Читать книгу The Savvy Ally - Jeannie Gainsburg - Страница 44

What do LGBTQ+ people do in the bedroom?

 A. Have sex

 B. Read books

 C. Sleep

 D. Occasionally vacuum and change the sheets

 E. All of the above

Answer: E

A friend of mine described a workshop he participated in once where everyone in the room got an index card. On one side they wrote down their sexual orientation and gender. On the other side, they wrote down a favorite sexual activity. They then put all of the cards on a table with the “sexual activity” side up. The facilitator asked the participants to look at the sexual activities and figure out who was gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, straight, and cisgender. Guess what happened? They couldn’t do it. They had no idea. Humans can be very creative in the bedroom, and no one group has cornered the market on any one sexual activity. Are there straight couples who engage in anal sex? Yup. Are there gay couples who have never engaged in anal sex? Yup. It’s disrespectful and inaccurate to make assumptions about or to define a group of people by what we think they are doing in the bedroom.

I often hear this comment from straight, cisgender people: “No one should be out in the workplace. That’s not appropriate.” Actually, the vast majority of straight, cisgender people are out in the workplace. They talk about the movie they saw over the weekend with their wife. They have a photo of their husband on their desk. They bring their girlfriend to the company’s holiday party. This is what being out in the workplace looks like. Being out at work doesn’t mean I am going to share with you the new sexual position my partner and I just discovered. An important role for allies is to help folks understand the difference between sexual orientation (which comes with us to work) and sexual behaviors (which do not).