A tumblr post recently came across my dashboard that summed up an issue I keep running into (often with folks who I consider friends). The original blog, feministpixie.tumblr.com, has been deleted, but the words are still true:

“Oh, so because I’m straight I’m not allowed to have an opinion on [insert LGBT issue here]”

Listen.

I’m an english major. I know next to nothing about science, engineering, and astronomy. Sure, I think space is cool. I’m very supportive of NASA’s efforts. I might even have an opinion on where we should send the next shuttle or how much money we should spend on space travel.

But at the end of the day, my opinion on the matter is not valuable. I’m not going to enter into a discussion about the next shuttle launch with a bunch of trained scientists and expect them to take me seriously.

Sometimes, your opinion is not valuable. Sometimes, you aren’t qualified to enter a discussion.

And, lets be honest, straight people’s opinions are valued in literally every other situation. Hell, straight people get more awards for lgbt “activism” than queer people themselves.

If you really can’t accept that sometimes your voice isn’t the most important in the room, you might need to get over yourself.
—feministpixie.tumblr.com

Recently I’d re-tweeted something someone else retweeted in which a person commented about some “no homo” behavior he had observed in the real world with a comment about how fragile some people’s masculinity seemed to be. A friend jumped on the tweet to lecture me about how there were plenty of other reasonable explanations for the observed behavior, specifically saying the observation was the moral equivalent of an anti-gay slur.

I pointed out that the original observer was summarizing something he saw in a 140-character tweet, and might have left out a lot of other cues that he might have observed to deduce that the guys in question were homophobic. To which the friend replied, “That’s like gaydar, which is fun, but—” and then went on for a bit, concluding with the tired old chestnus, “I try to just mind my own business and not judge strangers in public.”

There are several things to unpack here:

1. Gaydar isn’t merely a game. Gaydar isn’t accurate (though there is science to show that it is more often right than random guesses). And I’m sure to a straight person someone claiming to have gaydar is just about fun and giggles and guessing who might be part of the family. But that isn’t what gaydar is. Gaydar is an outgrowth of a survival mechanism. In a world where people are gay-bashed (sometimes to death), a queer person learns from a very early age to start looking for signs of who might be a friend, and who might be an enemy. Gaydar is just one manifestation of that.
2. Therefore, keeping a wary eye for possible homophobes is not being judgmental. Again, as a queer person, I don’t have the luxury of minding my own business in public. I have never had that luxury. It isn’t just the bullies that beat me in school. It isn’t just the junior high coach who called me “faggot” all the time. It isn’t just the stranger on the street who shouted the word “faggot” and other things at me as I walked to work years ago. Gay bashing still happens. It isn’t just the occasional nutjob who goes on a mass shooting and kills 49 queer people in a single night. We never know when it might happen. So again, from an early age we look for warning signs, non-verbal cues, et cetera. We learn to avoid certain types of people, not because all of them are violent homophobes, but because some of them are and not being careful is risking more just getting our feelings hurt.
3. It isn’t always about you. I get it, you’re not a violent homophobe. You may share some superficial characteristics or behaviors that a stranger might interpret the same way, but you would never attack someone. That’s good to know, but this isn’t about you. This is about our own safety and our experiences.
4. Being thought of as possibly homophobic is not the equivalent of being gay bashed. I also understand that when you, a straight person, read about this sort of thing, you get your feelings hurt because you think that queer people who don’t know you might think you’re a homophobe because you act in a similar way. I’m sorry that your feelings are hurt, but your fear of being judged doesn’t balance out against our very real fear of being attacked. You’re not going to have to go to an emergency room to get stitches in your feelings. Your loved ones won’t be going to a funeral for your feelings. We, on the other hand, very well might get beaten or worse if we just mind our business and be ourselves around the wrong person.

I hate the fact that I still have to check myself constantly. I hate the fact that I can’t just be in the moment when I’m out in public, especially with my husband. I hate the fact that I have to keep an eye out for how strangers around me are acting. I hate the fact that I always do a quick assessment of our surroundings when I’m in public with my husband and one of us calls the other “honey.” I desperately yearn to live in a world where I can just mind my own business and not pay attention to how other people talk or act or what their facial expression is when they look at me, et cetera.

Believe me, I really wish that I could just mind my business.

But I can’t. Instead of getting upset because someone might misinterpret some of your behavior and be careful around you, be thankful that you don’t live in that same fear.

Stop straightsplaining. We really do understand homophobia far better than you ever could. That’s just a fact.