Why You’re Being A Shitty Ally

Congratulations! You’ve just made a gay friend and you’ve told them exactly how much you support them and their ‘lifestyle choice’. You give yourself a pat on the back and go on with your day feeling like you’ve just squared away all of the good deeds you had to do for the rest of the month in one fell swoop. You’re an awesome person, and the support you expressed to your new friend proves that, right?

Wrong. You’re a shitty ally, and you need to check yourself immediately.

I see this happen all the time with allies. Their child just came out as transgender and they ‘only reacted badly to the news for the first few weeks’ and then turned it all around. They took their kid out for ice cream, and decided that they would let their child transition, thinking that they’ve just clinched that “best parent” award this year.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love my ally friends. Some of them have been with me since the beginning, and I know they would stand by me no matter what. On the other hand though, I have plenty of ally friends who I also love, but haven’t quite figured out how to be a good ally. These are the same people who despite violating sensible expectations of how an ally should behave, believe that they’re being a massive help to the LGBT community just by showing up to Pride.

Even if you’re an ages old ally of the LGBT community, there may yet be habits that could stand to be reflected upon. In that spirit, here is a list of shitty ally behaviors to watch out for.

The ‘A’ In LGBTQA Doesn’t Stand For ‘Allies’

You are an ALLY. You may not be transgender or homosexual in any way yourself, but you have friends who you love and want to show your support to. You support them. That’s how this works. Your friends value your voice and their love for you is mutual, but your job is to be there for them. They may be there for you in other ways but as an ally, but you are the Ethel to our Lucy so don’t try to make advocacy about you.

If you’re an ally and you find yourself saying, “what about me?” in relation to the direction of the LGBT community, you may need to revisit why you’re an ally in the first place.

A good ally is someone who knows that they have a certain power that those who are a part of the ‘core affinity’ (in other words, the people who fall into one of the areas covered specifically by ‘LGBT’) don’t have. That power is the ability to speak from a disassociated vantage point, and a good ally is willing to lend that power to their LGBT friends knowing there will be no direct benefit returned to them.

The third party point of view holds a lot of weight when it comes to persuasion. It’s the same reason you don’t want your husband or wife to tell you that you look good in that dress/suit. Of course they’re going to say you do, their answer has a direct correlation to their interests. However if a trusted third party tells you that you look good, it’s easier to believe. This is the space in which an ally should live.

Don’t tell people you ‘came out’ as an ally

Your vocal support for a minority community may seem like an admission sometimes. Under some circumstances, I imagine it can be harder than others to face up to friends, family, and neighbors and tell them that LGBT equality is non-negotiable.

Having said that, being an ally does take commitment. Shielding your queer friends from the scorn of others can be a hard job, but under no circumstances should you ever feel at ease to use the phrase “coming out” the first time you told someone you support LGBT equality.

It’s not appropriate, plain and simple. When you use this term, you wind up comparing yourself and your experience to the experience of someone who has come out in a more traditional sense — I.E. someone who is themselves lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender and let me tell you, there is no comparison.

I have seen both sides of this fence personally and I can tell you with absolute conviction that it is leaps and bounds easier to stick up for your friends who are getting picked on for being who they are than it is to be the person getting picked on.

If you’re committed to supporting the LGBT community, then you know exactly why this is a problem. There’s no such thing as a ‘poor downtrodden ally’. There just isn’t.

Never stop learning about people in the LGBT community

Efforts to support the ‘T’ part of ‘LGBT’ have been slow to catch on and in many cases have been intentionally delayed in order to focus more on the more ‘palatable’ parts of the LGBT community — specifically the ‘gay’ parts.

I can’t tell you how many people from other letters in the LGBT rainbow that are still fascinated to know things about their transgender counterparts. Even though we can identify with each other on so many of the same issues, there still seems to be a gap in understanding of some of the basic issues facing other members of our community.

The door swings both ways though. If you aren’t educated on the plight of the bisexual community, get out there and learn something about them! If you’re meeting someone who’s trans for the first time, make time to talk to them. Exchange ideas and experiences if everyone is amenable to it.

If you’re in the LGBT community, support your fellow community members

Maybe you’re a gay man, but you just don’t know what’s up with those weird transgender people. Maybe you’re a cis lesbian, but something about gay men doesn’t make sense to you and you don’t really care enough to figure out what their deal is.

When the police ran raids on gay bars in the 1950’s and 1960’s, LGBT people of all shapes and sizes were pulled out of underground clubs like Stonewall just the same. The cops didn’t care about the differences between us, but we of all people should.

When those raids turned into violent riots, it was the LGBT community as a solid, united, block of people — trans women standing next to cis gay men standing next to cis lesbians standing next to non-binary bisexuals. Just because you’re already a card-carrying member of the LGBT community doesn’t mean that you’re off the hook of being an ally to everyone else.

We are all allies to someone no matter how you look at your own participation in this community. Proportionally, we all have a responsibility to stand up and defend one another, even though we may not agree perfectly on every issue. It’s the unity of the LGBT community that has made this movement strong, and if we lose that element, there will be dark days ahead for all of us collectively.

Now more than ever we need strong allies to help defend the gains that have been made over the past decade, and we will all rely on each other to assure the standing of gay & trans equality for ourselves, and for all others. So be a better ally! You’re smart, you’re capable, but all you need now is to tweak your support so that you don’t make your LGBT friends cringe!

EmilyMaxima is a freelance essayist with published works in TheEstablishment.co, The Huffington Post & Btchflicks.com. Follow her on twitter: @emilymaxima