since a lot of people don't have the opportunity to interact with irl queer spaces, i want to point out yet another reason why "lesbian spaces are for women ONLY" doesn't work. attending a queer space for the first time, especially while questioning your identity, is scary. you don't know the terms or lingo yet, you don't know exactly how you feel about your queer experience, you're still discovering yourself. a lot of people bring friends, or even family, to queer spaces for support. sometimes those friends and family are cishet
the first time i went to my university's pride organization, i took my cishet ally best friend. the first time i went to my current city's trans resource center to ask about starting testosterone HRT, i took my cishet ally best friend. neither time were either of them questioned. nobody saw either of them as a threat. they were welcomed just like i was.
like i don't get why this causes people to hiss like cats, but this is very, very normal, and encouraged because, here's the really important part: when those cishet folks are treated warmly and with an open reception, this creates allies. the most important part of irl queer spaces is the alliance. this part is completely lost in online queer spaces.
my college's pride organization was called "[university]'s Gay/Straight Alliance" this was 15 years ago before we moved toward using "queer" or "LGBT" as an umbrella term and were still using Gay as an umbrella for all queer experiences. the terms could be updated to something more inclusive, but the point still stands that the was on emphasis queer/non queer alliance. you were more than welcome to bring your non-queer friends and family. you were encouraged to come in and ask questions if you were not queer, but wanted to learn more. it was a space that welcomed everyone.
like, sometimes, the supportive ally parents of queer children show up, too, and we have to let them in. why would we ever sacrifice educating cishet parents on how to properly treat their children for the sake of "keeping the space for [identity] ONLY"? why would we deny cishet family members the education they need to gender and address their family members correctly? to learn more about our culture and accept us?
this is the literal lifeblood of our community. we need to open our doors to allies. we need to allow people to bring their friends and families, it's how queerphobes and non queer people come to accept and humanize us. all queer spaces need to be this accepting. and besides, we should never alienate people who are just coming out, or used to identify with a gender that doesn't "Belong" in your community. that's just not how we work around these parts.
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