Yeah?
It's that "desperate to be known" thing that bugs me I guess. Maybe I just have a hard time sympathizing with or understanding it. Maybe some loud flaming gays put me off it back in the day.
I'm a "cis" male, have been one all my life and was never "desperate to be known". I have gay and lesbian friends and friends with trans offspring. None of them comes off as "desperate to be known".
Why would any cis male feel the need to be known when they are known already? You're seen by all of society and not as a freak of nature or deviant or a perversion.
Cis heteros are mainstream. There are very few places cis men can go where they would feel their cis maleness would be unacceptable or "an abomination," and even if you ever found yourself in such a situation, it's not bloody likely to be permanent.
Cis het men don't live in a society that has no humane or positive language or views to describe cis het men. You don't have to seek out an enclave or hidden place to speak openly about being a cis het male. You don't have to endure a world of narratives that paint you as evil and unnatural with few if any positive, humane attitudes toward you in the world around you.
As for your friends who are not cis hetero, how do you know they are not "desperate to be known"? Or in less contemptuous terms, wishing to just live freely without condemnation or fear that they might say or do the wrong thing if they let their conformity behavior patterns to relax for a moment. Have you asked them point blank if they feel safe to say and do anything in your presence? I'm not saying they don't, just that it's likely that
if they don't, you would have no idea.
I think the first hurdle for people who are "desperate to be known", is to be known to themselves. (It seems from the excerpt that the writer of that article came to grips wit that fact.)
Totally agree. That's hard to do, though, when the only society you know conditions you to suppress "abnormal" thoughts and feelings.
And again, even when they find themselves in an environment where they are not alone and they are safe to be themselves, they are only just learning positive or neutral language to describe their experiences and sense of self. Much of this language did not exist in the mainstream if at all until relatively recently.
If you spent your life experiencing things that others like you didn't seem to experience and you're treated with contempt and bullying when expressed, you will internalize much of that hatred and contempt. You'd be a pretty strong, self aware person to be able to honestly explore your own experiences without self loathing if you didn't have the support of at least one other person you felt totally safe with.
Speaking of, the world is full of stories of LGBTQ+ people trusting someone only to be betrayed and destroyed by them. It's not just run of the mill, mainstream betrayal (because I know a lot of cis het people like to claim that they themselves have experienced betrayal, etc., like it's the same). It's a kind of betrayal that can get you brutalized or killed, or at the very least, ostracized and vilified.
Once that happens, what reason is there for desperation? Relieving that desperation is certainly not anyone else's job.
Easy to say for someone who has never been on the wrong side of mainstream social acceptability. If you're a cis het male, especially a white one, that experience of being known and accepted for who you are is built in.
So, yeah, it's no one else's "job" to relieve the pain of living a life of faking who you are or risking marginalization or abuse. But I do think it's anyone's job to be human and willing to break our easy, ingrained assumptions.
I've been desperate to be noticed by females to whom I was attracted and to whom I thought I must be invisible. But after a few times when such females confided to me that they had in fact noticed me, I stopped worrying, even about that.
Serious question: you really think that's the same thing as what LGBTQ+ people experience?
You have more social power than any other demographic, and part of that power means never having to notice anyone who doesn't. You could easily choose to set aside your own assumptions and opinions and instead use your power to amplify the voices of the marginalized and oppressed. It doesn't take anything away from you.
The dismissive, "Oh, I've had that experience, too. Why are they making such a big deal out of their sexuality or gender?" is the attitude that allows for abuse and dehumanization of people not like you.
Cis het white men don't need anyone to listen to their perspective. Western society is made of cis het white men's perspective and voices and history. You have all the listening and attention and acceptance you need, feel so entitled to it that you believe you've had similar experiences to people who are not like you, and that belief leads you to assume others need to work harder or stop being desperate or whatever.
Try this exercise. Any time you have an opinion about LGBTQ+ people, replace "non gender" or "LGBTQ" or whatever with "Black people" and see how that feels. Even though racism is rampant and systemic racism is a thing, we've been long conditioned to not use slurs and to be cognizant of the perspectives of BIPOC. We just haven't made it to that point with other marginalized people, regardless of why they are marginalized.
Someone who believes they are a different gender from their birth assignment, or both, or something else, regardless of why they feel that way, deserve to live in a world where no one punishes or dismisses them for it, and you feeling annoyed by people described as "desperate to be known" actually perpetuates that punishment and marginalization.
Why not just say, "Ok, I believe you. You're safe with me," and not be bugged by anything they say about their own experiences? Because not doing so contributes to the attitudes and forces in society that harm them.
"Desperate to be known"