True Ally

I used to get accusations of being gay a lot because I had a lot of friends that happened to be women and I didn't constantly sexually harass them or whatever.

I physically can not be gay. I instinctively chew anything that is in my mouth for more than ten seconds.

Fucking hamsters writing comments on Lemmy

I'm a straight guy. I don't wish I was gay, but being bi would be pretty cool. Twice the options.

sadly it still equals zero
- As they say, 2 x 0 = 0

I used to work at a tech repair shop right next to a big lbgtq hub in my city and there'd be gays guys in there a couple times a day who thought I was gay. Never once did I find it offensive, everyone in there always had the best outfits that look like they had a professional stylist, the most clear skin I've ever seen and the confidence of an alligator in a chicken coop. I know that's kind of a stereotype but that's exactly what it was and I would love getting lumped in with the group.

The tips there we're a lot better than the other spots in the city too, no fights, the store only got robbed once in the 3 years I worked there and the customers weren't dickheads who'd walk in, throw their broken phone on the counter (breaking it more) and say "fix this" without saying another word. It really was a decent spot to work.

Exposing people's insecurities is not a test of allyship.

Why is this okay because they are straight? Imagine saying you thought your Trans friend was a man, when they are trying to present as a woman.

These kind of tests are so toxic, and serve nothing but to spark an argument and hurt feelings.

You are part of the problem.

I don't see how those two are related at all and honestly treating them as interchangeable is... cringe.
There is no harm in suggesting you thought someone was gay or straight, especially because sexuality has nothing to do with outward appearance and can be kinda nebulous to infer at all. If you're not comfortable with the idea of being lgbt+, how are you an ally? Nothing differentiates a gay man from a straight one, outside of attraction to other men.
Whereas so much of trans struggles and validity relate to how they're/we're perceived. Do I pass enough to shit in the restroom that conforms to my identity?
- So you think there isn't a lot of extremely toxic male culture that will make men feel invalid for not being perceived as straight? Because that shits everywhere. It's perfectly normal to struggle with that, feeling insecure about your self image has nothing to do with your support of others.
  And insecurities can come from very personal things and no one should be judged for them. Lying about how you perceived someone as a "test" is toxic as fuck.
- As someone agender this entire thread is wild to me. I accept any gender, any pronouns, and do not care how people percieve me. None of this seems offensive to me, whether people thought i was trans or gay or whatever. Pretty sure the offense is mostly just whether offense was intended.
- What do you mean there's no harm? People still get killed for being gay, yeah?
100% agree. It’s only going to alienate people who would have otherwise been supporters.
Crappy comparison...
Yeah, calling a straight person gay as a joke/bit is not even remotely comparable to deliberately misgendering a trans person, and it's kinda crass and disgusting to pretend it is. Screams to me that you don't actually know any trans people, or at least no closely enough to understand how devastating such a comment can be to them.
Straight people, with very few, if any, exceptions, didn't grow up being told they're gay. Being forced by society to express themselves as gay, even though it made them feel awful. They didn't spend potentially decades feeling unwelcome in their own skin. They don't spend hours upon hours worrying that society won't accept than as "a real straight". They don't spend days worrying about the hate crime, discrimination and legal persecution they are susceptible to if they don't look straight enough. Triggering that level of trauma isn't the same as making someone slightly uncomfortable because they found out they unknowingly didn't express their outward sexuality as strongly as they felt. It isn't remotely, on any level, comparable, and that is an objective truth.
I am also notably not defending calling straight people gay. I'm just pointing out that deliberately misgendering a trans person is on a completely different plane of shitty behaviours. Not every shitty behaviour is automatically equally shitty.
Classic straight people. You're just completely unwilling accept that some mildly crappy behaviour towards you isn't universally described as the worst behaviour ever. I bet you people also think that calling a white person a cracker is exactly the same as calling a black person the N-Word.
- with very few, if any, exceptions, didn’t grow up being told they’re gay
  Except just about every guy who has ever been bullied. While the bullies usually don't actually believe that, it certainly explains why straight men get defensive about someone thinking that they're gay. Plus it's just inconvenient if you're trying to find a girlfriend.
Shit, you're right. Without allies like you, how would we learn and grow? Thank you for your insights.
- Not an ally, Im a member bitch. And this aint okay

I mean yes but no. I think a lot of gay people would also react poorly if you called them straight and thats why you shouldnt.

As a cis male, I support women 100%. I would not want someone to think I am one. This is a shitty and childish way to alienate supporters.

EDIT: the irony that people are actually telling me I’m the one that has the problem for saying I’d correct someone if they said I was something I am not is god damned delicious!

Where exactly at any point in this post does anyone talk about calling a cis male a woman?
The post is about calling a straight person gay. Equating gayness with not being (real) man is hella homophobic.
Excuse me for making the mistake of pointing out that being slightly crappy towards a straight person isn't the end of the fucking world.
You're so right, straight people already have to deal with so much discrimination and worries regarding their sexuality, it's totally fair to compare it to misgendering a trans person, after all, we all know straight people on average worry just as much about their sexuality, and societal acceptance of their sexuality, than trans people do.
And I would bet fucking money, that if someone was arguing that misgendering a trans person isn't that bad, all of you people down voting me wouldn't have half as much issue with that.
- So, I’m guessing there’s a bit of trouble extrapolating the point here.
  At no point did anyone talk about calling a cis male a woman. That wasn’t the point being made.
  What I did, was I used myself to illustrate being called something I’m not, and then gauging whether or not I still can say I support said thing even if don’t want to be called said thing.
  I suppose I could have used animals as an example instead? I am all-in on supporting animal rights, minded domain, and stand firmly against animal abuse, though I’d prefer not to have people refer to me as a chihuahua.
  Or what about nature conservation? I fully sport the protection of nature and wildlife habitats, however I’d prefer not to be referred to as a sycamore tree.
  The point is, one can very much support something while preferring people not assume that they are that thing. It’s not about whether or not it offends them, It’s about them feeling that they should be respected for who and what they are.
  Isn’t that what it’s all about anyway??

there’s a lot more to what it means to be perceived as gay in this society than just that person, personally hating gay people.
i had someone say that to me and i’m just extremely self conscious so i was just trying to figure out why….
was it my tone of voice? mannerisms?
all these penises in my mouth?
Is that why women are seldom romantically interested in me? Do they all think i’m gay? is that the key to my loneliness? (probably just the ugly part).
if you tell someone, “oh i figured you like country music” and they don’t, they’re going to wonder why.
and i don’t know if they stopped, but kids used to be pretty mean calling people gay… it can be kind of a “touching on childhood trauma” thing.

my advice: don’t “trick” people with clever “tests” and try to be genuine with your friends. If you’re gay and you have straight friends, those friends probably aren’t the problem even if they have a problem with being misidentified as gay.

Agree. Let's approach this from the rational angle. "If they don't react how I think they should react, then they must be..." But that's clearly not a rational process. Its not even a decent heuristic.
there's contexts where it could be fine I think, like if you know your friend will take it lightly, and you're not taking it seriously either. but actually trying to test someone with that is stupid
I feel the need to emphasize that there is no difference between a straight person and a gay person outside of where they fall on the kinsey scale, just as there's no difference between a trans person and a cis person, outside of the difference between their physical traits and preferred gender.
People are made up of tens of billions of neurons firing in a complicated puzzle, every one of us is unique and different. We should use caution and discretion in defining and perceiving the labels we use to categorize people using any trait that is not directly influenced by that trait.
- i don’t believe in labeling people as such either, but for the sake of being able to communicate i’ve used the vernacular terms aforementioned, here within.
  Also the kinsey scale is yet another human attempt to collapse the broad, multidimensional aspects of sexuality into a one dimensional “scale”. Like the “political spectrum” plane, it’s overly reductive and attempts to understand and explain the elephant by feeling its tail.
I think that's more of a tell on your own insecurities if the notion makes you uncomfortable. You can't tell if someone is gay, even if there are some trends/social queues.
- But the trends and social queues are important for how people view you, and how people view you has a big impact on your life. e.g. imagine you were trying to flirt with people but everyone you talk to assumes that you're not into their gender.
- you should look up “gaydar”

I feel like this is more of a test for confidence than for supportiveness.

Trans people get both deliberately and accidentally misgendered all the fucking time. They're subject to ongoing legal persecution and discrimination, and people barely give half a shit, but someone dares call a straight guy gay, and the internet suddenly needs to come out in full force to defend the rights of the poor, discriminated straight men who have it oh so hard in society, and literally compare it to the plight of a trans person getting misgendered.

Equating misgendering a trans person and calling a straight person gay is like equating calling a recent white south African immigrant a Boer and calling a black south African the N-Word. Just because both are shitty behaviour, doesn't mean they're comparable.

When we get into infighting where we're scorekeeping who has it worse, we're playing their game.
- It's not infighting or scorekeeping to point out that by and large trans people in western countries, at the moment, face far more identity based hate, discrimination and persecution than straight people do.
  It's also not infighting to point out the hypocrisy in people on the internet and broader society, outside of explicitly curated trans friendly spaces, regularly getting far more outraged at cis het people receiving hate or discrimination or shitty behaviour for their identity, than they do for the ongoing legal and social persecution of trans people.
  Pointing that out is also isn't defending shitty behaviour towards straight people. Poking at the insecurities of anyone is unacceptable. But in my opinion, equating the two as similarly bad, is demeaning, insulting and belittling towards the massive struggles trans people face.
- Then don't fight someone who makes absolutely true statement and is justified in saying it. Stop playing their game.

I don't think that would be my reaction as a straight man, but I could see why some people could be upset by others thinking that they were gay. It means you are not projecting the kind of appearance and energy you are trying to. It's like telling a trans man "oh when we first met I thought you were a woman." Maybe they can laugh that off but it probably stings still. It doesn't mean they think being a woman is inferior to being a man.

Yeah, this kinda feels similar to the whole "you can't be racist against white people/sexist against men" that tries to turn it into a cycle of revenge rather than bring anyone together.
It seems just like false flag division tactics. On the surface it seems like a good point, but you peel it back a bit and see it's more likely to just drive away people who might otherwise be on your side for not being "supportive enough".
- If you're not comfortable being perceived as lgbt+, are you an ally?
  I think that's what this post is asking.
There's more to it than that, being gay 30 years ago was enough to ruin your career - even if there wasn't any proof. This is where the term "metrosexual" came from in the 2000s. Being gay was so bad that men came up with a word that meant "I'm straight but I like to shower and dress nicely."
So if you're a Millennial or older, odds are that you still carry the scars from that stigma to some extent, even if you're an ally. When I was a kid, calling something gay was the worst you could get without swearing.
There's no difference between a gay man and a straight man, outside of specifically who they're trying to fuck. Suggesting someone might be one or the other isn't harmful, since there's no real way to tell without asking.
Telling a man they didn't pass is rude af.
I don't see how those can be equivocated. Sexual preference and gender identity are different things defined, characterized, and experienced in wildly different ways.
- If straight and gay men are so similar then what made your hypothetical friend seem gay to you? Are you implying that society associates certain behaviors with sexuality and that you observed gay-coded behavior in him?
- You literally mention the difference but then want to ignore the implications of that difference.
  Gay men and Straight men generally have differences on average in what they do to attract perceived partners past the baselines of having a pulse and being a functional human being.
- I get what you mean, and certainly you never know for sure if someone is straight or gay when you first get to know them... but are you saying you never make assumptions based on how someone dresses, talks, carries themselves, and interacts with the men and women around them?

A lot of people thought I was gay my answer was always "Yeah, I get that a lot, not sure why though."

Is it because you're gay?
- Nope

My brothers friend came out to his group, and apparently one of them just went "gayyyyy" and they had a laugh and that was that.

I'd say "because I'm stylish and I work out?" (Context: I'm fat and wear jeans and graphic tees year round)

A gay dude hit on me and I was super flattered. I told him that he looked good too without saying "No Homo"

+1 ally points

I mean guys are socially conditioned to feel inferior and less worthwhile as men for that kind of thing, I try not to hold it against folks as long as they're kind and choose to act in support

It takes some people a looong time to unlearn that internalized rubric. Sometimes it even takes gay guys a long time to unlearn it

I'd be interested to know why they thought that too. Not sure why that's a bad thing

When people tell me "I thought you were gay," or whatever, I reply, "I'm not, but thank you for noticing me."

My gay friends have told me that I'm one of the least gay people they've ever seen. I don't totally know what that means, but it weirdly hurts.

"Yeah, lots of people do. My parents did, too."

I actually get this fairly frequently. I don't read as terribly cis, but I am.

I used to get it a lot when I was young because I didn't have a girlfriend. I was always like "....Yeah it's not because I'm 5'3, shy as fuck, got the shit bullied out of me at school for 6 years straight, and don't go to social activities, I'm just gay..." Assholes.
My life as a cis male massage therapist

My queer kids seem to think I am lesbian. The girlfriends "are you sure your mom isn't lesbian?" I literally have birthed 4 of kids , half of that set queer, and myself had only 2 long term relationships, both with men. I'm only into men, as far as I can tell. Am not offended in the least, as I get older I do wish it was so, women hold up better; and they obviously mean it as a compliment, it's just funny.

If a gay friend told me that, I would have said “you have shit taste in men”

Scalped?! Wtf kind of racist-ass slang is that?

What’s racist about it?
- Doesn't matter, don't use it
scalp(v.)
1670s, "to deprive of the scalp, cut off (someone's) scalp," from scalp (n.), originally in reference to North American natives.

did women read in cosmo that inferring a guy is gay makes a good pickup line? or do I just look gay? Shit is confusing AF, but I suspect the former.

This was my life in the early 90’s the gay clubs had better music and women felt safer there. Many girlfriends started off by them saying “too bad your gay other wise we would be fucking.”

Lmao. Would love to hear this from a gay man. Would just simply say, I don't have the fashion drive to be a gay man.

I used to get clocked as gay all the time back when I could afford to dress myself. This was before I knew. I still am queer, but now I just live in crisis levels of poverty, can't afford to dress- my life is in shambles, and I never get called out on it anymore. -sigh-

"is it because I'm fabulous?" ✨ 🌈😻😘