Hey, real quick rant:
Don’t be mean to people who ask questions.
I hate it when i see someone asking ‘so wait, if a trans woman like women, is she gay or straight?’ and suddenly a dozen people jump on their ass for being ignorant or transphobic or whatnot- when all they had to do was answer the question. All you had to is go ‘She’s gay!’, and the person would go ‘oh, cool!’ and now they know. They just had a positive interaction with trans folks.
But if you belittle them, now they’ve learned they’re punished for asking. They’re punished for wanting to know, for wanting to learn, and for coming directly to the people who live that life instead of just going to google. And they come away not having learned anything except that those people were dicks to them.
Everyone is clueless at some point. When I was 10, I was homophobic. I was a kid, raised around homophobic parents in a homophobic country. But one day i decided hey, i want to learn, and i found some gay friends and I asked them some questions.
Do you think i’d be here; if they had told me that i was an ignorant fuck, that i should pull my head out of my ass, that I shouldn’t have asked those things?
It was thanks to them that I learned and grew as a person, because even though i was a stupid homophobic kid with some admittedly stupid questions, they answered them, because everybody starts clueless.
It doesnt matter how young or old or who they are either- everyone starts somewhere. And lord knows, I’ve had some people ask me some stupid questions. My government teacher came to me yesterday and asked me that exact question i mentioned above, and I answered it. He’s a 40-something year old dude. He’s trying to learn.
My little brother is 9, and asked me once if being gay meant that I wanted to kiss every girl i met. Was it a stupid question by my standards? yes. Did I answer it like it was any other normal question? Also yes.
Insulting people who are trying to learn is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever encountered. It can literally mean the difference between someone becoming part of the community or trying to take us down. We judge that; we control how we educate.
Do yourself a favor and educate. Everyone starts somewhere, and it’s our job to help them along, not tear them down.
It’s also worth noting that some of the people asking might be questioning their gender or sexuality, or have a relative or friend who just came out to them and want to support them.
And if you’re uncomfortable about a question, like if they’re asking “how do you have sex as a lesbian?” or “have you gotten sex reassignment surgery?” or anything else personal or invasive let them know that it’s an inappropriate question to ask! Recommend that they look for an LGBT group online that welcomes and answers questions like these. It’s super awkward when this happens, but people have these questions and sometimes don’t know the boundaries. Generally people don’t have bad intentions with these questions.
/sometimes/ people ask these questions with no intention to actually learn, but you should answer the question as if it’s genuine unless you’re proven otherwise /by the person/
