via hershemag.com
If you’re heterosexual, in a sexual minority, CIS or in a gender minority, you’ve heard the stereotypes. Whether it be the ‘GBF’ who apparently likes shopping even more than boys, or that one gay female who hates anything and everything with a penis, they’ve all been thrown at us and others in passing, or as accusations. At times, people in the LGBTQ community use comments about stereotypes as compliments to each other, and that’s brilliant they’re owning the idea that all LGBTQ people are the same, or a particular combination of things ‘makes someone’ in a gender or sexual minority, and using it to show pride for themselves and their community. However, CIS people and heterosexual people overhearing LGBTQ people condoning these stereotypes. This often leads to CIS and/or hetero people, and people in a gender and/or sexual minority alike thinking that people can be reduced to mere stereotypes.
Yes, I know I am a gay stereotype.
Yes, my favourite artists are Panic! At the Disco and Halsey.
Yes, I have a shaved head.
Yes, I have my fair share of button-down shirts.
Yes, I’m a Buffy fan.
Yes, I address people as ‘babes’ a lot.
Yes, I own a pair of leather trousers.
Yes, I go braless a lot.
Yes, I wear snapbacks all year round.
Yes, Ruby Rose is my icon…
… but that doesn’t mean I’m doing or enjoying these things ‘because I’m LGBTQ’.
I love Halsey and Panic! – I’m overall a massive pop punk fan, and I listen to many female pop singers, especially ones that lean to the electro pop side of things.
I have a shaved head because I felt very uncomfortable with having long hair, so I cut it short and eventually decided it would look amazing and be much less effort if I shaved it! Also, what’s wrong with being in touch with your early 80’s punk side?!
I do like my button-down shirts – one was bought for when I was cosplaying Supernatural’s Dean Winchester, and the others… well, they’re a must-have accessory for anyone who wears ‘nerd t shirts’, right?
I love Buffy – I take a deep interest in the supernatural genre, and I watch numerous other shows involving supernatural creatures. I love folklore and general arse-kicking.
I can’t help but call a single person ‘babes’ – yes, I am a proud and clear part of the LGBTQ community. I hang out with a lot of people in gender and/or sexual minorities, and I’m very invested in the community and everything being in the community comes with. However, I’m also a person who is from an area near to Tottenham, London, and because of that, saying ‘babes’ doesn’t sound very out of place here. It’s earned quite a natural place among my London dialect, actually.
Listen, the leather trousers… I don’t even have an explanation. They just look good with my metal t shirts.
I do go braless, and it’s because, I’m gonna be real here, my boobs look good that way. Also, bras are uncomfortable for me! It’s much easier for me, personally, to go commando up there.
I do wear snapbacks, A) because I’m pop punk, and B) because my bald head gets cold and I lost my Vans beanie in Tottenham. They’re just good head-covers!
Ruby Rose is my icon because I am genderfluid and I have never related to a celebrity as much as I relate to Ruby Rose. I was reduced to tears at her video about genderfluidity, ‘Break Free’. I’d never seen someone express my stance on my own personal gender so clearly and simply yet so profoundly…
… So, yes, I do like and do ‘LGBTQ things’, but not on the basis that they are LGBTQ things and I must comply to them. They’re legitimate to me, but people still write myself and others off as stereotypes for it. I am proud to engage in LGBTQ culture, and be part of the community as a whole, too, and subconsciously, these things and other things are part of my pride, yet that doesn’t mean I, or anyone else, should be put into a box.
Not everything I do is ‘a gay thing’ or ‘a trans thing’ either. I’m not just a cat-desiring, beanie-loving LGBTQ person. I am also fascinated by music and human rights journalism, classic rock, Vertigo Comics, How to Get Away with Murder, media studies, Spanish… I’m not just a gay/trans person for you to laugh at or joke about because I fit your perception of what gay and trans ‘should be’…
… Although, if someone does best classify themselves as a cat-desiring, beanie-loving LGBTQ person, that’s also amazing, and means they’re just as much of a normal person. They deserve to be taken seriously, not reduced to a stereotype.
I hope, from this short description of me as a person, you have learned or realised that people aren’t ‘token gays’ or ‘token trans people’ so you can trivialise them at your leisure – things like what I listed might be the way they are for a particular reason, not just ‘because they’re gay/trans’, so it’s automatic, necessary or natural. Even if they do/enjoy things because they’re proud to be gay/trans, that’s just as cool, and they’re as complex and unique a person as anyone else.
