Читать книгу The Savvy Ally - Jeannie Gainsburg - Страница 43

If someone comes out to you, do try to avoid asking, “Are you sure? Perhaps this is just a phase.” Even if you truly think that this might just be a phase, saying it aloud is unlikely to be received well. If it is a phase, the person will figure it out in their own time. For now it’s their reality and it should be respected. If it’s not a phase, you are at risk of really pissing them off.

Another question to avoid asking is when they “decided” to be LGBTQ+. Just as I didn’t choose or decide to be straight or cisgender, LGBTQ+ people don’t choose their identities. A better question to ask is, “How long have you known this about yourself?”

A great point by Dannielle Owens-Reid and Kristin Russo, from their book This Is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids,⁶ is to avoid saying “I always knew,” even if you did. You may be pleased by your expert sleuthing, but keep it to yourself. Hearing that you knew already may make the person coming out to you feel foolish or cowardly for waiting so long, diminish the importance of the information they want to share with you, cause them to wonder what they did to make it so obvious, and make them worry that others can also tell.

Finally, you should also avoid asking questions about a person’s anatomy or sexual behaviors. There is an interesting phenomenon that sometimes happens when people talk about LGBTQ+ individuals and the LGBTQ+ communities: Their heads go right to the person’s body parts and/or what they are doing in the bedroom. Being LGBTQ+ is not a bedroom issue and it does not give us a free pass to ask invasive questions about someone’s body or sex life. It’s about being able to live authentically and safely in all aspects of life. So asking a gay man who has just come out to you, “Have you slept with a guy yet?” or asking a trans woman, “Are you planning on having surgery?” is not okay. Just because someone comes out to you does not mean that they are required to be an open book. If you’re curious about what LGBTQ+ people actually do in the bedroom or what types of surgeries are available for transgender people, do some online research.

If someone comes out to you and you’re not sure if a question is okay or not, the “switch it” technique is useful: Switch the person’s LGBTQ+ identity for straight or cisgender and try the question again in your head. Is the question polite, supportive, or useful, or is it offensive, invasive, or motivated by curiosity? Never in my fifty-six years of living have I ever had anyone ask me, “Do you think being cisgender might just be a phase?” or, “How do you know you’re straight if you’ve never slept with a woman?” Our society believes I am on the “right” course and therefore no one has ever questioned my sexual orientation or gender.

Another great thing to keep in mind that may help to steer you away from inappropriate questions is that sexual orientation and sexual behaviors are completely separate things. One has to do with whom we are attracted to and the other is what we actually do. Think about when you first knew whom you were attracted to. I had a pretty solid idea by the time I was in third grade. Was I having sex yet? No. I didn’t need to have sex to know that my little nine-year-old heart went pitter-patter every time I looked at Danny Fox.