Need Advice About Ally and Friends and Family
Hello, first off I am not a member of the LGBTQ+ community, however I do have a question about being more open and supportive. For context I grew up and still attend a quite Conservative church and grew up with well the type of narrative you'd expect. I still attend there however a lot of personal beliefs have changed. My question is around friends and family as well as even people like therapists etc. There are people in my life who I genuinely like who do still hold to more Conservative beliefs. To be supportive am I expected to eventually be able to outright cut people out of my life? That's kind of the vibe I get from some people but it frankly isn't possible. Or should I just be correcting problematic behaviour if I hear it? I also have family members who I honestly wouldn't feel comfortable correcting because it would turn into a massive fight. How should that be handled? Finally I see a religious therapist because of my faith who's amazing for me. And its a similar question of friends and stuff. I know she doesn't believe in conversion therapy but I also know she isn't 100% completely affirming either. But also stopping seeing her isn't super an option for me because she's been amazing I'm still pretty new to all this and how to handle personal relationships like these is so new to me. Also the anxiety to these questions is eating me alive. I hope these made sense. Im being torn apart inside and super anxious
@Darren1 hi there! i totally understand that it can be hard, and what i suggest is correcting people when they show "problematic" behavior, but in case you feel like correcting family members will turn into a fight, i believe it's best to leave it as it is, so that you don't destroy your relationship with them (in case it's something important for you, of course!). cutting people without giving them a chance to be better is probably not the best option, because that way they never manage to fix their behavior nor become better people. if in the end, you do though see that their behavior doesn't change, i believe it's up to you whether you think it's best to cut them out or not. have a nice day1
I'm sorry you have to go through this Darren :(
@Darren1 you can be a good ally and still associate with people who aren't accepting, you definitely don't have to just cut out every person from your life that isn't lgbtq+ friendly. In a lot of places and situations, that's just understandably not possible (and in my opinion, shouldn't be the approach anyways even if it was an option). I think "cutting out" people should be more for if they're actively hurting you and it's impacting you negatively to be around them. It's okay to speak up when you can, but it's also okay to not sometimes. Sometimes it's just not worth the fight/argument, especially when you know it won't go anywhere. I think it's more important to speak up when someone is directly being impacted, such as if you had a gay family member who wasn't out to the whole family and you hear one relative speaking negatively about the gay community in front of them, speaking up then could mean a lot to that family member. You don't have to quit seeing your therapist if her beliefs aren't negatively impacting your life or the life of someone important to you, you know?