soultired:

kararikue:

Yes, not all queer people can come out. For some, the threat of violence is tangible and ever-present. For some, the fear of rejection is too great.

However, there needs to be more talk about those among us who could never be closeted even if they wanted to. They NEVER passed as cis and/or straight.

They LIVED with the violence, not just the threat of it. They LIVED the rejection and not just the fear.

As we critique an LGBTQ movement that asks us to come out into the crossfire, we should be thinking of those live in it without a choice.

Can I just say I hate this use of the term “privilege”?

You cannot have two opposite things both be privileges.  It is not a privilege to be able to come out and a privilege to be able to be closeted.  That’s just the issue being really complex and trying to turn it into one thing being a privilege just simplifies it.  The privilege is being straight and not having to worry about coming out or passing.  Just because it sucks that you aren’t able to do something other people in your group can do doesn’t mean they have a privilege.  The privilege comes from not being in that group in the first fucking place.

This is such a common point of misunderstanding and argument I feel like there should be a word for “advantage of being in a specific subset of a less privileged group”. Because while these advantages really aren’t the same as privileges (since there is always some balancing disadvantage) it is important to keep such differences in experience in mind.

Of course “not everyone experiences a shared oppression the same way as you” is apparently COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE for most people to comprehend or remember so maybe a disambiguating term wouldn’t help :/