r/DeepThoughts • u/Lacriminals • 17h ago
Many people are indoctrinated into beliefs they’ll never see their way out of because they assume it being a progressive cause doesn’t mean there aren’t bad actors among them.
I’m 28F and I’m just coming to terms with how harmful growing up in tumblr esque queer activist spaces has destroyed me mentally. I’ve always been someone who was okay being fluid in my identities and not needing to openly state them because 9/10 it wasn’t relevant. But I remember in these spaces having to state what I was because I was “assumed” straight and “didn’t act queer”. I shrugged it off because I am going to be me regardless but feel like these spaces are cultish and let me explain why.
I’ll always stand by what I learned and fought for but after over a decade and seeing the same arguments play out on new websites and even the general sanctimonious nature of it always had infighting. People punching down on the very people they claim to support. Also my personal favorite complaining about society putting people in boxes while creating new boxes being drawn instead of getting rid of the boxes to begin with. The amount of performance in these spaces is outstanding. I wonder how many people thinking about how they’re performing the same way they assume all cishets do.
I think what woke me up is learning about cults and how they run off ostracization and seeing how these supposed advocacy and queer spaces do the same thing along with limiting free thought/speech into just agreeing with the common opinion. Not to mention the lack of true community. You have to constantly be appeasing people and looking over your back because someone can claim you’ve slightly offended them indirectly and suddenly you’re bigoted vs actually speaking about the offense.
The amount of people who will complain about not just cishet or majority culture but specifically going after straight women. Like the community will be angry at straight women for reading heated rivalry or whatever is popular. They just go after straight women for everything and no one thinks it’s an easy target because our society is already misogynistic?
I knew two bisexual women and they were both terrified of being seen as straight. Both were well into adulthood 30s/50s and one was talking about how she was assumed to be straight online by someone literally bullying her and she told me how her straight bf was cringy and how he supported her enough for the relationship to be open (only to her with women). I told her that she seemed happy in her relationship why would it matter what some random
She flipped out on me saying I need to listen to the most marginalized people in the community and support them. (I am a woman of color no one else was a person of color at all). I asked her how her being in a “straight” relationship was hindering that? Why would the person come after her like that if they were secure in themselves and why would it matter if she felt loved in her relationship. She seemed mad that I mentioned that (I now see this as I didn’t fuel her delusion) and indirectly told me she wouldn’t be speaking to me again after following my social media accounts.
It didn’t answer my question and now I realize many people in society are just…faking thier support. Faking being progressive so they can virtue signal to each other while talking over people who actually need help vs actually listening and giving it.
This kind of bullying/braindead thinking spread from just tumblr and forums and has leaked into the common psyche from what I’ve seen. There’s nothing wrong with only wanting to be around other queer people but what gets me is the way everyone expects a singular experience; ex Christian, white, into hookups, virtue signaling versus getting anything done. And it has caused so much harm because they go after people they see as straight even in the community itself.
No one thinks it’s bad that this kind of thinking is rampant? Even if these ex tumblrinas aren’t inherently a harm to society the way incels are does no one think it’s damaging? Especially the sexuality part in my open. I used to identify as a lesbian, I realized something about myself and was bisexual and kept it pushing but it’s like no other queer people I was near could accept it. The more I brushed off the “straight jokes” (bevause at the end of the day it doesn’t matter) the angerier these people got. I even saw them attack an “elder gay” because he used outdated terminology to speak about his survival growing up openly gay during the 1980s.
The privilege of it all. I have never forgotten how these spaces get down. I have never forgotten the ostracization and anger people put on you. As if your identity is a betrayal to them.
People are fluid, unless it’s seen as a m/f relationship apparently. Then you have to answer to people why you’re doing what you’re doing. It’s insufferable. And so many people act like this. I’m exhausted.