[CW: Queerphobia, Transphobia, Parental Abuse]
If a cishet person tries so hard to label themselves as an ally to the LGBTQ+ community instead of actually putting in action that can get LGBTQ+ people to trust them by what they do instead of what they say, they are bullshitting every queer person on the planet.
I speak strongly from experience. My dad married this woman who I'll reluctantly refer to as my "stepmother". My stepmother was someone who told me, in knowing that I'm trans, that "She could not be doing more to be a better ally to me.". This shows how delusional some cishet people can be because this woman:
- Never made steps to stop deadnaming and misgendering me.
- Always referred to me as her "gay son" because she used "gay" as an umbrella term for anyone who's queer. Bisexual cis woman? Gay. Straight trans woman? Gay. Pansexual non-binary person? Gay.
- Eavesdropped on a telehealth therapy appointment I had where I said "I'm concerned that my stepmother has transphobic tendencies.". As a result, ended up giving me the silent treatment, stopped talking to me entirely FOR MONTHS, WHILE LIVING WITH ME, and called me a selfish, inconsiderate, and arrogant person who uses other people for my own gain and takes her support for granted. I had to apologize to her to get her past that, and said apology was really forced by my dad.
- Speaking of my dad, my father used an "absence of negative rather than presence of positive" point to establish that he is an ally to me. My dad would say "I'm an ally because there are parents who kick their LGBT kids out of their house and scold them for being queer. I didn't do that to you!", all while continuing to deadname me and, at the very least, subtly express discomfort with me being queer, especially because it's "unnatural and goes against God and the Catholic faith".
The plot twist? My father ended up going on an extremely bigoted rant to my face in which he aggressively called me ableist and queerphobic slurs, told me to end my life because he thinks I'm complaining and demanding too much with my gender identity, and ultimately ended up kicking me out of the house because he didn't want to put up with my poor mental health, all while simultaneously claiming he wanted to support me through my struggles.
He definitely foreshadowed him going into mask-off bigot mode with what he said in that last bullet point.
They wanted brownie points for being allies, but they never wanted to listen. A good ally never tries to set standards of what it means to be an ally. They listen to queer people and are open to adjusting their behavior, speech, and tendencies to be better at supporting them.
These people that raised me never did that!
Holy hell my parents never even claimed to be allies and they haven't been that bad 😳