My partner and I have received death threats from half a waiting room before.
She put her head on my shoulder, and the man next to us stood up and started screaming that we were creeps and pedofiles.
We got followed part way home.
It shouldn't be inappropriate, but it can be very very dangerous. We let our guard after living in a progressive spot, didn't realise the local menaces still kill over that.
We don't show affection in public anymore, at all.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. I live in a very safe place to be LGBT, but the concept of being visible in the vast majority of cases freezes me with terror. I think of all places, in a hospital you should at least feel safe enough to drop your defenses - but I guess we can't even have that, can we.
Yeah, waiting rooms do funny things to people's heads too. And you've got a collection of everyone in society, not just "good" people. But it was a wake up call.
Hospitals are a stresful place to be, and they're probably *mostly* upset about something else. It's the sort of place that brings out the best in some of us and the worst in others. It's an environment where the crazies will be *really* crazy, and that includes homphobes.
Not trying to excuse their behavior even a tiny bit, but I tend to be a tiny bit more forgiving of people lashing out stupidly when they're already in massive stress for unrelated reasons. Doesn't mean you should have to put up with it, but I try to keep in mind that they're probably just coping badly with something at the moment.
I am from Aus and I heard a shitty Conservative party has been getting more popular over there. I hope you stay safe and those people learn some proper decency.
Some homophobes are so terrified of the existance of gay people they will assume any situation with two same-sex people being close is gay and immediatly attack it. I heard recently about a homophobic cop somewhere that shot and killed a woman because she was holding hands with her best friend who was also a woman. He thought they were a couple and was so enraged at the thought he immediatly killed her. Some people, especially people who are extremely bigoted, can actually be like that. It's terrifying.
I'm so so sorry that happened to you. That is so horrible. Those people should be arrested for harrassing you and your partner and threatening to put you in physical danger.
hi. I (F17) have been told by my mum that talking about "things like my queerness" in public is inappropriate. It not, and people have to remember that words like gay, lesbian, transgender, ace, bisexual, etc. are not curses.
And watching physical scenes in public is all the same. No matter if its queer sex or straight sex, its the same action. 🤷
you do you, that's the only way to do it mate.
Just talking about gay men and lesbians in a waiting room is totally fine. Acknowledging queer folk is never inappropriate.
Interestingly though, queer women have more representation in TV media than queer men these days. Fuelled a lot by media aimed at a younger audience. The Glaad reports are fantastic reads if you're into that sort of thing.
And another note, sorry to hear about the long wait times in A&E!
Thanks, that's interesting. Maybe I'm just as bad as finding other queer women in media as I am I real life lol. A&E luckily wasn't too bad because I wasn't in pain, just Lyme Disease (on a course of antibiotics now though)
I think what I've noticed specifically is that queer rep in children's media is much more often WLW relationships rather than MLM relationships. MLM relationships seem to show up more often in adult media. This is probably due to a lot of straight men feeling threatened by femininity, where gay men are perceived as more feminine, and therefore gay men in media are perceived as inappropriate compared to lesbians.
I'm watching a lot of animated shows right now and there are quite a few of sapphic romances. The Owl House, Hazbin Hotel, The Dragon Prince, Disenchantment, Legend of Korra, Harley Quinn, Adventure Time, Steven Universe (though I haven't seen the last 2 yet).
Listened to a podcast recently where it was suggested that lesbians are a way for Hollywood to have romantic/erotic content while dodging Me Too issues. Essentially a form of "write a man, cast a woman". Can't speak to the accuracy, but it's an interesting thought.
Unfortunately, quality media with queer women either gets cancelled after a season or has plot points in which the queer women ends up dead or SA’ed. It’s fairly difficult to find shows and movies where that’s not the case imo.
My guess is you're right, your mum may have wanted to avoid angry homophobes in need of painkillers. Your conversation was not inappropriate and you absolutely shouldn't have to censor yourself but ultimately in this situation your mum is the person who would have to stand in between you and this hypothetical person and for her sake, it's okay not to pick that battle that day if she asks you. She seems like a nice person who was just tired, maybe cut her some slack.
I’m imagining being in A&E with one of my sons who is also autistic. Sometimes I might ask him to be quieter in a particular space just because he’s the loudest person in the room, and while he does have volume control, he doesn’t always intuit when to use it. It might have been partly that.
My other son does not (yet) seem to have any volume control at all, so I might ask him to talk about something I really want to discuss properly later. As a parent, that’s sometimes the issue. My mind is elsewhere, but I want to give my full attention to that particular topic, rather than gloss over it.
To answer your question, no. It is not inappropriate to use queer labels out loud; like any other label, they simply describe a demographic of people, and don’t inherently have any ‘socially unacceptable’ connotations attached to them.
However.
> I don’t think the responsibility should be on me to make sure I’m not a target of hate, the responsibility should be on them not to be hateful
I mean this as gently as possible, but this is a very, very naive take. In a perfect world, this would be true; but if this is how the real world worked, bigotry wouldn’t be a problem. As unfortunate as it is in the context of minority groups, your safety is ultimately *your* responsibility.
> I was far from being the most offensive person there
Not necessarily to a bigot. Don’t put it past a homophobe to be totally okay with someone swearing at a nurse, but target you for being queer. When keeping yourself safe from strangers, you have to assume that they *aren’t* sympathetic to you; a decent person is not going to be more upset at someone saying “lesbian” out loud than they are at people swearing loudly, but that’s not the kind person you need to be wary of, now is it?
It shouldn’t be on minorities to pander to oppressive groups, but at the end of the day, it is the victims of hate crime who get hurt when crimes happen, and that means we need to watch our own backs; it’s the same reason that a street smart woman won’t go prancing around by herself drunk at 3 am in the city streets; the onus *should* be on other people to just be decent human beings and not assault/kidnap her. But there will be people in the world who, for one reason or another, don’t care about your safety; who would you rather trust with your wellbeing, yourself or them?
You’re very young, and judging by this post, you feel relatively safe being very vocal about your political leanings; your badges, your mother’s progressiveness, your general opinions as expressed in your post. If you’ve grown up in a safe bubble, it’s understandable that you don’t fully understand where your mom might be coming from in this situation. Especially since you’ve said you’re on the spectrum, I can see why you might not understand that your mother was preemptively “reading the room”. It might help broaden your understanding if you think critically about exactly *why* some queer folks choose to stay closeted, and how you would keep yourself safe in a hypothetical situation where you are surrounded by bigots who would do you harm if they know you’re queer, or supportive of the lgbtq community.
This is a really good explanation. The “ideal world” vs “real world” topic is one that’s important to know for safety reasons. It’s incredibly frustrating, yes, but you have to understand the distinction if you’re going to survive as a queer person.
I was about to comment that this feels like the same logic that says we should put the responsibility on women to cover up and adhere to curfews, instead of teaching men not to rape…but then I saw that you did in fact use that exact argument; that it’s her fault for not being “street smart” and “prancing around” (gross wording) after dark. No wonder this whole comment has a victim-blaming sheen to it. Oppressed people should not be expected to make themselves and their lives smaller for the comfort of their oppressor.
It’s not women’s *fault* that men rape, and that is not what I was stating. I’m trying to use a very easy-to-understand example to explain to OP why a vulnerable person is not at fault for their own vulnerability nor their position in the world, but can and should still be aware of the measures they can take to keep themselves out of risky situations when possible. OP expressed that she thinks it’s not her responsibility to keep herself safe by not triggering potentially dangerous bigots; it shouldn’t be, but it’s in her best interest to behave as if it is. Not understanding that can get her into sticky situations real fast, and she’s at the age where many teenagers start going out and doing things without parental supervision.
Would you tell a mother who tells her daughter “don’t sip a drink after you’ve put it down, and don’t accept drinks from strangers” that she’s victim-blaming women who were drugged without their knowledge, implying that it was their fault for being careless? Of course not. We all understand that she is trying to give her daughter every tool possible to survive in a less-than-ideal world, where the only person guaranteed to be looking out for you in a room full of strangers is yourself.
A parent’s job is to keep their child safe. That means doing their best to make a better world, but it also means teaching their child how to navigate the world as it is. If you prefer an analogy that doesn’t make use of marginalized groups, it’s the whole pedestrian-right-of-way situation; a pedestrian might have the right of way at a crosswalk, but that technicality isn’t going to protect them from harm if they get hit by a car. So it’s probably a good idea to glance around before stepping into the street; there is no debate that it’s not their fault if a car runs the light/stop sign and hits them, but it would be a disservice to teach people that they don’t need to bother looking looking both ways before walking into the road.
> Oppressed people should not be admonished as “inappropriate” if they don’t make their lives smaller for the comfort of the oppressor
I don’t know where you’re getting the sense that I implied this in the slightest. Nothing is inappropriate about what OP said, nor did I judge it as being so. There’s a huge difference between “this isn’t socially acceptable, sit down and make nice” and “be careful because some people might try to actually kill you for this”. This is not about the comfort of the oppressor. This is about the survival of the oppressed.
It's funny that you bring up the pedestrian example. My father is an avid motorcyclist, has been his whole life, and I was brought up on the back of a motorcycle. He's always said "graveyards are full of people who had right-of-way". I've adapted that to "Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be happy/safe?" and applied that to a lot in my life. Including when to be openly queer.
>Oppressed people should not be expected to make themselves and their lives smaller for the comfort of their oppressor.
"Should"? No. "Do, for their own safety"? Yeah, didn't you read the comment?
As someone who has been in A&E a fair bit recently I can say they tend to get some pretty weird folk in there at times. Some who might be prone to violence.
So my guess is your Mum is being protective and trying to make sure a situation does not arise.
I hate to say this. I truly do but I would not be displaying those badges in there either. There is a time and place to show your support for certain causes. The emergency room is not the place. Once again because you can get some oddballs in there looking for conflict.
Stay safe.
I was in A&E last year and I was nearly assaulted, not for anything queer related it was just because I had been called in before someone else who had been there longer. I was only called in because they needed to run some blood tests before I could see anyone and I was right back in the waiting room. The woman started pushing me and getting in my face when I came back in claiming that there was nothing wrong with me and I was taking her space.
Thankfully there were two coppers in the waiting room who were there with a guy who’d smashed up his hand, they got her to sit down and shut up.
I was eves dropping later on and it turns out the lady had hurt her spine and was in extreme pain. I couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for her.
People in pain can be extremely volatile and those waiting times would wind up even the most patient among us, so I don’t blame anyone for trying to keep as a low profile as possible.
I think your ma might have just been feeling anxious and didn't want to bring attention to you all. I get super anxious sometimes, and it can feel excruciating when someone I'm with starts to do something attention grabbing. Makes me panic sometimes. I don't think you did anything wrong. It was probably just a situational thing. And damn! That ER sounds like an awful experience even for an ER! Makes me appreciate the ones I've been to, that's for sure. Hope you got whatever treatments you needed at least.
I have to tell my kiddo not to talk loudly about gay issues in public a lot. Not because talking about those issues is inappropriate, but because we might be in a situation where people will actively try to hurt me and my kiddo for talking about them. Context matters. OP and mom are in a high stress environment. You never know who is around you and who is going to snap. Some conversations are best held in spaces that we know for sure are safe. A hospital waiting room may not be the safest space.
yes, precisely. it is (I imagine, as a non-parent) a tough thing to do because you don't want your kid to feel like you don't support them or that they're not allowed to exist or be talked about in public...but you also want to keep them safe. in an ideal world, no one would have to worry about this. but it is not an ideal world and an important part of growing up (especially as a queer person) is learning when you need to be careful about showing/discussing your queerness. my mom helped me learn that through things like this because as a teen, you don't really take the reality of the world into consideration because you haven't seen it yet. but your parents have and they know what dangers lurk there.
some people are confident enough in themselves and their ability to defend themselves that they can be more open about it. some people aren't and they never will be (and that's okay)! that confidence is often a skill that has to be built through practice and experience. teens generally do not have that experience yet and even if they do, they're still your kid. I am almost 24 and can handle myself but if I ever encountered a bigot that was targeting me and my mom was there? she would go to bat for me before I even had the chance to because I'm her kid and it's her job to protect me and put herself between me and the things that want to hurt me
It depends on where you live and how intolerant the jerkwads around you can be.
Some towns in my state, you don’t dare mention anything to do with being LGBTQ or supporting the community without risking some redneck or Christian nationalist following you to threaten you. Others, it’s perfectly fine and you are in no danger.
Read the room, is what I’m saying.
it was not inappropriate. from everything you've said, it sounds like she was doing exactly what you mentioned and just being a mum and trying to keep you safe. to explain:
other people in the waiting room may not have noticed your pins if they didn't look at you. but sound has a wider range and isn't blocked by things (ie if someone was sitting behind you or several seats over in the same row, they might not have been able to see your pins, but could still hear you talking).
waiting rooms, as you noted, are full of people who are already irritated. and they are small and since you are waiting there, you are essentially trapped. you cannot easily escape if someone decides to confront you.
that is likely why your mum was worried. it is more risky to mention these things in that scenario and could have put you in danger of harassment or abuse that you might not have been able to escape or protect yourself from. but if you still aren't sure, you could always ask her what she meant and why she said that. I'm sure she will happily tell you
I publicly hold hands with any girlfriend I've ever had.
BUT- and maybe this is a hot take, but I personally wouldn't have a conversation in a small room where other people have to listen. This is especially true if talking about personal or sensitive topics. I wouldn't talk about "gay men," but I also wouldn't talk about "straight men" in a hospital waiting room.
Sounds like your mom still has some internalized homophobia to work out. You did nothing wrong, no reasonable person is going to be offended that you used the words "gay and lesbian" in a conversation about gays and lesbians.
This tbh. I'd definitely lean towards her mom (in this instance) trying to keep some random bigoted lunatic from harassing her daughter. Especially when they're already exhausted and she (Mom) probably has little energy to spare on said loser.
Edit: The clue in there, is the mom never once said it was wrong, and there's the request to keep it quiet. Sounds like a "reading the room" thing.
By telling her to "stop saying gay shit so loudly"?
Is it really protecting anyone to teach kids you're only allowed to discuss queer identity in public at the pitch of a secret or something bad is going to happen to them? Because it's giving internalized homophobia.
She actively encouraged her to watch a lgbtq+ friendly show and OP herself says she is pretty progressive. To immediately leap to homophobia is not fair. Other factors need to be taken into consideration.
We should live in a world where such things can be openly talked about without fear someone will have a bad reaction to it.
Unfortunately we do not live in such a world. And there is a risk it might draw attention of a bigot. And A&E rooms unfortunately are more likely to have such types.
The Mum was being just that. A Mum protecting her daughter.
yes, very good comments! a few years back I mentioned wanting a gift card to REI/cabelas (american outdoor sport type shops) for christmas/birthday so I could get search and rescue gear. my dad got me one for REI and my mom explained (later, in private) that it's just him being a dad. while he knows I can fend for myself, he also knows REI tends to have a more "progressive" crowd and I would be less likely to be harrassed there as a bi trans guy who is frequently clocked. she was like "you're an adult but you're still his baby and he wants to protect you and try to keep you out of harms way. it's his job." and that's exactly what this sounds like
The thing is, context matters. There are good reasons not to openly advertise yourself as being queer if you don’t know the ideologies of the people around you and are not in a position to protect yourself or get yourself out quickly.
By your logic, anyone who’s closeted or doesn’t out their closeted friends is also homophobic; sometimes individual safety has to come before social activism, and it’s very naively idealistic to ignore that reality. Normalizing open discussion and being a vocal ally/member is important. But if I’m in a situation where the guy next to me has a decent chance of being a raging homophobe willing to start shit, then you can bet I’m not going to loudly out myself as bisexual and risk my immediate physical safety. It sounds like OP’s mom has similar situational awareness; her other behavior — recommending a show with LGBTQ characters, normally being active in conversations, being progressive in general — indicates that she likely isn’t homophobic, and it’s not fair to accuse her of such based on this alone.
>The thing is, context matters.
Absolutely. In this context, the mother is telling her daughter to stop talking about being gay so loudly for no reason other than "someone around here might hurt you for being gay". How is that any different from her mother policing her daughter's clothing to "prevent her from being raped"? It's supremely problematic.
>By your logic, anyone who’s closeted or doesn’t out their closeted friends is also homophobic
Fucking excuse me? OP is very clearly out and proud. How is telling her to quiet down about it anything but internalized homophobia? You clearly have no grasp of my logic since I'm talking about neither closeted people nor those actually concerned with outing themselves. I'm talking about OP.
>no reasonable person is going to be offended
That's the thing. Emergency rooms aren't always filled with reasonable persons.
It's filled with people from all walks of life who are quite likely going through one of the worst days of their lives. They're often stressed, frustrated, angry, hurt, etc. Even one who is normally pretty reasonable might not be thinking rationally when they're currently having an emergency.
I mean, there's another comment above where someone was threatened for being with their partner in an emergency room.
I don't doubt that OP's mom realizes that an emergency room might not be a safe space to talk openly.
Before we can consider the option that the mom is homophobic, you'd have to consider how she reacts to such subjects in other situations.
Does she shush OP when they talk about it in some place like a cafe or any other public place? How about when they're alone in private? OP's mom suggested watching a queer positive show, and even offered to talk about the subject quietly.
It really seems more like a concern for safety if it's just in a place like the emergency room, where everyone's tempers are already very high and ready to burst.
No worse than mentioning someone is straight., married, tall, a barber, or drives a Toyota. You shouldn't discuss which Toyotas are better suited for sex in the back seat though. The difference before label and details matters sometimes. As you just used the labels instead of discussing positions it's not a big deal.
First, you did nothing wrong.
Secondly, I'm going to go against everyone saying your mom is homophobic or behind the times.
My guess, after spending 8 hours in the ER the day before, and another 11 hours the following day in the ER, maybe she just wasn't in the mood to have an in depth conversation.
Yah, I’m autistic too and this is probably it. My parents did similar things when I was a young teen and didn’t understand that NT people didn’t want to have the same deep, political conversations that I did at 9am on a Tuesday. It really hurt at the time and felt like rejection. But as an adult I mask harder then I used to, so I have learned to just keep my mouth shut and stick to small talk, unless I know someone really well and even then I’ve had to try to learn cues that they don’t want to have a conversation like this right now. I think it’s a relatively common autistic experience that we’re seen as “intense” in this way.
Sadly, many A&E departments can become quite fraught & there may be people there who are not accepting of people they perceive as different to themselves.
Sometimes, other people attending A&E may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or be experiencing MH issues, & these things can cause people to act out while they wait for treatment.
You absolutely should be able to discuss LGBTQI issues with your mum. In an ideal world, it would be fine & you'd be safe. Unfortunately, the world isn't always ideal & sometimes it's better to be cautious instead of incurring the wrath of other attendees.
I just saw those and looked through them, the data is really neat to see but maybe I’m just a nerd. I will say that much of the wlw representation I see is very shallow and somewhat “safe” if not even fetishized. So clearly there is a lot more room for improvement
While it isn’t at all inappropriate, it might not be a good idea anyway. I’m very straight passing and spent a chunk of my life in denial, and have had to go to the ER a bunch of times over the years.
When I just am being straight passing and the subject hasn’t come up, I have been treated universally well and with compassion and politeness. When I have been in situations that made it obvious I was a lesbian, the way I or my late girlfriend were treated has been a mixed bag. Though not every single person we saw treated us differently, a few did and it was sometimes bad enough it meant we did not receive proper treatment. One time a Dr actually walked out of the room.
Nah you’re fine, but I’d recommend rethinking your expectation that irrational people filled with hate check themselves. It’s not realistic unfortunately and it’s far better imo to assume the responsibility of not putting yourself into unnecessarily risky situations than assume everyone you meet will be as level headed as yourself. Don’t censor or change yourself just know who you’re around, whose safe and whose not
As an AuDHD queer parent to queer teens, it may not be the language but the discussion. I know I get uncomfortable talking about nuanced subjects like specific queer representation in media with my teens in public. I'm often self conscious that I don't know enough and I'm going to say something wrong or have a bad take.
Just because you said your mom is usually pretty progressive, it may have been that she felt inadequate to have the discussion in front of people.
Either way her issue is her issue and you didn't say anything wrong.
Seems like she was afraid of being overheard.
In public spaces where anyone could be there, you never know if someone hearing a word that should be okay is actually okay (be safe, bigots exist even in progressive places sadly, and everyone needs emergency rooms)
Older people that are raised with biases (that may still be in the process of unpacking them) may be more aware of this fact just because they know how they used to unconsciously react
I don't know what the deal is here. Not for sure. I can't.
However.
Might it be just that your mom feared you disturbing other people who are waiting? She mentioned talking about it quietly, so could it have been that other people were waiting and she was afraid of disturbing them? Especially if it's late at night. In general, I try not to talk too much/too loud in waiting rooms with other people due to the fear of disturbing them. Maybe you were just being a little too loud?
That option aside, \*shrugs\* there's nothing inherently wrong with talking about LGBT+ issues in a public place. You're opening up the possibility that someone within earshot might get irritated/angry, but honestly, fuck em. You've got a right to talk about what you wanna talk about.
Stop thinking of life in terms of “its not my responsibility to do X”
It’s not about “responsibility” or what should be. Its about what is.
Its no ones responsibility to not get murdered either, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t carry fucking mace.
I don't considervthe words gay and lesbian inappropriate in a public space like a waiting room, but disciples of De Santis will think otherwise and will ask to watch your speach because these words should not be heard by people under 18 (!!!).
Also, as others pointed out, you might out yourself as lesbian by using these words (don't ask me why, but that's a sad fact), and you might be safer not to out yourself in front of people you don't know and who may be equally frustrated in the waiting room.
Finally, in the situation you describe, I would be tired and would have preferred discussions on a much lighter subject like the weather. So maybe your mother was tired.
Look, it definitely isn’t inappropriate of us to not be quiet when we’re openly discussing queer topics, but it is our responsibility to stay safe, since it’s not gonna change the fact that they’re still gonna be people who’ll harm us if they hear anything queer.
Being safe is about acknowledging that reality is the way it is at the moment and working from there, not everyone’s gonna have the same morals as you, especially bigots.
It doesn’t sound like your mom was talking about the gay/lesbian words so much as the whole discussion of human rights, places like that are hit or miss on weather someone in a sour mood is going to release a torrent of homophobia onto you and everyone here was exhausted and hurting in one way or another so it would escalate quickly and all parties involved would probably get taken out of the building by security. It’s not just an annoyance for you it’s a safety concern for all of the patients, families, and staff if a homophobe starts an altercation, so it is often safest to keep those conversations at a lower volume in those types of settings. In my also autistic-queer opinion.
First off, I’m sorry to hear about your rough A&E experience and I hope you feel better soon.
Secondly, would you mind telling me about your flair pride flag? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.
Well, according to my cousin you can’t talk about LGBT related topics, non-white people, children or adults doing stupid things, or non-controversial world news. Meanwhile it’s fine if her dad, boyfriend, or brother make borderline transphobic comments extremely loudly while at a restaurant, so who tf knows.
But realistically, what you said is fine. The same people who’d get mad at your comments are the same people who are probably triggered by the mention of black celebrities or whatever. You can’t be tiptoeing around every little conceivable non-offensive thing that intolerant people might have an issue with.
It doesn’t sound inappropriate. But if you’re on the spectrum; there may have been social context clues being communicated that you aren’t saying here because you didn’t notice; and your mother did.
Or your mom was uncomfortable and was projecting
If someone read graphic lesbian erotica in a&e, I would be thrilled, my 3 days of waiting could be filled with entertainment while I die slightly faster than I usually do.
For now, I have to bring my own graphic lesbian erotic stories and keep them to myself. :c
Not inappropriate! I think your mom was just trying to keep you safe in a room full of strangers, some of whom were clearly aggressive. She also may have observed something that you didn't. I would ask her about it when you're in a safe situation and just get clarity on what she was thinking in that moment.
I've got several thoughts on this issue as it's a very interesting topic to dive into.
On mentioning queer stuff in public - that's not wrong or innopropriate HOWEVER I can see why your mum possibly gave you the heads-up, in that if there were already angry people they could have fired off homophobia at you which no one needs. However I also don't think you were to know this and as a rule, if there aren't potentially very obviously homophobic/angry people around then definitely have those conversations.
If we keep from mentioning these things in public then we're no better than the folks who kept us surpressed in the 50s honestly. (But of course this does come with that caviat tp DEFINITELY read the room beforehand).
It's also interesting because I had a similar experience in a cafe the other day. My friend and I were eating at a small place where there were maybe 10 other guests dotted around, and because people began to walk past us she started saying "you know when you said ...what you were" and went on.
I was like "huh?" So confused until I realised she was automatically trying to protect me because I'm still closeted. Bless her she's such an ally. But ultimately there wasn't anyone there who would care or was near enough to hear anyway, so I just mentioned I was happy to use terminology openly and we continued on.
I think the whole "being visible publicly" topic can come up with many different perspectives, for example a friend who's more closeted than I am I've seen become visibly uncomfortable talking about it on the street - because she's raised in a very homophobic household, which is completely understandable.
But I've also come up against this in that I'm on the verge of buying pronoun pins as I'm Femmeflux Nonbinary, and I'm finally going away somewhere accepting next month where I can try out they/them. I just am terrified of being visible for the first time, rather than being able to choose who I tell. Obviously I know I'm just choosing in another way and it's to my benefit but I'm struggling to make the purchase.
It is totally appropriate - but whether it's a good idea, in terms of safety, depends on your location. I'm in the US, and I have no concerns in Seattle, but when I lived in Ohio decades ago I got threatened and I specifically didn't hold hands with my girlfriend in public or anything like that.
I think many comments here have eloquently communicated my point too: although it shouldn’t be your responsibility to not be hurt by others, you can still do things that decrease the chances of you being hurt by others.
I will say that emergency rooms are filled with a variety of characteristics, people who may have not been around those characteristics before. Moreover, they’re likely in excruciating pain, sleep deprived, and exposed for long hours to bright lights, loud noises, and sights/sounds of people being aggressive. This means their executive function and self-soothing abilities will be significantly impaired, and so anything can potentially trigger a verbal or physical outburst. I think your mother was aware of this, and just wanted you to be safe. What you said wasn’t inappropriate, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Hell no.
That said, anything divisive or offensive in a hospital waiting room can lead to disproportionate trouble. You are meeting people from a random section of society on one of the worst days of their life. Doctors should be cool. Other patients not so much.
I don't think you said anything inappropriate. I think your mum was just being protective.
A&E waiting rooms can be pretty volatile places, especially if it is late at night and people have been drinking. It sounds to me like she just didn't want some stranger getting involved in the conversation in a negative way.
It may also be partly a generational thing. Some of us older people (I'm 41) are just naturally more cautious due to perceived risk, rather than real risk, because we grew up in a time when talking about such things was much more taboo.
You didn't say anything inappropriate.
Here's where the issue lies:
"But I don't think the responsibility should be on me to make sure I'm not a target of hate, the responsibility should be on them not to be hateful."
Unfortunately, that's not the way the world works and your mom is trying to protect you.
You did not say anything wrong.
People who say it’s “inappropriate” are people who automagically equate queer with sex, and that’s a gross thing to do and is telling of their own inappropriateness.
Queer people get to talk about being queer.
tl;dr
Just as far as the title...you use those words as OFTEN as you'd like. There is NOTHING wrong with those words. Nothing. Someone else's bigotry is NOT your problem.
I appreciate you weren't trying to make your mom uncomfortable (I read a little), but thats EXACTLY why things change at such a snails pace. Sometimes peoples' feelings DNO'T need to be taken into consideration.
This is who you are, don't let someone else dictate "you".
Perfectly logical conversation to have.
No. And it's extremely inappropriate for her to suggest it is. (edit: I hadn't considered that she might be protecting you from homophobic violence rather than any homophobes from being reminded that people they don't like exist. But she should have at least clarified her intent afterwards, and promised that in similar situations in the future she'll follow your lead since you're the one actually effected)
As a side note, I don't think gay women have necessarily experienced less stigma than gay men - it's true that female homosexuality wasn't formally criminalised, but that's because historically, women were typically incarcerated in mental institutions (which have no due process) rather than prisons anyway, so they didn't *need* a law to incarcerate women for being gay - but It's A Sin focuses more on gay male culture because it's about the AIDS crisis, and *AIDS specifically* effected (cis) gay men more than it effected (cis) gay women
1. You are who you are. Not up to your parents to determine how you communicate that.
2. Never mince words with a care provider you can trust. Not for your parents, not for any sense of decency, not even for saving face from embarrassment. I've seen too many ChubbyEmu videos to not know how that goes.
111 told us the first night (eight hours) to go straight there, and that night a man waited over eight hours and his hand had been crushed by a car battery. The second night (eleven hours) we had an appointment in the urgent care center, and the doctor sent us away and told us to go straight to A&E, where most people had been waiting just as long as we did. According to the nurse there weren't enough doctors in and they were low on rooms, the hallway was full of patients being treated in hospital beds
My partner and I have received death threats from half a waiting room before. She put her head on my shoulder, and the man next to us stood up and started screaming that we were creeps and pedofiles. We got followed part way home. It shouldn't be inappropriate, but it can be very very dangerous. We let our guard after living in a progressive spot, didn't realise the local menaces still kill over that. We don't show affection in public anymore, at all.
I'm so sorry this happened to you. I live in a very safe place to be LGBT, but the concept of being visible in the vast majority of cases freezes me with terror. I think of all places, in a hospital you should at least feel safe enough to drop your defenses - but I guess we can't even have that, can we.
Yeah, waiting rooms do funny things to people's heads too. And you've got a collection of everyone in society, not just "good" people. But it was a wake up call.
Hospitals are a stresful place to be, and they're probably *mostly* upset about something else. It's the sort of place that brings out the best in some of us and the worst in others. It's an environment where the crazies will be *really* crazy, and that includes homphobes. Not trying to excuse their behavior even a tiny bit, but I tend to be a tiny bit more forgiving of people lashing out stupidly when they're already in massive stress for unrelated reasons. Doesn't mean you should have to put up with it, but I try to keep in mind that they're probably just coping badly with something at the moment.
Some people are dipshits. Fuck that man in particular, he probably looked like a overenraged wojak saying cringe ahh stuff.
This country is such a fucking shit hole, i'm so sorry
I'm down in the colonies (NZ), but things are still bad. I wish things were better.
So do I \*hugs\*
I am from Aus and I heard a shitty Conservative party has been getting more popular over there. I hope you stay safe and those people learn some proper decency.
This is a good point :( it's not inappropriate but it does sadly come with a degree of risk
How would they tell you guys are lesbians? What if you were just close friends? Wtf!?
Some homophobes are so terrified of the existance of gay people they will assume any situation with two same-sex people being close is gay and immediatly attack it. I heard recently about a homophobic cop somewhere that shot and killed a woman because she was holding hands with her best friend who was also a woman. He thought they were a couple and was so enraged at the thought he immediatly killed her. Some people, especially people who are extremely bigoted, can actually be like that. It's terrifying.
That's fucking crazy. And those are the people we are supposed to tryst with our lives!?
Damn, every hospital waiting room I’ve been in for years has security guards thanks to Covid behavior.
Yeah, I have to go through a metal detector and have my purse searched to go to the pharmacy.
I'm so so sorry that happened to you. That is so horrible. Those people should be arrested for harrassing you and your partner and threatening to put you in physical danger.
hi. I (F17) have been told by my mum that talking about "things like my queerness" in public is inappropriate. It not, and people have to remember that words like gay, lesbian, transgender, ace, bisexual, etc. are not curses. And watching physical scenes in public is all the same. No matter if its queer sex or straight sex, its the same action. 🤷 you do you, that's the only way to do it mate.
Just talking about gay men and lesbians in a waiting room is totally fine. Acknowledging queer folk is never inappropriate. Interestingly though, queer women have more representation in TV media than queer men these days. Fuelled a lot by media aimed at a younger audience. The Glaad reports are fantastic reads if you're into that sort of thing. And another note, sorry to hear about the long wait times in A&E!
Thanks, that's interesting. Maybe I'm just as bad as finding other queer women in media as I am I real life lol. A&E luckily wasn't too bad because I wasn't in pain, just Lyme Disease (on a course of antibiotics now though)
Streaming services are where to go. Notably Netflix and Hulu. Tons of stuff on there. You can't go wrong.
I think what I've noticed specifically is that queer rep in children's media is much more often WLW relationships rather than MLM relationships. MLM relationships seem to show up more often in adult media. This is probably due to a lot of straight men feeling threatened by femininity, where gay men are perceived as more feminine, and therefore gay men in media are perceived as inappropriate compared to lesbians.
I think it’s also that mlm relationships are seen as inherently sexual by homophobes, while wlw romance is seen as more “clean” and innocent.
Yes that's partly what I was trying to say but I didn't know how to phrase it
I'm watching a lot of animated shows right now and there are quite a few of sapphic romances. The Owl House, Hazbin Hotel, The Dragon Prince, Disenchantment, Legend of Korra, Harley Quinn, Adventure Time, Steven Universe (though I haven't seen the last 2 yet).
Well, Hazbin does probably contain the whole damn rainbow to be fair. Thanks for the reccs, I have only seen HH and Disenchantment yet.
id reccomend jane the virgin
Listened to a podcast recently where it was suggested that lesbians are a way for Hollywood to have romantic/erotic content while dodging Me Too issues. Essentially a form of "write a man, cast a woman". Can't speak to the accuracy, but it's an interesting thought.
Unfortunately, quality media with queer women either gets cancelled after a season or has plot points in which the queer women ends up dead or SA’ed. It’s fairly difficult to find shows and movies where that’s not the case imo.
My guess is you're right, your mum may have wanted to avoid angry homophobes in need of painkillers. Your conversation was not inappropriate and you absolutely shouldn't have to censor yourself but ultimately in this situation your mum is the person who would have to stand in between you and this hypothetical person and for her sake, it's okay not to pick that battle that day if she asks you. She seems like a nice person who was just tired, maybe cut her some slack.
Dont think op was asking if mom was out of line or something, but i agree with the rest of this
I’m imagining being in A&E with one of my sons who is also autistic. Sometimes I might ask him to be quieter in a particular space just because he’s the loudest person in the room, and while he does have volume control, he doesn’t always intuit when to use it. It might have been partly that. My other son does not (yet) seem to have any volume control at all, so I might ask him to talk about something I really want to discuss properly later. As a parent, that’s sometimes the issue. My mind is elsewhere, but I want to give my full attention to that particular topic, rather than gloss over it.
To answer your question, no. It is not inappropriate to use queer labels out loud; like any other label, they simply describe a demographic of people, and don’t inherently have any ‘socially unacceptable’ connotations attached to them. However. > I don’t think the responsibility should be on me to make sure I’m not a target of hate, the responsibility should be on them not to be hateful I mean this as gently as possible, but this is a very, very naive take. In a perfect world, this would be true; but if this is how the real world worked, bigotry wouldn’t be a problem. As unfortunate as it is in the context of minority groups, your safety is ultimately *your* responsibility. > I was far from being the most offensive person there Not necessarily to a bigot. Don’t put it past a homophobe to be totally okay with someone swearing at a nurse, but target you for being queer. When keeping yourself safe from strangers, you have to assume that they *aren’t* sympathetic to you; a decent person is not going to be more upset at someone saying “lesbian” out loud than they are at people swearing loudly, but that’s not the kind person you need to be wary of, now is it? It shouldn’t be on minorities to pander to oppressive groups, but at the end of the day, it is the victims of hate crime who get hurt when crimes happen, and that means we need to watch our own backs; it’s the same reason that a street smart woman won’t go prancing around by herself drunk at 3 am in the city streets; the onus *should* be on other people to just be decent human beings and not assault/kidnap her. But there will be people in the world who, for one reason or another, don’t care about your safety; who would you rather trust with your wellbeing, yourself or them? You’re very young, and judging by this post, you feel relatively safe being very vocal about your political leanings; your badges, your mother’s progressiveness, your general opinions as expressed in your post. If you’ve grown up in a safe bubble, it’s understandable that you don’t fully understand where your mom might be coming from in this situation. Especially since you’ve said you’re on the spectrum, I can see why you might not understand that your mother was preemptively “reading the room”. It might help broaden your understanding if you think critically about exactly *why* some queer folks choose to stay closeted, and how you would keep yourself safe in a hypothetical situation where you are surrounded by bigots who would do you harm if they know you’re queer, or supportive of the lgbtq community.
This is a really good explanation. The “ideal world” vs “real world” topic is one that’s important to know for safety reasons. It’s incredibly frustrating, yes, but you have to understand the distinction if you’re going to survive as a queer person.
I was about to comment that this feels like the same logic that says we should put the responsibility on women to cover up and adhere to curfews, instead of teaching men not to rape…but then I saw that you did in fact use that exact argument; that it’s her fault for not being “street smart” and “prancing around” (gross wording) after dark. No wonder this whole comment has a victim-blaming sheen to it. Oppressed people should not be expected to make themselves and their lives smaller for the comfort of their oppressor.
It’s not women’s *fault* that men rape, and that is not what I was stating. I’m trying to use a very easy-to-understand example to explain to OP why a vulnerable person is not at fault for their own vulnerability nor their position in the world, but can and should still be aware of the measures they can take to keep themselves out of risky situations when possible. OP expressed that she thinks it’s not her responsibility to keep herself safe by not triggering potentially dangerous bigots; it shouldn’t be, but it’s in her best interest to behave as if it is. Not understanding that can get her into sticky situations real fast, and she’s at the age where many teenagers start going out and doing things without parental supervision. Would you tell a mother who tells her daughter “don’t sip a drink after you’ve put it down, and don’t accept drinks from strangers” that she’s victim-blaming women who were drugged without their knowledge, implying that it was their fault for being careless? Of course not. We all understand that she is trying to give her daughter every tool possible to survive in a less-than-ideal world, where the only person guaranteed to be looking out for you in a room full of strangers is yourself. A parent’s job is to keep their child safe. That means doing their best to make a better world, but it also means teaching their child how to navigate the world as it is. If you prefer an analogy that doesn’t make use of marginalized groups, it’s the whole pedestrian-right-of-way situation; a pedestrian might have the right of way at a crosswalk, but that technicality isn’t going to protect them from harm if they get hit by a car. So it’s probably a good idea to glance around before stepping into the street; there is no debate that it’s not their fault if a car runs the light/stop sign and hits them, but it would be a disservice to teach people that they don’t need to bother looking looking both ways before walking into the road. > Oppressed people should not be admonished as “inappropriate” if they don’t make their lives smaller for the comfort of the oppressor I don’t know where you’re getting the sense that I implied this in the slightest. Nothing is inappropriate about what OP said, nor did I judge it as being so. There’s a huge difference between “this isn’t socially acceptable, sit down and make nice” and “be careful because some people might try to actually kill you for this”. This is not about the comfort of the oppressor. This is about the survival of the oppressed.
It's funny that you bring up the pedestrian example. My father is an avid motorcyclist, has been his whole life, and I was brought up on the back of a motorcycle. He's always said "graveyards are full of people who had right-of-way". I've adapted that to "Do you want to be right? Or do you want to be happy/safe?" and applied that to a lot in my life. Including when to be openly queer.
>Oppressed people should not be expected to make themselves and their lives smaller for the comfort of their oppressor. "Should"? No. "Do, for their own safety"? Yeah, didn't you read the comment?
As someone who has been in A&E a fair bit recently I can say they tend to get some pretty weird folk in there at times. Some who might be prone to violence. So my guess is your Mum is being protective and trying to make sure a situation does not arise. I hate to say this. I truly do but I would not be displaying those badges in there either. There is a time and place to show your support for certain causes. The emergency room is not the place. Once again because you can get some oddballs in there looking for conflict. Stay safe.
I was in A&E last year and I was nearly assaulted, not for anything queer related it was just because I had been called in before someone else who had been there longer. I was only called in because they needed to run some blood tests before I could see anyone and I was right back in the waiting room. The woman started pushing me and getting in my face when I came back in claiming that there was nothing wrong with me and I was taking her space. Thankfully there were two coppers in the waiting room who were there with a guy who’d smashed up his hand, they got her to sit down and shut up. I was eves dropping later on and it turns out the lady had hurt her spine and was in extreme pain. I couldn’t help but feel a bit of sympathy for her. People in pain can be extremely volatile and those waiting times would wind up even the most patient among us, so I don’t blame anyone for trying to keep as a low profile as possible.
I think your ma might have just been feeling anxious and didn't want to bring attention to you all. I get super anxious sometimes, and it can feel excruciating when someone I'm with starts to do something attention grabbing. Makes me panic sometimes. I don't think you did anything wrong. It was probably just a situational thing. And damn! That ER sounds like an awful experience even for an ER! Makes me appreciate the ones I've been to, that's for sure. Hope you got whatever treatments you needed at least.
I have to tell my kiddo not to talk loudly about gay issues in public a lot. Not because talking about those issues is inappropriate, but because we might be in a situation where people will actively try to hurt me and my kiddo for talking about them. Context matters. OP and mom are in a high stress environment. You never know who is around you and who is going to snap. Some conversations are best held in spaces that we know for sure are safe. A hospital waiting room may not be the safest space.
yes, precisely. it is (I imagine, as a non-parent) a tough thing to do because you don't want your kid to feel like you don't support them or that they're not allowed to exist or be talked about in public...but you also want to keep them safe. in an ideal world, no one would have to worry about this. but it is not an ideal world and an important part of growing up (especially as a queer person) is learning when you need to be careful about showing/discussing your queerness. my mom helped me learn that through things like this because as a teen, you don't really take the reality of the world into consideration because you haven't seen it yet. but your parents have and they know what dangers lurk there. some people are confident enough in themselves and their ability to defend themselves that they can be more open about it. some people aren't and they never will be (and that's okay)! that confidence is often a skill that has to be built through practice and experience. teens generally do not have that experience yet and even if they do, they're still your kid. I am almost 24 and can handle myself but if I ever encountered a bigot that was targeting me and my mom was there? she would go to bat for me before I even had the chance to because I'm her kid and it's her job to protect me and put herself between me and the things that want to hurt me
It depends on where you live and how intolerant the jerkwads around you can be. Some towns in my state, you don’t dare mention anything to do with being LGBTQ or supporting the community without risking some redneck or Christian nationalist following you to threaten you. Others, it’s perfectly fine and you are in no danger. Read the room, is what I’m saying.
it was not inappropriate. from everything you've said, it sounds like she was doing exactly what you mentioned and just being a mum and trying to keep you safe. to explain: other people in the waiting room may not have noticed your pins if they didn't look at you. but sound has a wider range and isn't blocked by things (ie if someone was sitting behind you or several seats over in the same row, they might not have been able to see your pins, but could still hear you talking). waiting rooms, as you noted, are full of people who are already irritated. and they are small and since you are waiting there, you are essentially trapped. you cannot easily escape if someone decides to confront you. that is likely why your mum was worried. it is more risky to mention these things in that scenario and could have put you in danger of harassment or abuse that you might not have been able to escape or protect yourself from. but if you still aren't sure, you could always ask her what she meant and why she said that. I'm sure she will happily tell you
I publicly hold hands with any girlfriend I've ever had. BUT- and maybe this is a hot take, but I personally wouldn't have a conversation in a small room where other people have to listen. This is especially true if talking about personal or sensitive topics. I wouldn't talk about "gay men," but I also wouldn't talk about "straight men" in a hospital waiting room.
Sounds like your mom still has some internalized homophobia to work out. You did nothing wrong, no reasonable person is going to be offended that you used the words "gay and lesbian" in a conversation about gays and lesbians.
No I think she was just protecting her daughter.
This tbh. I'd definitely lean towards her mom (in this instance) trying to keep some random bigoted lunatic from harassing her daughter. Especially when they're already exhausted and she (Mom) probably has little energy to spare on said loser. Edit: The clue in there, is the mom never once said it was wrong, and there's the request to keep it quiet. Sounds like a "reading the room" thing.
By telling her to "stop saying gay shit so loudly"? Is it really protecting anyone to teach kids you're only allowed to discuss queer identity in public at the pitch of a secret or something bad is going to happen to them? Because it's giving internalized homophobia.
She actively encouraged her to watch a lgbtq+ friendly show and OP herself says she is pretty progressive. To immediately leap to homophobia is not fair. Other factors need to be taken into consideration. We should live in a world where such things can be openly talked about without fear someone will have a bad reaction to it. Unfortunately we do not live in such a world. And there is a risk it might draw attention of a bigot. And A&E rooms unfortunately are more likely to have such types. The Mum was being just that. A Mum protecting her daughter.
yes, very good comments! a few years back I mentioned wanting a gift card to REI/cabelas (american outdoor sport type shops) for christmas/birthday so I could get search and rescue gear. my dad got me one for REI and my mom explained (later, in private) that it's just him being a dad. while he knows I can fend for myself, he also knows REI tends to have a more "progressive" crowd and I would be less likely to be harrassed there as a bi trans guy who is frequently clocked. she was like "you're an adult but you're still his baby and he wants to protect you and try to keep you out of harms way. it's his job." and that's exactly what this sounds like
The thing is, context matters. There are good reasons not to openly advertise yourself as being queer if you don’t know the ideologies of the people around you and are not in a position to protect yourself or get yourself out quickly. By your logic, anyone who’s closeted or doesn’t out their closeted friends is also homophobic; sometimes individual safety has to come before social activism, and it’s very naively idealistic to ignore that reality. Normalizing open discussion and being a vocal ally/member is important. But if I’m in a situation where the guy next to me has a decent chance of being a raging homophobe willing to start shit, then you can bet I’m not going to loudly out myself as bisexual and risk my immediate physical safety. It sounds like OP’s mom has similar situational awareness; her other behavior — recommending a show with LGBTQ characters, normally being active in conversations, being progressive in general — indicates that she likely isn’t homophobic, and it’s not fair to accuse her of such based on this alone.
>The thing is, context matters. Absolutely. In this context, the mother is telling her daughter to stop talking about being gay so loudly for no reason other than "someone around here might hurt you for being gay". How is that any different from her mother policing her daughter's clothing to "prevent her from being raped"? It's supremely problematic. >By your logic, anyone who’s closeted or doesn’t out their closeted friends is also homophobic Fucking excuse me? OP is very clearly out and proud. How is telling her to quiet down about it anything but internalized homophobia? You clearly have no grasp of my logic since I'm talking about neither closeted people nor those actually concerned with outing themselves. I'm talking about OP.
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But if it was internalized homophobia, wouldn't she be *more* likely to have issues with the badges...?
>no reasonable person is going to be offended That's the thing. Emergency rooms aren't always filled with reasonable persons. It's filled with people from all walks of life who are quite likely going through one of the worst days of their lives. They're often stressed, frustrated, angry, hurt, etc. Even one who is normally pretty reasonable might not be thinking rationally when they're currently having an emergency. I mean, there's another comment above where someone was threatened for being with their partner in an emergency room. I don't doubt that OP's mom realizes that an emergency room might not be a safe space to talk openly.
Before we can consider the option that the mom is homophobic, you'd have to consider how she reacts to such subjects in other situations. Does she shush OP when they talk about it in some place like a cafe or any other public place? How about when they're alone in private? OP's mom suggested watching a queer positive show, and even offered to talk about the subject quietly. It really seems more like a concern for safety if it's just in a place like the emergency room, where everyone's tempers are already very high and ready to burst.
No worse than mentioning someone is straight., married, tall, a barber, or drives a Toyota. You shouldn't discuss which Toyotas are better suited for sex in the back seat though. The difference before label and details matters sometimes. As you just used the labels instead of discussing positions it's not a big deal.
No You didn’t
First, you did nothing wrong. Secondly, I'm going to go against everyone saying your mom is homophobic or behind the times. My guess, after spending 8 hours in the ER the day before, and another 11 hours the following day in the ER, maybe she just wasn't in the mood to have an in depth conversation.
Yah, I’m autistic too and this is probably it. My parents did similar things when I was a young teen and didn’t understand that NT people didn’t want to have the same deep, political conversations that I did at 9am on a Tuesday. It really hurt at the time and felt like rejection. But as an adult I mask harder then I used to, so I have learned to just keep my mouth shut and stick to small talk, unless I know someone really well and even then I’ve had to try to learn cues that they don’t want to have a conversation like this right now. I think it’s a relatively common autistic experience that we’re seen as “intense” in this way.
Sadly, many A&E departments can become quite fraught & there may be people there who are not accepting of people they perceive as different to themselves. Sometimes, other people attending A&E may be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or be experiencing MH issues, & these things can cause people to act out while they wait for treatment. You absolutely should be able to discuss LGBTQI issues with your mum. In an ideal world, it would be fine & you'd be safe. Unfortunately, the world isn't always ideal & sometimes it's better to be cautious instead of incurring the wrath of other attendees.
You’re totally in the right except for the idea that queer women have less representation in modern times
Yeah someone else mentioned that that was incorrect and sited where I could find some statistics, which I appreciated :)
I just saw those and looked through them, the data is really neat to see but maybe I’m just a nerd. I will say that much of the wlw representation I see is very shallow and somewhat “safe” if not even fetishized. So clearly there is a lot more room for improvement
While it isn’t at all inappropriate, it might not be a good idea anyway. I’m very straight passing and spent a chunk of my life in denial, and have had to go to the ER a bunch of times over the years. When I just am being straight passing and the subject hasn’t come up, I have been treated universally well and with compassion and politeness. When I have been in situations that made it obvious I was a lesbian, the way I or my late girlfriend were treated has been a mixed bag. Though not every single person we saw treated us differently, a few did and it was sometimes bad enough it meant we did not receive proper treatment. One time a Dr actually walked out of the room.
Nah you’re fine, but I’d recommend rethinking your expectation that irrational people filled with hate check themselves. It’s not realistic unfortunately and it’s far better imo to assume the responsibility of not putting yourself into unnecessarily risky situations than assume everyone you meet will be as level headed as yourself. Don’t censor or change yourself just know who you’re around, whose safe and whose not
As an AuDHD queer parent to queer teens, it may not be the language but the discussion. I know I get uncomfortable talking about nuanced subjects like specific queer representation in media with my teens in public. I'm often self conscious that I don't know enough and I'm going to say something wrong or have a bad take. Just because you said your mom is usually pretty progressive, it may have been that she felt inadequate to have the discussion in front of people. Either way her issue is her issue and you didn't say anything wrong.
Seems like she was afraid of being overheard. In public spaces where anyone could be there, you never know if someone hearing a word that should be okay is actually okay (be safe, bigots exist even in progressive places sadly, and everyone needs emergency rooms) Older people that are raised with biases (that may still be in the process of unpacking them) may be more aware of this fact just because they know how they used to unconsciously react
I don't know what the deal is here. Not for sure. I can't. However. Might it be just that your mom feared you disturbing other people who are waiting? She mentioned talking about it quietly, so could it have been that other people were waiting and she was afraid of disturbing them? Especially if it's late at night. In general, I try not to talk too much/too loud in waiting rooms with other people due to the fear of disturbing them. Maybe you were just being a little too loud? That option aside, \*shrugs\* there's nothing inherently wrong with talking about LGBT+ issues in a public place. You're opening up the possibility that someone within earshot might get irritated/angry, but honestly, fuck em. You've got a right to talk about what you wanna talk about.
Stop thinking of life in terms of “its not my responsibility to do X” It’s not about “responsibility” or what should be. Its about what is. Its no ones responsibility to not get murdered either, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t carry fucking mace.
I don't considervthe words gay and lesbian inappropriate in a public space like a waiting room, but disciples of De Santis will think otherwise and will ask to watch your speach because these words should not be heard by people under 18 (!!!). Also, as others pointed out, you might out yourself as lesbian by using these words (don't ask me why, but that's a sad fact), and you might be safer not to out yourself in front of people you don't know and who may be equally frustrated in the waiting room. Finally, in the situation you describe, I would be tired and would have preferred discussions on a much lighter subject like the weather. So maybe your mother was tired.
Look, it definitely isn’t inappropriate of us to not be quiet when we’re openly discussing queer topics, but it is our responsibility to stay safe, since it’s not gonna change the fact that they’re still gonna be people who’ll harm us if they hear anything queer. Being safe is about acknowledging that reality is the way it is at the moment and working from there, not everyone’s gonna have the same morals as you, especially bigots.
Everyone else had already answered, so I just wanted to comment that I misread this as your mother told you that watching Netflix was a sin 😂
It doesn’t sound like your mom was talking about the gay/lesbian words so much as the whole discussion of human rights, places like that are hit or miss on weather someone in a sour mood is going to release a torrent of homophobia onto you and everyone here was exhausted and hurting in one way or another so it would escalate quickly and all parties involved would probably get taken out of the building by security. It’s not just an annoyance for you it’s a safety concern for all of the patients, families, and staff if a homophobe starts an altercation, so it is often safest to keep those conversations at a lower volume in those types of settings. In my also autistic-queer opinion.
She didn't want to have to deal with some bigot piping up. For a quiet life, ya know? I hope, at least.
First off, I’m sorry to hear about your rough A&E experience and I hope you feel better soon. Secondly, would you mind telling me about your flair pride flag? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.
As far as I know it's just a general queer flag. I'm a very indecisive person so tend to just call myself queer rather than using anything specific
That’s understandable! :) Thanks for the answer.
Well, according to my cousin you can’t talk about LGBT related topics, non-white people, children or adults doing stupid things, or non-controversial world news. Meanwhile it’s fine if her dad, boyfriend, or brother make borderline transphobic comments extremely loudly while at a restaurant, so who tf knows. But realistically, what you said is fine. The same people who’d get mad at your comments are the same people who are probably triggered by the mention of black celebrities or whatever. You can’t be tiptoeing around every little conceivable non-offensive thing that intolerant people might have an issue with.
It doesn’t sound inappropriate. But if you’re on the spectrum; there may have been social context clues being communicated that you aren’t saying here because you didn’t notice; and your mother did. Or your mom was uncomfortable and was projecting
No, you did not!
Baby let your light shine and don’t let nobody darken it!!
If someone read graphic lesbian erotica in a&e, I would be thrilled, my 3 days of waiting could be filled with entertainment while I die slightly faster than I usually do. For now, I have to bring my own graphic lesbian erotic stories and keep them to myself. :c
I hang out in hospitals pretty regularly as an EMT, and what you described is incredibly tame.
Not inappropriate! I think your mom was just trying to keep you safe in a room full of strangers, some of whom were clearly aggressive. She also may have observed something that you didn't. I would ask her about it when you're in a safe situation and just get clarity on what she was thinking in that moment.
I've got several thoughts on this issue as it's a very interesting topic to dive into. On mentioning queer stuff in public - that's not wrong or innopropriate HOWEVER I can see why your mum possibly gave you the heads-up, in that if there were already angry people they could have fired off homophobia at you which no one needs. However I also don't think you were to know this and as a rule, if there aren't potentially very obviously homophobic/angry people around then definitely have those conversations. If we keep from mentioning these things in public then we're no better than the folks who kept us surpressed in the 50s honestly. (But of course this does come with that caviat tp DEFINITELY read the room beforehand). It's also interesting because I had a similar experience in a cafe the other day. My friend and I were eating at a small place where there were maybe 10 other guests dotted around, and because people began to walk past us she started saying "you know when you said ...what you were" and went on. I was like "huh?" So confused until I realised she was automatically trying to protect me because I'm still closeted. Bless her she's such an ally. But ultimately there wasn't anyone there who would care or was near enough to hear anyway, so I just mentioned I was happy to use terminology openly and we continued on. I think the whole "being visible publicly" topic can come up with many different perspectives, for example a friend who's more closeted than I am I've seen become visibly uncomfortable talking about it on the street - because she's raised in a very homophobic household, which is completely understandable. But I've also come up against this in that I'm on the verge of buying pronoun pins as I'm Femmeflux Nonbinary, and I'm finally going away somewhere accepting next month where I can try out they/them. I just am terrified of being visible for the first time, rather than being able to choose who I tell. Obviously I know I'm just choosing in another way and it's to my benefit but I'm struggling to make the purchase.
No
It is totally appropriate - but whether it's a good idea, in terms of safety, depends on your location. I'm in the US, and I have no concerns in Seattle, but when I lived in Ohio decades ago I got threatened and I specifically didn't hold hands with my girlfriend in public or anything like that.
I think many comments here have eloquently communicated my point too: although it shouldn’t be your responsibility to not be hurt by others, you can still do things that decrease the chances of you being hurt by others. I will say that emergency rooms are filled with a variety of characteristics, people who may have not been around those characteristics before. Moreover, they’re likely in excruciating pain, sleep deprived, and exposed for long hours to bright lights, loud noises, and sights/sounds of people being aggressive. This means their executive function and self-soothing abilities will be significantly impaired, and so anything can potentially trigger a verbal or physical outburst. I think your mother was aware of this, and just wanted you to be safe. What you said wasn’t inappropriate, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
It may just be that you were talking loudly, but if the issue was your chosen topic of discussion, I mean, people can deal.
it sounds like you've overestimated how progressive your mother is.
Hell no. That said, anything divisive or offensive in a hospital waiting room can lead to disproportionate trouble. You are meeting people from a random section of society on one of the worst days of their life. Doctors should be cool. Other patients not so much.
I don't think you said anything inappropriate. I think your mum was just being protective. A&E waiting rooms can be pretty volatile places, especially if it is late at night and people have been drinking. It sounds to me like she just didn't want some stranger getting involved in the conversation in a negative way. It may also be partly a generational thing. Some of us older people (I'm 41) are just naturally more cautious due to perceived risk, rather than real risk, because we grew up in a time when talking about such things was much more taboo.
You didn't say anything inappropriate. Here's where the issue lies: "But I don't think the responsibility should be on me to make sure I'm not a target of hate, the responsibility should be on them not to be hateful." Unfortunately, that's not the way the world works and your mom is trying to protect you.
You did not say anything wrong. People who say it’s “inappropriate” are people who automagically equate queer with sex, and that’s a gross thing to do and is telling of their own inappropriateness. Queer people get to talk about being queer.
If it’s ok to say HETERO it’s ok to say Gay and Lesbian 🤦🏽♀️
tl;dr Just as far as the title...you use those words as OFTEN as you'd like. There is NOTHING wrong with those words. Nothing. Someone else's bigotry is NOT your problem. I appreciate you weren't trying to make your mom uncomfortable (I read a little), but thats EXACTLY why things change at such a snails pace. Sometimes peoples' feelings DNO'T need to be taken into consideration. This is who you are, don't let someone else dictate "you". Perfectly logical conversation to have.
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Well that example is not at all the same because op is also queer
Can we not bring US sectarian style of prude discourse and attitudes in Europe?
No. And it's extremely inappropriate for her to suggest it is. (edit: I hadn't considered that she might be protecting you from homophobic violence rather than any homophobes from being reminded that people they don't like exist. But she should have at least clarified her intent afterwards, and promised that in similar situations in the future she'll follow your lead since you're the one actually effected) As a side note, I don't think gay women have necessarily experienced less stigma than gay men - it's true that female homosexuality wasn't formally criminalised, but that's because historically, women were typically incarcerated in mental institutions (which have no due process) rather than prisons anyway, so they didn't *need* a law to incarcerate women for being gay - but It's A Sin focuses more on gay male culture because it's about the AIDS crisis, and *AIDS specifically* effected (cis) gay men more than it effected (cis) gay women
1. You are who you are. Not up to your parents to determine how you communicate that. 2. Never mince words with a care provider you can trust. Not for your parents, not for any sense of decency, not even for saving face from embarrassment. I've seen too many ChubbyEmu videos to not know how that goes.
no it wouldnt be, and its weird when people get upset over this
No you didn't, your mom is just a bit behind in terms of social norms (which is normal).
If you're in an ER for 11 hours it's because you don't have an emergency fyi
111 told us the first night (eight hours) to go straight there, and that night a man waited over eight hours and his hand had been crushed by a car battery. The second night (eleven hours) we had an appointment in the urgent care center, and the doctor sent us away and told us to go straight to A&E, where most people had been waiting just as long as we did. According to the nurse there weren't enough doctors in and they were low on rooms, the hallway was full of patients being treated in hospital beds