and right in the middle she had the grace to thank "straight allies" - she didn't need to...it isn't hard to be an ally - just to be a decent human...but she did. This poem is wonderfully honest, full of rightful outrage and yet very inviting and nurturing in just the right ways. Thank you so much for sharing it!
When I came out I actually took the door off my closet and threw it in a bonfire and replaced the empty space with a pride flag, that was the most empowering thing I have ever done..
mystiquegem, my mom said we don’t have a door for your closet yet and I said I don’t want one. She had no idea why. I wanted to make it easy to come out. One week later I came out
The lunchroom part hit different for me. A homophobic and transphobic boy sometimes sits at “my” table and he just calls me out for being non-binary and pan the whole time. I’m sitting there and he is talking about me and says she, I politely correct. He then just kept getting louder and louder with the same sentence using feminine pronouns for me. My friends just sat there in the silence listening to him. Except for one. She went off on him. My other friends saying she’s being over dramatic. She goes with me to another lunch table but the fight continues. I’m sitting there in tears wanting to punch him with all my strength. It wasn’t him that hurt though, I expected it from him. It was my friends just sitting there yelling at me and the people helping me at the other table that we were being over dramatic. I tried to act like it didn’t bother me but that just made it worse. My friends also told my gender fluid friend to just pick a gender and that there are only two or three genders. It hurts, they wouldn’t understand though because the only thing that they were ever proud about accomplishing is being able to do the renegade. I’m being serious. My best dreams were me coming out to my whole family and all of them being so so supportive. That’s not going to happen. My grandmas uncle is gay, the family didn’t like that. I just want to go to a store once and instead of the cashier saying that my mom has nice daughters I want them to say what nice kids or going to a restaurant instead of saying is this for her, them ask me for my pronouns or say is this for them because that would make me so so happy. It would be the first time I haven’t been misgendered in public. I want a pin saying my pronouns just so I have the right to correct people when they say she. Thank you if you read this far
Thank you!! I am a lesbian and when people stare at me like I’m fucking crazy I get so mad! At Starbucks yesterday the boy at the counter was flirting with me but after I got my coffee I sat on my girlfriends lap and gave her a sexy kiss while the guy was looking at me... it felt great!
What's so bad about being uncomfortable around gay people, yes they are people however imagine that you are a Christian and that you know that being gay is wrong, and you see a gay person, is it wrong to see something you know is bad and be uncomfortable? I think not, homophobia is fine and there is nothing wrong with that.
@@CharlesSeipke I would love to debate with you to change your mind and show that true Christianity does not show that homosexuality is wrong, but I'm tired of this fight. I tired of constantly having to prove to people that were not monsters. At this point, I just feel sorry for you. I hope that maybe one day you'll understand. I hope your children can understand. I'm sorry.
ReTeX Gaming Homophobia is harmful and drives people to suicide. How is it fine? You people really like the cherrypick the Bible and decide which parts you want to follow huh? What happened to ‘love thy neighbor’?
This guy at my school said “I fucking hate when people say their pan or bi or ace or some bullshit like that! You can only be gay, straight, or a lesbian.” I told him “well you can like boys and girls and-“ he cut me off and said “you say the dumbest shit sometimes” wtf
Stinky Chamberlain If no one gives a shit then why are you even commenting? Obviously you give enough shit to come and spread hate where it’s not wanted. Go be edgy somewhere else honey.
I love Denice! She has a gorgeous soul and she is beautiful. She speaks the words of truth. Chills every time I hear her voice. Her voice is so clear and crisp. All the love and respect in the world, Denice! ❤️❤️
Wasn't gonna comment but the comment section be clowning so here I am to even it out a bit: this woman is preaching truth and I may or may not have a little bit of a crush on her 😳
Dear unnecessarily loud audience, This is a brilliant poem...shame we can barely hear half of it because of the idiots hollering at every line before she can even finish her sentence. You can see that it's putting her off too when she has to pause mid-sentence all the time, just to be heard. We know you're appreciating her work, but it's more effective if you give your applause at the end; rather than interrupting her performance so much. That is all, thanks.
Straight women who like to flirt with lesbians for the attention or want to experiment with them but insist that they are straight and view it as a sort of fun and entertaining thing
dear people, i'm not sure who i should hate? i have a lot of problems but i'm not sure to antagonize. if i'm straight and white and male can i rail against other straight whites or do i need to hate mexicans or gays or something? does it just depend what part of the country? i want people to cheer for my problems. sorry if its a dumb question also loved the poem! im so sorry!
straight, cis, white males have problems as well. you can still write about your problems. you don't have to hate certain groups of people just because society tells you that you must. you are you. nobody can change that except yourself.
Ethan you don't need to hate anyone. The only thing you need to do is understand that you are in no way able to understand or know how it feels to be something other then a white cishet male. You can help with stoppning homophobia,transphobia etc, but you also need to let us fight our battles ourselves. We want to win because we can, not because of someone that's "the top of the pyramid". And you have other typer of problems, that you too can write about but those problems are probably other typer of problems, that don't have a lot to do with the lgbtqia+ and other commuenities. Thank you for asking, and sorry if My english was incorrect. It isn't My first languege :) -A queer woman /Demi-girl
I know, and she knows. I'm sorry if this poem offended you in any way, but even though it's called "Dear straight people", I think she meant the splinter group of straight people who ARE homophobic. I know that it might seem like she was talking to all straight people, but she really wasn't. She even thanked straight allies 😀
I remember in school this girl asked me out and I said yes and then only a couple hours later EVERYONE and I mean EVERYONE in the school knew. They all would talk about it and ask me questions and i used to say yes in m dating her and then they would walk off whispering to each other. I'm an introvert all that attention on me and my relationship with this other person caused me strain and fear when someone asked to talk to me I felt fear every time. the relationship only lasted a month so that's that but I used to walk the halls in fear. I was so scared that I completely stopped talking to people unless it was to answer questions from the teacher. There was this one kid that would walk right next to me and shove me to her and said "why don't you stand next to your girlfriend". After they said that I started to slowly distance myself from her and that led to our break up. They would say everything that I do is gay and I'm not even gay I'm bisexual. So I lost full confidence in myself to walk down the halls proud to be in a relationship with her an we broke up. To tell you the truth we didn't ever hold hands not even hug each other everytime she tried I would either go further away from her or speed up so to this person sorry. Those kids made things super uncomfortable
women who flirt or have sex with other women simply for "fun" - not even for experimentation - while vehemently insisting the whole time they're 100% straight.
Dude this is slam poetry. To be a good performer, you have to express your emotions clearly. She is just expressing how certain things make her feel, she obviously doesn't randomly scream at straight people in public.
I like this poem, but not all straight people hate LGBTQ+ people, like me, I’m straight but I also go to pride marches, dont Make a big deal when a gay couple are doing couple things,, and I also have lots of LGBTQ+ friends and they don’t make me feel uncomfortable at all even when they kiss with their significant other. It just makes me angry when people are being homophobic but it also makes me angry when some one says , you can’t support LGBTQ+ unless you are LGBTQ+
Huh, I think that it should, instead of being 'Dear Straight People', be 'Dear (insert every single phobia towards gender/sexuality/sex)'. Because, well, not all Straight People are uncomfortable around people in the LGBTQ+ community, most of the straight people that I know support it. But, what I think should go there is a mouthful and wouldn't really fit well in a poem. I'm not raging against this poem or the person behind it. I'm just like everyone else here, stating my opinion. I'm sorry if I offended anyone, that was not my goal.
I'm glad that most of your straight friends/acquaintances aren't homophobes, but most people aren't so lucky. Most straight people are - in one form or another - homophobes. It's just what it is. And she does acknowledge those that don't with her "dear straight allies" bit. But the thing is that straight people have a lot of privilege, and when they don't use that privilege for good things (which is the most common thing to happen in my experience), they're not doing what they can and should. ((similar to when white people aren't directly racist but sit by and let racism happen all around them when they have the privilege, power, and influence to do something about it)) Thank you for everything. :)
regardless of the percentage of homophobic straight people to straight allies (which is, by the way, nowhere near balanced), she did acknowledge straight people who aren't homophobic. very clearly. furthermore, all straight people are naturally very, very privileged. if one isn't an ally, one is not using that privilege to do good things.
I think this is a message to straight people: a smack in the face to the homophobes, something to acknowledge for neutral people, and a thank you for allies. I mean, that’s what I saw, agree to disagree.
(And Kyro, I think it’s like that Netflix show Dear White People. It’s literally pointing out privilege, and making the racists and homophobes pissed, cause they know it and they’re being called out for their hate and prejudice. I’m not gay, but I’m not upset. This is something to learn from. I’m not gay, but I know what that pain feels like. This is an inspiration. Sorry, agree to disagree.)
