#literally how do you grow up in western society and turn out this clueless

[elspethdixon]

Fucking tumblr won’t let me go to individual posts via a post’s notes anymore, so I’m forced to reply to this person’s homophobia and towering heaps of unchecked privilege via screenshotting their homophobic privileged commentary:

Tell me you know absolutely nothing about either Evangelical Protestantism or Catholicism without telling me, etc. In addition to gay-otlc’s valid points about sex negativity in general, several major branches of Christianity actively teach that it is better to feel no attraction than to feel same-sex/gender attraction. A huge number of allosexual gay/lesbian/bi/pan people know for a fact that many people would prefer them to be ace and that being ace or aroace would be more acceptable than being gay because they have been explicitly told this by people in positions of moral authority.

Among other things, “if you can’t be straight then please live as if you’re asexual or better yet aroace” is the official position of the Catholic Church, which teaches that gay people are “called to celibacy.” Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict both doubled down on this repeatedly when asked about it (back when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict wrote an entire statement about how disordered and morally evil homosexuality is and how being eternally chaste is the only way gay people can achieve salvation that is still considered official catholic doctrine).

“Converting” from gayness or lesbian-ness to aro-aceness is also held up as a partial success by the majority of people involved with abusive evangelical conversion therapies. Full success as an “ex-gay” is being able to force yourself to have hetero relationships, but successfully suppressing your same gender/sex desires and living as if you were aroace is considered partial success and still a good outcome and a lot of so-called “ex-gays” are held up as conversion therapy/pray-the-gay-away success stories for doing exactly that.

I can't find the post but it said something like "biphobia will have bi women believe that society wants them to be lesbians, and lesbophobia will have lesbians believe that society wants them to be bi, but the truth is society doesn't want you to be bi or lesbian. they want you to be straight" or something like that. I saw it for the first time years ago and it's stuck with me because this mindset will genuinely resolve so much of queer infighting.

Allosexual queer people will believe that society wants them to be ace and aces will believe that society wants them to be allosexual queers, and the truth is society wants you to be allosexual but only sexually attracted to the right gender in the right way.

Trans men will believe that society wants them to be nonbinary, and nonbinary people will believe that society wants them to be binary trans, and the truth is society wants you to be cis.

And the thing is, there's some truth to "I would be more accepted if I was [this queer identity] instead of [that queer identity]," because there are groups of people who will want you to be a different queer identity. There are people who want their lesbian daughters to be bi because then they have a chance of marrying a man. There are allosexual gays who want to be ace because at least then they wouldn't be sexually attracted to their own gender, which is dirty and gross and wrong. There are people who want their trans male friends to be nonbinary because they think men are all evil.

Except there are also people who would rather bi women be lesbians because dating men makes them a traitor to the queer community, or aces who want to be allosexual and gay because if they can't be attracted to the opposite gender at least they'll be attracted to someone, and people who want their nonbinary friends to be binary trans because nonbinary people are made up and stealing resources.

Society at large doesn't want you to be any queer identity. They have a very narrow idea of what you should be, and so many ideas and rules telling you what you shouldn't be. And sometimes, people unlearn some of those rules but not others, depending on who they're around while forming these opinions. Some people will unlearn exorsexism but still drink the "men are evil" juice. Some people will unlearn homophobia but not amatonormativity.

So, sometimes queer people say things like "People would accept me more if I was [different queer identity]." And sure, some people would accept you more if you were that other identity. Except some people would accept you less. Maybe your parents would accept you more if you were bi instead of lesbian, but your friends would say being bi makes you a traitor.

And in the end, it doesn't matter, because there's way to win. "More accepted" is a very relative term. More accepted by some people, sure, but you won't be really be accepted unless you're not queer.