Unintentional Gatekeeping
I work in a large organization so there are a lot of personnel; there are also presentations and trainings and the official LGBTQ coordinators here have presented material on gender and sexuality. They’ve never approached me to talk about queer issues and identity, although I show up for work wearing a skirt fairly often and several people know I have a book on the subject of being genderqueer coming out soon.
The material that they present to the organization doesn’t include much info on the experiences of a person like me. No surprise there. I could help with that.
So I decide to write, to introduce myself formallly, although I’ve spoken at these presentations as an attendee and assume they know me at least in passing.
Hello!
I write that much then can’t figure out what to say next. I start a second sentence several times then erase it. Finally, I decide to simply admit to that. To tell them I’m having a hard time getting this letter started:
*** several minutes later still staring at a single-word email body ***
Damn this is hard. I can so easily deal with people when I'm positioning myself as a "Them", for them to either accept or not. So much scarier to risk being accepted as an "us". Or rejected dismissively at that level.
I didn't grow up feeling a part of the queer community and never had that later in life either, really.
I know you've encountered me at the trainings and meetings. I'm sorry I haven't been more friendly and introduced myself in a meaningful way.
In one of the Facebook support groups I'm in, some of the nonbinary trans folks call it "imposter syndrome". They're usually talking about not being regarded as genuinely trans by the conventional binary transgender men and women. I've had that w/regards to the entire LGBTQ world, and also to the feminist community. I've got a lot of privilege as a person who is altercast by the world as a man and often as a straight man at that; I don't get overtly systematically discriminated against or deal with the medical system like transitioning people have to, so I worry a lot about reaching out and being pushed back and told I'm a pretentious jerk or something.
I don’t know specifically what kind of response I was expecting. Some kind of reply acknowledging their own uncertainties and awkwardnesses when they first tried to participate in the LGBTQ community? Some kind of personal welcome and some friendly curiosity, maybe?
What I received wasn’t unfriendly or dismissive or anything.
We have been glad to see you in attendance at the meetings. We hope you feel welcomed and able to participate fully as your authentic self, both at these meetings and at the organization in general.
It can be hard to reach out to new people, but if there’s anything specific you wanted to discuss with us, feel free to let us know.
Why was I disappointed to receive that? What caused me to read that and somehow turn it into an excuse to feel brushed off?
It’s so damn easy to become hypersensitive, to the point that other people’s behaviors can feel like microaggressions when all they’ve done is fail to guess exactly what would make me feel understood and accepted.
Want another example? We have a few “any gender” toilets, single person facilities. I was waiting for one to become available and someone informed me that if I did not wish to wait, I could use the men’s room down the hall. I’m sure this person did not intend this piece of information to come across as questioning why the hell I would be waiting for the special facilities, or to imply that I was viewed as a cisgender male and therefore not the intended beneficiary of this policy. But I still managed to feel that way at the time.
Another? Someone started a poll in one of the gender nonbinary FB groups about how often and how deeply do you feel dysphoria about your body. When I answered that I don’t, someone replied that I was the first and only non-cisgender person they’d ever encountered who didn’t. It wasn’t said in an even remotely hostile fashion but it immediately conjured up a whole slew of “I don’t fit in, I don’t belong in here” feelings.
I have never felt like the LGBTQ community was my home. That I would be recognized and the doors opened to me, that my concerns and experiences would be validated there. I’ve hoped that would be the case, I’ve prepared to argue that I qualify and that therefore it should be that way, but I haven’t ever escaped the fear that I’d be dismissed with contempt and ridicule. Because I don’t hear or read stories like mine from other people in the community. Similar, yes, but fundamentally different.
It’s easy for me to deal with being an outsider. I’m used to it; I’m good at it. It’s scary to ask to be allowed in, to be an insider. I feel vulnerable and my feelings and sensibilities are way too easy to hurt.
I'll accept that I'm hypersensitive at times like these. At the same time, I think it's fair to ask that people who occupy a position of leadership within the LGBTQ community keep in mind that even if they were always pretty sure of their identity and fit into the community like a hand into a glove, that's not going to be true for a lot of other people; and that's probably especially true for the less common identities.
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The material that they present to the organization doesn’t include much info on the experiences of a person like me. No surprise there. I could help with that.
So I decide to write, to introduce myself formallly, although I’ve spoken at these presentations as an attendee and assume they know me at least in passing.
Hello!
I write that much then can’t figure out what to say next. I start a second sentence several times then erase it. Finally, I decide to simply admit to that. To tell them I’m having a hard time getting this letter started:
*** several minutes later still staring at a single-word email body ***
Damn this is hard. I can so easily deal with people when I'm positioning myself as a "Them", for them to either accept or not. So much scarier to risk being accepted as an "us". Or rejected dismissively at that level.
I didn't grow up feeling a part of the queer community and never had that later in life either, really.
I know you've encountered me at the trainings and meetings. I'm sorry I haven't been more friendly and introduced myself in a meaningful way.
In one of the Facebook support groups I'm in, some of the nonbinary trans folks call it "imposter syndrome". They're usually talking about not being regarded as genuinely trans by the conventional binary transgender men and women. I've had that w/regards to the entire LGBTQ world, and also to the feminist community. I've got a lot of privilege as a person who is altercast by the world as a man and often as a straight man at that; I don't get overtly systematically discriminated against or deal with the medical system like transitioning people have to, so I worry a lot about reaching out and being pushed back and told I'm a pretentious jerk or something.
I don’t know specifically what kind of response I was expecting. Some kind of reply acknowledging their own uncertainties and awkwardnesses when they first tried to participate in the LGBTQ community? Some kind of personal welcome and some friendly curiosity, maybe?
What I received wasn’t unfriendly or dismissive or anything.
We have been glad to see you in attendance at the meetings. We hope you feel welcomed and able to participate fully as your authentic self, both at these meetings and at the organization in general.
It can be hard to reach out to new people, but if there’s anything specific you wanted to discuss with us, feel free to let us know.
Why was I disappointed to receive that? What caused me to read that and somehow turn it into an excuse to feel brushed off?
It’s so damn easy to become hypersensitive, to the point that other people’s behaviors can feel like microaggressions when all they’ve done is fail to guess exactly what would make me feel understood and accepted.
Want another example? We have a few “any gender” toilets, single person facilities. I was waiting for one to become available and someone informed me that if I did not wish to wait, I could use the men’s room down the hall. I’m sure this person did not intend this piece of information to come across as questioning why the hell I would be waiting for the special facilities, or to imply that I was viewed as a cisgender male and therefore not the intended beneficiary of this policy. But I still managed to feel that way at the time.
Another? Someone started a poll in one of the gender nonbinary FB groups about how often and how deeply do you feel dysphoria about your body. When I answered that I don’t, someone replied that I was the first and only non-cisgender person they’d ever encountered who didn’t. It wasn’t said in an even remotely hostile fashion but it immediately conjured up a whole slew of “I don’t fit in, I don’t belong in here” feelings.
I have never felt like the LGBTQ community was my home. That I would be recognized and the doors opened to me, that my concerns and experiences would be validated there. I’ve hoped that would be the case, I’ve prepared to argue that I qualify and that therefore it should be that way, but I haven’t ever escaped the fear that I’d be dismissed with contempt and ridicule. Because I don’t hear or read stories like mine from other people in the community. Similar, yes, but fundamentally different.
It’s easy for me to deal with being an outsider. I’m used to it; I’m good at it. It’s scary to ask to be allowed in, to be an insider. I feel vulnerable and my feelings and sensibilities are way too easy to hurt.
I'll accept that I'm hypersensitive at times like these. At the same time, I think it's fair to ask that people who occupy a position of leadership within the LGBTQ community keep in mind that even if they were always pretty sure of their identity and fit into the community like a hand into a glove, that's not going to be true for a lot of other people; and that's probably especially true for the less common identities.
-------
This LiveJournal blog is echoed on DreamWidth, WordPress, and Blogger. Please friend/link me from any of those environments on which you have an account.
--------
Index of all Blog Posts
comments at Dreamwidth