Gay men being men are by far the most difficult part of my queer journey
Would be nice to see the numbers for straight cis people as well. I mean, as a queer person, i can talk all day long about the genre of guy that's the reactionary, bourgeoisified, transphobic, biphobic, acephobic, misogynist, racist, ableist cis gay man who wants to keep his hegemonial role in the community while pulling up the ladder in his defeatist assimilationism. I know guys like that, i've seen former friends become like this, they're insufferable, there's too many of them and this is a real problem for organizing in queer spaces, but i generally do not feel comfortable having that kind of converation with cishet dudes, in a similar way in which a black person would probably feel weird if i as a white woman got worked up about black assimilationists more than i get worked up about my racist former gay friend.
Firstly, most straight dudes don't even remotely understand the context in which assimilationist queer people operate because they do not know what it's like having to navigate a queerphobic society as a queer person and how easily queer people can take a wrong turn and try to demonstrate fealty to cishetnormativity instead of doing the reasonable thing of throwing bricks at it (this is also why i do not talk much about transmedicalism outside of trans spaces even though it's one of my main red button issues within them). Secondly, the problem is that both from my personal experience and from similar polls, the number of shitheads is notably higher among the straights, even straight women, than among gay guys, and the number of people who do actual, meaningful trans allyship among the gay community is a lot higher. On a website full of cishet dudes with ... let's say with room to grow when it comes to views on gender issues and sexuality, there's just a lot of potential for deflection here.
Not saying we should go soft on the dollar store Yiannopoulos kind of gay man, not saying a straight guy reading this shouldn't push back against transphobic bs from a log cabin republican, but each of you knows ten times as many transphobic straight people than transphobic gay people, and if you wanna be an ally, you should focus on battling transphobia in your own back yard. Playing up gay and lesbian transphobia because it seems more credible and harder to attack is clearly a conservative tactic at this point, do not contribute to weaponizing idpol and platforming the Olly Londons and Kathleen Stocks of this world. They are fringe figures in our communities and to push them further to the fringe, we have to avoid giving them the engagement they're supposed to get.
Envisioning this chart but with "straight woman" and "straight man" categories both at like 30% negative.
Honestly I was surprised that 13% negative is as bad as it got here.
It absolutely is, but i can only explain to cis people why they shouldn't trust trans people who advocate for medical gatekeeping or who deny the validity of nonbinary folks. That's easy and necessary. OTOH explaining to cis people at which point a trans person having a bad dysphoria day becomes a trans person with truscum brainworms pathologizing their transness is too much treading the needle and too much nuance for a casual conversation with somebody who's never felt dysphoria and where i don't know what the cis person will take away from it. So i prefer to leave that kind of stuff that goes beyond the blatantly obvious to conversations that take place within trans spaces.
synthesis: all cis men should be treated with caution when it comes to their transphobia
I tend to overlook that because i need to treat all men with caution when it comes to their misogyny
don't really love the phrasing of this question. I don't necessarily view transgender people positively because I don't view transgender people as a monolith. I certainly don't view Caitlyn Jenner or Ezra Miller positively, for example. a better question would be whether you view transgender people as their stated gender, or if you support trans rights
still I would answer yes if I had to answer this poll though
Funnily enough, people like Caitlyn Jenner and Blaire White who have massive internalized transphobia would make it so that not even 100% of trans people would answer "Positive" to this question.
i view them positively, and i think they can kill if they want to
If you were to ask me verbatim "do you view transgender people positively" I would answer neutral out of confusion because this wording is terrible
It makes sense to me, reads as "do you actively support them" from my perspective
Is there a reason to think this is a representative poll of some area or group in particular?
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/YouGov_-__LG_B_and_T_perceptions_LGBTQplus_sample.pdf
1,023 LGBTQ+ Britons age 16+ are who was polled, for whatever that's worth
Ooooooh, they're br*tish, false alarm everyone no people answered the poll (/j sadly)
Gay men, while they are gay, are unfortunately still men, and thus have all the baggage that comes with it.
Raw data here: https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/YouGov_-__LG_B_and_T_perceptions_LGBTQplus_sample.pdf
sample group is 1,023 LGBTQ+ Britons age 16+
I have to assume that means the "heterosexual" category is either all hetero trans people or people who just lied to get into the survey for some reason?
this implies self-identifying bi men are probably a decent degree less reactionary than self-identifying gay men, and tbh that makes a lot of sense
i think most bi men are still in the closet, seeing it's a lot easier to convince yourself and/or others you're straight when you actually are into women. we also face a lot of unique issues, e.g. feeling seen as less desirable to women just for our attractions, feeling erased in broader society despite outnumbering gay people, and being stereotyped and invalidated even by other queer people
so i figure bi men who'd identify as bi in a survey tend to be better adjusted, have less prejudices, come from more progressive areas, etc., whereas DL or closeted bi men are often pretty insecure people unfortunately. meanwhile, being gay is usually a lot harder to repress, so a lot of the chuddy gays just come to terms with it at some point
its generally the case, but also bi men have a lot of chasers in my experience.... even more than straight guys. so this positive view might be uh... yeah
That reminds me that I once met a bi guy who ghosted me after I told him I'm trans. It left me very confused at the time, because I had no idea that bi men could also suffer from transphobic brainworms.
The question is a bit weird for what they are prob trying to measure - as default my predisposition to towards every human is negative & stays negative until indicated or proven otherwise (via 'the getting to know someone' process).
But I also try to not be a dick towards anyone, directly or indirectly.
