To be clear, im queer and im in a relationship with a gay cis man.
Some days ago we were watching a sketch on YouTube about the gay best friend stereotype, where the joke was basically “I can be misogynistic and can walk into female dressing rooms because im gay”. I was trying to gather my thoughts to write a piece about it, personally I have no problem being the “gay friend” to my female friends, but there are a lot of stupid and harmful misconceptions about it. I would like to hear some of your opinions about it.
That it can be a form of ‘tokenism’ that erases or ignores the vast majority of my personal characteristics and reduces me to a cliche.
I hated identifying as a gay cis man after a while. It was in a small US town and the identity came to feel like a straight jacket (ha!). My identity is much more fluid now even though I fit the descriptor of ‘mostly gay’ in a statistical sense.
I’m not your fscking ‘gay’ friend, in a nutshell. If someone doesn’t understand why I might feel this way, well then the friendship is probably doomed.
