Dear Pigeon Guts: How Should Straight People Talk About Gay Issues?

This week! How should straight people discuss gay issues? I’m gay, but other gay people make me really uncomfortable. Plus, how can I tell if I’m being dumped?

A Note From the Author: Lots of advice columns claim to have “the answers” about life, but this one really does! How can I be so sure? Because these aren’t merely my opinions: they’re the actual wisdom of the universe, which I discern, like the mystics of old, by peering into a heaping pile of pigeon guts. But not to worry: these pigeon guts are gay, gay, gay.

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Dear Pigeon Guts: What’s the etiquette involved when straight people such as myself engage gay people in a discussion of gay-related issues? I recently got myself in a bit of a sticky-wicket when commenting about an article on M/M fiction at Lambda Literary. I’m always hesitant to discuss, much less debate, gay issues with gay people because ultimately, it's your reality, your lives, and I can only be an outside observer.

I lurked around AE almost three years before I joined to post something – and this is a very friendly place! After my comment on the thread at Lambda, the article's author and I exchanged emails which got progressively more contentious. When I looked past what I found to be an abrasive tone, I came to appreciate her point. So it’s not her message but her manner to which I object. No doubt I made missteps of my own, but I was quite shaken by her emails. The fact that I took part in something that devolved into an “us vs. them” situation with “gays vs. straights” has been really upsetting to me. Courtesy, respect, and an open mind are required in any discourse, but is it even appropriate for straight people to comment on things like this? -- Jackie, Buffalo, NY

The Pigeon Guts Speak:

There are two issues here: straight people discussing gay issues, and the internet itself. Let’s look at each in turn, shall we?

When discussing gay issues, what do straight people owe gay folks? I think “they” owe “us” three things: (1) a responsibility to get their facts straight, (2) basic respect, and (3) a genuinely open mind.

And that’s pretty much it. And for the record, gay people owe straight people those things too.

For me, this idea that GLBT people “own” gay issues, that their ideas should be given more consideration simply because they’re gay, is just about as stupid as the idea that only GLBT people should be allowed to write gay stories or characters.

Ideas, like books, live or die on their own merits. Who spoke or wrote them is completely irrelevant. (The exception, of course, is when we're talking about direct personal experiences or feelings, which can never be "wrong," but that's not what was going on here.)

God knows it’s frustrating when we have an opinion on an issue we feel strongly about and someone else doesn’t agree, especially when it’s as personal as one’s sexuality. And God also knows there are plenty of people who are completely ignorant of the “facts” of gay issues, and who are almost oozing with the puss of anti-gay prejudice.

What if we’re talking to someone and it becomes clear they’re not arguing in good faith – if, like Bill O’Reilly and his ilk, they don’t have their facts straight and all the rest?

We have two choices: continuing trying to engage, or just walk away (and, perhaps, bitch to your friends about the idiot you were talking to).

“Pulling rank,” saying to someone you disagree with, “It’s a gay thing – you just don’t understand!” is a stupid intellectual cheat. Whatever the opinion is, there’s going to be some gay person somewhere who agrees with the straight person, so the statement makes no sense anyway. And it’s never going to persuade anyone: on the contrary, it’s just going to piss people off.

The point, Jackie, is that, providing you follow the above three rules, you have nothing to worry about when discussing gay topics. Will some GLBT people disagree? Sure, but you know in your heart of hearts I’m right.

I said there were two issues here: the second issue is the internet. Remember what I said about there being three requirements for a straight person discussing gay issues? In “real” life, you can tell right away if someone is acting in reasonably good faith. Shame alone makes people much less willing to be a jackass in person.

But on the internet? All bets are off.

Have you read the terrific young adult novel The Hunger Games, where 24 teenagers are put in a self-contained dome and told to fight to the death until there’s only one survivor, and the more barbaric the teenagers are, the more the audience likes it?

The internet is worse.

As someone who is a big believer in courtesy, respect, and giving people the benefit of the doubt, it’s with great reluctance that I say this, but you need to approach online debates differently.

In real life, I believe it’s important to always give people the benefit of the doubt. But online, the rules are reversed: approach everyone with grave suspicion. And at the first sign that you’re talking to an a**hole, bail.

Next Page! I’m gay, but gay people make me really uncomfortable!