Photo courtesy of Alyssa Delal Kocak
Dear straight women:
I love y’all. Like, wow, you guys are amazing. I don’t think a day goes by where a woman doesn’t amaze me. But, nevertheless, we have some things to talk about.
To be a woman is hard. To be a gay man is hard, too. While these oppressions can be similar at times, they are not the same thing. That means some things that you, a straight woman, can say to a gay man (as well as the other way around) can be quite problematic.
Stumped on examples of this? Let’s go over some of my personal faves that I’ve received:
“Hey guys! I’d like you to meet my gay best friend, Eric.” No matter how confident in our sexuality we may be, no gay man wants you to make it their first impression for them. Which facet of our persona we choose to make primary is a decision that is only to be made by us. Also, am I not good enough to be your regular best friend?
“Ugh, Eric, why aren’t you straight? If you were, we could get married and make the cutest babies!” Flattering that you want my kids, it might be. But, no. It’s hard enough for homos to find a mate, so please don’t cry oppression when your “GBF” doesn’t want to propagate with you.
“Eric, this is my other gay friend, Aman. You guys would love each other!” Contrary to my last point, no matter how hard finding same-sex love can be, no one wants to be set up with the one other gay guy at the party, unless we happen to solicit the help first.
While there have been many other instances of people making my queerness preempt the rest of my existence, these are just some of the most common occurrences. Now, please don’t think that this is me saying that y’all are worse than straight boys (you’re sure as hell not) or that I’m a heterophobe (although…), but there persists a pervasive ideal that a gay man belongs to his cisgendered heterosexual femme best friend. I’m not sure where it comes from, but the tokenization needs to stop. As we finally begin to assimilate into society without having to drop our Queerness for the first time in history, the last thing we want to do is feel honored solely for our sexuality from the people we love most.
With love,
My Gay Ass