I saw some posts about intersectionality going around and how white lgbt people need to recognize that they’re still white, and another thing I wanted to point out is that there are a lot of white people who don’t realize that lgbt poc are also more at risk of violence for being lgbt than they are.
Something I didn’t realize before having to interact with a bunch of white people in the all trans dorm floor at my uni is that white people don’t understand how poc are legitimately more at risk than them. For instance, there were a couple issues where some kids wanted to get their picture taken in the newspaper, but when they invited everyone from the floor to come down for it, a few people pointed out that our campus newspaper had taken a picture at an all black dorm a while back, and then a hate crime happened at that dorm not long after.
Of course, all of the people who pointed this fact out were the poc on our floor, and it shocked me so much that the white kids who wanted their picture taken hadn’t even considered the fact that they could be persecuted for existing. They acted like the poc on our floor were overreacting when in fact anti-lgbt hate is not uncommon in our area. Even if white lgbt people theoretically understand the violence that can be leveraged against them, it’s never at the proportion that lgbt poc have learned to expect.
If ur white lgbt and want to be better, main thing is to fucking LISTEN to poc in your life when they talk about persecution and racism. Your opinion on racism is never going to be more well informed than a poc’s experience and that is FINAL. There’s no ifs or buts about it. They’re not overreacting, they’re not making it up, they have experiences that you don’t and you have to acknowledge that.
