Since I was a kid, I failed so hard at being a guy. I’ve always been hopeless at athletics. My body type has always been pretty meek (let me not doxx myself and say more). I hate any sort of competitive environment. I can’t hold my liquor for shit. I have a very high pitched voice and an expressive way of talking. Friends have described my voice as a “gay twang”. My mum probably assumed that I was gay from day one, as I got a lot of “it’s OK to be gay” from her growing up. Sadly I had too much soy or not enough soy, because I grew up attracted to women.

Maybe you old comrades remember, but schools in the 90s were full of homophobia. “That’s so gay” criticised any action that deviated from some masculine ideal. I got this multiple times a day, and I learned to stifle my personality to avoid the rebuke of my male non-friends. I’m not even complaining, there’s so so many that had it way worse than I did.

Nowadays it’s great being a flamboyant straight dude. I can be as sweet, as empathetic, and as expressive as I want. I have cute and colourful clothing. I get really ecstatic around animals. I cry. People like me for being fun and engaged with stuff. Nowadays if some guy colleague says that’s “gay” it’s like lea-huh “are you alright mate??”

I did go some LGBT events and actions in the past, but not a lot. If I do anything positive, it’s to enforce no homophobic language with my students, which guys has gotten a lot easier in the past 20 years. Really, the kids nowadays are much better than we were. OK, I have hooked up with a few dudes here and there, but it feels like stolen valour to call myself bi.

So thanks a whole lot to all the queer people who have made my life much easier, when I’ve done so little.

    • TheDeed [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      If you were actually gay no one gave a shit

      Are you joking or have you hit your head? In the 90s?

      Yes, they very much gave a shit if you were gay. Revisionist history. Just blatantly false in the USA at least

    • TheEgoBot@lemmygrad.ml
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      3 months ago

      Whether or not it was intended as meaning specifically “you are acting like a homosexual” is irrelevant, the fact that it was a pejorative to mean silly and stupid still does the same damage, anyone who is queer is taught that they’re also silly and stupid and anyone who’s not queer is taught that they have to be afraid of not only being misread as queer but also being misread as other unrelated negative things. All it does is breed the kind of social fear that gives Op the experience they’ve had, there’s nothing to play devil’s advocate about when all of the causes are the same and all of the results are the same, at that point all the issues is one of semantics.

        • AutomatedPossum [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          3 months ago

          In a just society, debate perverts like you would be sent for rehabilitative labor in the countryside until you stop being a redditor shithead who makes up lies about the 90s not being homophobic in a thread about queer liberation. There is nothing to be gained from your devil’s advocate shit outside of your desire to insert yourself into conversations you can add nothing of value to. Fuck you.

    • CarmineCatboy2 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      3 months ago

      ‘that’s so gay’ stuff in high school and even then it was commonly understood to mean silly and stupid

      ngl thats kinda silly and stupid of you and it makes me think you weren’t in on the ‘joke’