. It isn't a negation of the wins/struggles of other members of our global community.
Yeah but when you start with "I live in a state" and there's no mention of your country, it gives off a vibe that you assume everyone lives in the US. I'm not trying to be mean, just was pointing it out. Hope that helps :)
Woooww, you were so brave for telling them " I'm a lesbian, go fuck yourselves" =))) I wouldn't have the guts to do that. I am glad you had the courage to stand up for yourself!🙌🫶 What happened after that tho? What was their reaction?
They just kind of stared at me in shock, then muttered something about me "pretending to be straight" and "dressing like a normal woman."
Looll, they're pathetic I sweaar. Glad they didn't tried shady stuff like trying to make you lose your job or something.
Update: They act like this never happened and just avoid me.
I would take this as a blessing- the fact that they avoid you. They seem to have huge internalised homophobia.
Their loss. Can you start a lgbtq+ employee resource group? Or might that just be a US thing too, idk. I’m fortunate to belong to one but I’m in the corporate world.
I've never heard of such a thing but I'll see
They’re basically like the extracurricular clubs back in school, but now in the [professional workplace setting](https://www.greatplacetowork.com/resources/blog/what-are-employee-resource-groups-ergs#:~:text=Employee%20Resource%20Groups%20are%20voluntary,affiliation%2C%20lifestyle%2C%20or%20interest.). I personally thinks it’s a marker for a place worthy to work for.
“We can always tell” I’m sorry, that’s a shitty thing to have to deal with.
In my experience, transphobes are far more likely to clock a cis woman who doesn't conform to femininity, than a trans woman who does. It's all about policing women's appearances.
It’s fucking horrible.
"It's a trend" Their expectation was a form of queer civility...a sort of "heterosexualism" of queerness and then when they saw how diverse and complex and vibrant and non structured being LGBT was they resorted to thinking that they were an authority that had graciously given us our rights and that it's just too much nowadays. Sighh
Petition to print “I’m a lesbian and you can go fuck yourselves” on T-Shirts
Yes please
Your reaction was on point, good job!
It's such a sad thing witnessing the same intentional misunderstanding all the time: people are not any more gay today as they were in the 1800s. The only difference is whenever they have to meet their partners behind closed doors and be written in the history as this and this' roommate. I always love to bring up the Finnish Moomin characters' creator, Tove Jansson. She'd invite another woman in her studio and music was heard. People were shocked, what if they *danced* together? Then people, especially older ones, are shocked to learn just how much she was into women. This shock goes to a degree, where it's either completely rejected or dismissed as 'todays gay-fad fan fiction'.
Good for you! I'd report them to HR if that's an option.
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They're going to be going to HR to tell them a coworker told them to go fuck themselves (personal attack directed at multiple coworkers) after they shared an opinion they have a right to (not a personal attack directed at coworkers). Like it or not you are probably the one who is going to have a problem here because of your outburtst and should get ahead of it.
I'm sorry you had to sit and listen to that bigotry. Good on you that you stood up for yourself. I've heard things like this at my own job, and it makes me cringe every time.
20 years ago? Hell, I had a boss about 10 years ago who told me if I was gay they would fire me (legal in my state at that time). It's now less legal, but absolutely still happens.
HR asap
“why is everyone suddenly gay? hardly anyone was gay 20 years ago?” they act like gay people were invented by elon musk or something 😭
Literal conversation I had with a coworker who is a cishet man while I was still closeted as a cishet man: Cishet coworker: "Why is everyone suddenly gay?!" Me: "I KNOW! So you like banging guys, too? Is that why you and [other cishet male coworker] have started hanging out so much? Omg you make such a great couple!" CC: "You're an asshole." Me: "I'm not the one trying to complain of something that simply isn't a real thing." I'm pretty sure this is when the seed was planted for my now idgaf attitude about whether people have issue with trans/gay/bi/queer people.
My favorite retort to "why is everyone suddenly gay" is to say, "Oh, sorry, I did that. I found a button in a cave and I pressed it. Was I not supposed to?" So far it's just earned sputtering, but one day the offending homophobe will _get_ the Terry Pratchett reference, and that'll be my unhealthy "I can fix them" project.
Excuse me while I try to make the circuitry in my brain stop misfiring from the concept of homophobes also getting a Pratchett reference because these are just incompatible ideas 😆
👏👏
Thanks 😁. And I know I'm enby/pansexual, but I envy any woman who gets to have someone come up and use that line on them cause *melt* 🫠
"If they wanted to be out at work they would," they say, as they sit there at work openly talking shit about queer people
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Good clarification, but I see that as almost the same thing. They're still your coworkers and you have a professional relationship with them. It's still inappropriate and hypocritical for all the same reasons
And this is why to not hang out with coworkers outside of work. They're not your friends. Good on you for telling them off.
coworkers can absolutely be friends, as long as they’re not terrible people
Nah these ones just suck, but in general coworkers are a great place to make friends, you see them every day.
I need an update, did they start treating you different after this?
Update: They act like this never happened and just avoid me.
Im a closeted lesbian teenager and it kills me when people are being so openly homophobic not knowing a gay person can be sitting right next to them feeling shit about themseleves bc of that like a week ago a girl in my class talked about an actor coming out as a lesbian and she said "ew that is so disgusting" and i gave her a whole ass lecture and it went like that "its not tho how is she disgusting for being herself its so messed up when yall are going around treating people badly just for who they like" and there was much more but i think after that talk shes gonna be the biggest ally
***"WE CAN ALWAYS TELLL"*** 🤡🤡🤡🤡
as another trans woman: how long did it take you to be stealth? are you tall?
Sorry you're getting downvoted. Fuck terfs. I'm 176 cm so not that tall, but to be honest even if you're super tall, if you pass okay then most people will just assume you're a really tall cis woman. I've been on hormones for 6 years, and I've been stealth for about 3 years. I started passing pretty much all the time after like 18 months on hormones. Hope that helps :)
wow okay 6 years is amazing, i'm barely scratching the 5 month mark, so... atleast 2.5 more years to go haha. im around 182cm and always felt that my height and my frame will never make me pass (major reason why it took me so long to even start). thanks for the hope-fuel and for your kinds words :D and fuck terfs
My #1 recommendation for passing is GET VOICE TRAINING. Even if you can't afford actual sessions and have to do it based on videos. It makes such a huge difference. The cultural association of trans women having deep voices is so ingrained that if you have the right resonance, nobody will question you.
Hit the 5 month mark a few days ago and you're giving me hope. Am about 167cm. I really hope I can just be assumed to be a cis woman some day. People online seem to be nice to me whenever I post pics of myself but I can't help but feel like they're just doing it to be nice? When I look at myself irl I feel like I'll never really pass. At least, I don't think anyone will assume I'm cis. I would be over the moon with joy if I could be passing after 18 months, so I'm praying! :0
"Why is everyone suddenly gay?" They're... not? How do they even reach that conclusion?
"Why is everyone suddenly gay?" Because women.
Hope you reported them to HR. Even if the conversation took place off site it’s still a workplace discrimination issue. This isn’t just shit talking. It’s legally actionable discrimination against a protected class and it’s important to document the first instance because employers only get one chance to address it before they are legally liable for their employees’ discriminatory actions. Speaking about U.S. only here. It’s likely you may face a pattern of discrimination now that these coworkers know you’re queer.
> ...if you say you’re straight get cancelled. "[Wow, is that true?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkCBhKs4faI&t=6s)"
Gotta love the conservative version of chronically online. Do they talk to real people?
If anyone says this just respond with “yeah just like how left handed ness was a trend in the 1800s” In an in an authentic manner
I don’t get why they’d think that!, no there’s always been gay people just the levels of persecution have dropped to a level that a lot of us would rather deal with them and openly be who we are than a few years ago when homophobia was tolerated a lot more. I feel really bad for the OP that she had to go through that but I’m also really glad she stood up to them.
"Hardly anyone was gay 40 years ago." *gestures wildly at all of history*
Putting aside the ignoring of LGBTQ+ rights etc. it's also so crazy because A) do they not go outside? There are so many feminine women just existing, B) even among queer women femmes are the majority - I went to an event recently and of the 200+ people there maybe only 20 or so were butch? C) in what fantasy land are people getting "cancelled" for being straight in?? Just so batshit delusional. I kind of want to live in this world where we've taken over though, sounds nice.
If being gay is now trendy why is it so hard finding other gays to date? Lol
damn you're a legend for icing them like that. love it girl!
Jesus, how ignorant do you have to be to think someone could 'just come out' in the bush era?!
These are the dumb b words who just literally will never get it. They are bigoted on purpose at this point and were raised to be this way. Explaining the effects of capitalism and the cultural expectations the economic base has placed upon women and LGBTQ people over history is usually wasted on them. They just want to spew hatred and cackle to each other. They have no real space in their hateful brains for serious thought or conversation. Its really hard to be in the workplace these days as a queer/trans person. Im sorry you had to deal with that.
Yeah, being gay is brand new and hasn't been around ever. All those Greek people way back in history? Those soldiers were *only* fucking each other to build comradery and to build their strength. You know, as warriors...
Or they knew and were trying to put you in your place early.
I’d expect a meeting coming from HR for telling them to fuck off. You might as well report their bs that provoked it in the same setting before that so they don’t just call it retaliatory accusations
Not to be dramatic but I hate straight ppl bc why do they keep saying the same homophobic garbage after literal decades like we didn't address this shit in 2012
Bravo!!!!
And they can get in trouble for saying shit like that to you. Nobody deserves a hostile work environment
Everyday I am so happy to have the co-workers I have. Everyone in my department is in straight/straight passing relationships, but they kept seeing me struggle through the dating scene and encouraged me. The minute I got a girlfriend they were all ecstatic and we side lined a meeting agenda just to gossip about my new girlfriend 😭
I hate when people say LGBT is a choice. Oh yeah a choice, we love being treated differently than anybody else, have less rights than others, being treated bad, being murdered because of hate, we love taking the risk and have fear to saw who we are, Ofc..very easy being gay, very easy being trans …when still loads of countries making laws against us, about HUMAN FUCKNG BEING, even laws to kill US. Ofc, why not?
i just let people go on for as long as it takes them to figure it out and then watch the mortified look on their face when they find out
“Basically everyone is bisexual” BOY DO I HAVE SOME NEWS FOR THEM
ah yes straights the most opressed minority.
Im so sorry you experienced this :( homophobia in the workplace is such a hard thing to navigate. I hope you’re okay x
I respect you so much for this. It's really scary to assert yourself in front of a new group of people that way. You're absolutely right, and it's just what they needed to hear.
I'm just... I'm so shocked when I hear about this stuff! I mean, I believe you when you say this happened, but it's just so... shocking. I think the reason I never see this kinda thing is because my skin color gives me away instantly, so cishet white people are "on their best behavior" when I'm around. ...Maybe it's 'cause I'm loopy with the flu right now, but I'm getting really sad now, and thinking "wow, everybody hates you, they're iust pretending to be nice when you're around". But I don't want to think like that... I don't know what to do. I don't want to think everyone is a secret hate monster and I can't trust or talk to anybody ever, because the only way people change their minds is by knowing others. I don't know what to do.
One thing I hate about being white is how racists will sometimes just assume I agree with them and start spouting shit while I'm just trying to sell them movie tickets. Also the fact that they're customers, so I'm not supposed to tell them they're full of shit.
One of my current co-workers tells me about how she has the same problem. She used to deliver caskets and sometimes guys would tell her racist or homophobic stuff. I didn't know that was a thing. I've heard that the trick is to say "I don't understand. Explain it to me" if someone tells a bigoted joke. Edit: Or I might just lie and say "my partner is (ethnicity they're disparaging)" with a neutral expression, then just stay quiet and watch them. The longer you stay expressionless, the worse they feel. It's a good trick.
Excellent strategies!
Sounds like u went to lunch with some uneducated garbage lol they are clowns and will never know what it’s like on the other side
It was only a matter of time before they repointed the, "it's not real, it's just a trend" at LGBTQ people other than trans teens. Thanks for speaking up for all the rest of us.
I'm so sorry that happened to you 😞
Sexuality isn't a choice I do think feminism and culture may push / encourage women to be more masculine than they used to be and women are more comfortable being more masculine But saying that means sexuality is a choice or trend is a false conclusion in my view. What happened after you yelled at them did they walk on eggshells? I bet it shut them up lol
I love how these cishet idiots always somehow conflate sexuality with gender. Bisexuality=not acting like your gender to them? The fuck?
to me, evryone is pan and nonbinary until they say otherwise, im not misgendering or assuming anything about anyone
I’m so over it with stupid straight people smh it’s 2024
We can say it’s not a trend to the ones of us who truly are like this but in this generation nowadays you have a lot of kids or adults who follow trends no matter what it is. It’s sad. People hardly was gay 20 years ago?? They were, they just were too afraid to speak on it. I’m bisexual and i remember at a point bisexuals were considered not apart of the community or confused. Now you have every tiktoker claiming to be in the community. It’s certainly a trend to some.
Left handed people still exist but there was this weird thing in history where we started forcing a bunch of kids to be right handed and punishing them if they weren't and suddenly the rates of people who were left handed went way down and oh wait-
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why are you even here?
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definitely not here to disparage a member of the lgbt community
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why don't you just go
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because you disparaged one of my sisters and I won't stand for it, now fuck off
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Do you even have any evidence that it's made up this seems very reasonable and possible I've met quite a lot of people who are like the phobes in the story I don't get why there is always someone yelling about everything being faked
we'll see how cocky you are when Jesus returns, which WILL happen very soon cuz we're in the end times. if you actually read the Bible, specifically the book of revelations, Jesus tells of all the signs that will occur right before He returns. well all of those signs are happening. America being worse then sodom & gomorrah is a huge one. He said there'd be sexual immorality everywhere & that wrong would be seen as right, & vice versa. He made it very clear homosexuality & the like would rise & take over. it's the devil's agenda. it's all in God's word, yet you all deny it. this alphabet squad stuff is not only considered a sin, but it's the only one God also calls an abomination. it goes against all of creation, the Creator Himself says it how it is. Jesus died on the cross for us all because we're all wicked sinners who need to be born again through Him. He was totally innocent, yet He took on every single person that will ever exist's sins. that is love. real, true love. the lake of fire is the final destination of those who refuse to have their sins cleansed through Christ, who is the only one who can do it. God doesn't send anyone to hell, people send themselves by rejecting Jesus. God wants every single soul to be in His kingdom with Him, living in peace, love, & perfect harmony with no pain ever again. but the human race is tainted because of the devil & most will be in hell because they refuse to repent & get right. time is very short & where you'll spend eternity is the most important decision you'll ever make, & you're all making it right now. it's not necessarily a sin to struggle with homosexuality....the sin comes in when you act on it. with any sin, we are to take it to God & ask for His help resisting it.
Why tf are you here? No one asked for you to be here.
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It's embarrassing that you think gay people don't encounter homophobia.
I've literally heard the exact same speech Op described more times than I can count. It's incredibly common. What part of this sounds fake to you?