*cue Chrissy Chlapeka* ~ hey gay people. are you gay? I am. I can say that now but for many years I couldn’t. Throughout my life I have endured countless homophobic micro aggressions that stuffed me back into the closet but the most damaging of them was the gatekeeping I was subjected to by other queer people. In college I gingerly came out as bisexual on Facebook by making a joke about it. I was swiftly shoved back in the closet by queers claiming I couldn’t be bisexual because I had only ever dated cis men and that my “straight-passing” privilege made me less queer.
Last year I used an Instagram filter that answered “what kind of lesbian are you?” Moments later I got a dm from someone telling my it was offensive for me to use that filter because, they wrote, “you are not a lesbian.” In 2020 I came out as non-binary. When I made a post about gender being a social construct someone felt the need to explain to me that saying gender is a social construct is dismissive of trans people. IM FUCKING TRANS. I am literally a trans person. A week ago someone told me what my own girlfriend’s pronouns are because they assumed I did not know. Whenever I mention gatekeeping in the queer community on social media I get dozens of dms thanking me for bringing attention to this issue. Individuals have shared vulnerable and painful anecdotes with me about how they have been invalidated by fellow queers. I get a particularly high volume of these messages from bi people. This breaks my heart because I know what it feels like to be invalidated and ostracized by the very community you need love and acceptance from when coming out. Queer gatekeeping has severely impacted my mental health over the years. It made me feel insecure, lonely, and misunderstood. It made me start to believe them so I forced myself to perform heterosexuality because living as my gay trans self would likely lead to more ridicule. I felt like I was never queer enough or that I was being queer wrong. Everyone else had it all figured out as if there was a gay summit where queers decided what they were going to wear and how they were going to dress and act and I missed the memo. For years I thought there must be some secret queer handshake that could get me “in the club” but no one would teach it to me. Now, I know I’m gay because I say I’m gay. I’m trans because I say I’m trans. I’m queer because I literally am and always have been no matter what my life looked like at the time. My sexuality is not a target for your arrows of criticism. My queerness is not up for debate just because it doesn’t look like yours. Queer people, STOP GATEKEEPING. LGBTQ is not the name of New York’s hottest invite-only club. Your opinion of someone’s queerness is IRRELEVANT. If someone says they’re queer then they are. And even if they DONT say it, it’s not up to you to tell others who they are and are not. Queerness is infinite and there’s no right or wrong way to be queer. If you are queer reading this, YOU ARE VALID. If you are QUESTIONING, YOU ARE VALID. There’s NO timeline for coming out and even if you’ve come out once you can come out again and again as you figure out what labels authentically reflect YOU My sexuality and gender identity are constantly evolving. If I say I’m one thing then change it to another you have to believe me because you’re not me. I am not static, are you? Whoever you are, I LOVE YOU, for all your multitudes and beautiful complexities. You are valid and your journey is real. Don’t let anyone make you feel less than
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