fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5646 ]

[ SECRET POST #5646 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5646 ⌋

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Notes:

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WTF. Why are straight people like this? I'm sorry you had to experience this!

They aren't. Queer people gatekeep other queer people and then get accused of being straight by the people who are gatekept because even the gatekept don't want to believe other queer people can be bigots too. Moreover, it's largely young queer people, so they're neither straight nor older.

DA - This entire exchange made me so confused. What IS the "right" way to be queer anyway? I suppose I never had the misfortune of being confronted by one such young misguided queer person.

Here are just a few of the most common ones:

-If you're bi or pan and your partner is the opposite gender, you're not queer enough.
-If you're anything except 100% gay, you're not queer enough. If you're aro or ace, sometimes you're not queer at all.
-Transmedicalism (if you don't medically transition, you're not trans)
-If you're flamboyant, you're an offensive stereotype.
-If you're not flamboyant, you're a bootlicker.
-If you like "problematic" BL or het, you're a straight girl no matter what you say your gender or sexuality is.

+1000 to all of these

also
-If you're trans and you pass, we'll call you cishet
-If you're trans and you don't pass, we'll misgender you
-If your queer Leather identity is important to you, we'll try to kick you out of Pride because the sight of chaps make children cry, supposedly
-If you're nonbinary or genderqueer or agender, we'll judge you based on what we think you "really" are based on your selfies/pfp and you don't get to fight back against it
-If you're a bi woman, we think you're straight and lying about it. If you're a bi man, we think you're gay and lying about it

Person who asked: oh, thanks to both of you. But isn't that... a human thing, not fandom-specific? For instance, the different stances on being "flamboyant" - I assume it's not the same people complaining. In short, I don't think it's part of the fandom experience, and I agree that both straight and non-straight people can be "gatekeep-y" in that way. Maybe it's just me (and my fandoms) but in my experience, fandom people tend to be more accepting (ie. less bigoted) in general than non-fandom people.

(SA) Of course I don't mean it's alright to be... wrong - all I am saying is that it's part of the queer experience everywhere, not only in fandom spaces, or maybe it's just that in MY fandoms it hasn't been worse than elsewhere in the world? And even more than that it's also part of the (misguided) human experience to try and gatekeep?

OP of thread

Sorry if I was confusing. I'm lucky to live in a blue city with a very liberal group of family/friends, so I really never see it anywhere outside of this one specific fandom. (And because people in other comments are talking about this aspect specifically, I'm not just assuming people who are being jerks are straight, I'm only talking about people who have themselves said that they are straight women.)

I mean, yes, some queer people do gatekeep to the rest of us, and it's a mix of older terf lesbian separatists, 'gold star' gays, and young kids who have no real world experience with the community but get harmful messaging from the former, but straight people ABSOLUTELY do it as well?? Outside of fandom it's usually the 'be less gay in public' crowd or the straight men who are gross to queer women, but historically, I (nayrt but a queer man in fandom) have struggled with older women who self-ID as straight long before dealing with gatekeepy queer teenagers, and they haven't disappeared just because they're not the only game in town.

Like, when I was a teen, much of fandom was DOMINATED by straight adult women and while het ships were king back in the day and many fandoms had aggressive pushback against any queer shipping whatsoever, the 'slash fandoms' still had straight fans who had Opinions. Thankfully, they also had a lot of fellow queer fans who were starting to assert their voices and be out and proud online (or at least semi-anonymously so) and who were building communities that were more queer friendly. But for a good stretch of time, we mostly weren't gatekeeping each other!

DA

Queer people have been gatekeeping each other forEVER. When I was in college in the early 90s there were huge shouting matches about whether bi people should be allowed in the (as it was then called) Lesbian/Gay Alliance. It wasn't coming from straights because they weren't involved at all. Second-wave lesbian feminism was unbelievably hostile to trans and bi women. (See Michigan Womyn's Music Festival). Gay male culture has been historically often extremely brutal to trans men and bi men. That's not even getting into the huge fights between more mainstream-friendly, assimilationist factions vs the more radical ones + the drag, camp, leather contingents. Let's not have too rosy a view of "the queer community" because like they say, those who don't know history, etc.

I see a lot of these same arguments that I hoped were settled 30 years ago coming up again and again and again because younger queers keep reinventing the shitty gatekeeping wheel.

OP of thread

Thank you! I don't know why some people in this thread are assuming that I'm No True Scotsmaning the situation or something. The people I'm talking about have said *themselves* that they are straight women, so that's what I'm going by. Queer people can be judgmental and gatekeep, too, and I'm never going to claim otherwise. And while I find it annoying, I realize that we all have different life experiences and our opinions on things can be vastly different based on the culture where we grew up/what our families were like/a million other variables, and that's fine. What I have an issue with is self-described straight women complaining about someone being not flamboyant enough/too flamboyant/bi and in an opposite sex relationship/not comfortable with PDAs/whatever.

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen some anti deliberately erasing people's identities because they want to believe the only people who disagree with them are white straight women.

There's that shit going on with the Boyfriends comic right now, people are screaming about how it's "fetishization by white straight fujoshis" on and on and on. The creator is an Asian trans man. He's getting misgendered left and right for weeks because gatekeepers don't like the way he draws his queer male characters.

So if you see someone being accused of being straight, you can't necessarily assume that it's true. Bring your critical thinking to call-outs and don't take it at face value just because it's coming from other queer people.

Anon who asked: Oh. Had no idea about this. I saw people complaining about, what was it? Fetishizing Orientalism or something? And I saw the pictures and they were just horny fanart to me. Like, the same kind that people draw of characters in dresses, jeans or whatever but they happened to be wearing "traditional" clothing. And the kids called this person a "she" so I assumed that was their gender. The fact that it's an Asian trans man makes me see things in a very different light...

OP of thread

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen some anti deliberately erasing people's identities because they want to believe the only people who disagree with them are white straight women.

I'm not "anti" anything (other than people who are judgy and narrow-minded), and I'm not erasing anyone's identity. Maybe that's something that people do, but I'm personally only talking about people who have specifically said themselves that they are straight women (and I have no idea if they're white, that's never come up because there's never been a reason for it to).

OP of thread

I'm specifically talking about people who have said themselves that they are straight women (and one in particular who constantly describes herself as "old"). There are other queer people who gatekeep, and it annoys me, but it's just a whole different level of infuriating when self-described straight people do it.

OP of the thread

I doubt anyone will see this this late, but I just wanted to be clear.

To all the people commenting that it's not actually straight people, but other queer people being called straight because some people don't like what they're saying: I'm talking specifically about people who have described THEMSELVES as straight women.

There are plenty of other queer people in the fandom that say things I disagree with and that's fine. We're all different, with different experiences in our own lives and with the community at large, and while I might think some of them are sometimes gatekeep-y and it annoys me, it's a whole different thing than when *self-identified straight people* do it.

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