When The LGBTQ Community is Not a Sanctuary of Inclusion
By: Justine L
Tags: Autism, Belonging, Lgbtiq, Intersectionality, Lesbian

When The LGBTQ Community is Not a Sanctuary of Inclusion

Photo by Harry Quan on Unsplash

Ever since I can remember, my life has been defined by a sense of being different and on the outside looking in. Growing up, I was different from my brothers and different from the other kids at school. As an adult, I felt it in the distance from fellow university students, work colleagues and then other parents. There was always a vague feeling of being from somewhere else; a displaced alien waiting to be recalled by the mothership.

There’s a lot of self-loathing bound up in this. I’ve blamed my failure to fit in rather than the environments that failed to accommodate difference.

I first realised I was same-sex attracted when I was in my early teens but the language to articulate it didn’t come until quite a bit later. So for a while I floundered in the world that I had the language for: heterosexuality. It was a very poor fit and I failed spectacularly.

Coming out of the closet is a strange concept. There’s something performative about it. There’s the expectation of a reaction, not just from those near and dear but from the LGBTQ community. Isn’t that what Mardi Gras is about — celebrating being welcomed into the big happy rainbow family? But surrounded by a huge number of people in celebration mode, I just felt overwhelmed and alone.

The coming out narrative is broadly one of finding your ‘tribe’ along with acceptance and belonging. It’s as though being welcomed into the community seamlessly follows the act of coming out.

What if the reaction from “the community” is not forthcoming? What if the reason there’s no reaction is because there’s not actually a “community” as such? Coming out was not easy. But it was nowhere near as hard as what happened (or didn’t happen) next.

No-one comes to your door with the keys to the LGBTQ community when you announce to the world that you are gay. There isn’t anyone to help you navigate it unless you’re lucky enough to have a more experienced queer friend or you are sharing your journey with someone else.

To be drawn by an expectation of acceptance and then not find it can be soul destroying.

I entered a limbo that I soon felt I would be stuck in forever. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I went to events, lesbian nights in bars, meetups, book clubs. Nothing led to anything. Just a series of awkward events where I endured anxiety and self-consciousness only to go home confused and empty handed.

I would see friend groups and wonder how they happened. How did they meet? How did they sustain it? I felt like I was missing something — a manual, a script, a memo. They all seemed to know exactly what they were doing. I had no idea. If the unspoken rules of social interaction are complex generally, those of the lesbian world are unfathomable. I may as well have been back at school with “the scene” substituting for the school yard and the alpha lesbians for the cool girls.

It’s not that I don’t know people in the LGBTQ community but it would be a stretch to call many of them friends. Ever the observer, I hear about barbecues, camping weekends, and the effortless way folks wander in and out of each other’s lives. The cozy blanket of togetherness they wrap around themselves sparks envy. It’s not an emotion I’m usually given to but it cuts into a deep seam of “less than”.

I live in a major city so it’s not about numbers. In this particular city there’s a propensity for lesbians to form into cliques. There’s a ‘people like us’ mentality that on the one hand facilitates bonding between those who have something in common. The downside is that those who embody difference in some way are excluded.

There seems to also be a scarcity mentality operating where people fear that giving something of themselves will somehow diminish them or they’ll miss out. The result is a closed shop and a cruel paradox for those who have sought out a place to be themselves only to find more judgement.

I’ve got a bit further with online dating platforms. I’ve given up on them now but that’s another story. At least I had some control over the parameters if not the outcome. Setting up a date is relatively easy but working out what comes next is confounding, particularly if it sits in that grey zone between friends and romantic attachment.

Making connections has been so rare that when I do, it seems like a fluke or an accident. So I’ve hung on for dear life because I have no idea how I would go about finding it again. I’ve let go of the toxic ones now and the ones I’m left holding on to are truly rare gems.

Being queer never fully explained how different I felt from everybody else.

It wasn’t until being diagnosed autistic in my 40s that the nameless sense of being on the outer found a name. It explained so much. One of the defining features of autism is feeling like you don’t quite fit in anywhere because your brain is wired differently. It works in fundamentally different ways to shape the way you perceive and make sense of the world. I hadn’t been playing the same game as everyone else. I wasn’t even on the field.

Unsurprisingly, the The LGBTQ world replicates the neurotypical world because it is part of it. If you are gay and neurotypical you have more of a claim on ‘normal’. Your sexuality doesn’t fully negate your ability to play the main game.

Neurotypical assumptions about how people operate are perpetuated in the LGBTQ world and can make it difficult for autistic people to gain a foothold. Yet being more inclusive of neurodivergence is not a fanciful idea given that up to 70% of autistic people identify as non-heterosexual. There needs to be more explicit discussion with people who are autistic to identify needs and how to meet them. The current ways of facilitating social connection are just not cutting it for many of us.

Neurotypical expectations of behaviour present a barrier to engagement in the LGBTQ community. There’s a kind of tone policing that mandates expressing yourself in a certain way. This is problematic for autistic people who tend to to cut through the bullshit and prioritise honesty over social niceties and can come across as blunt as a result. When you struggle to understand the unspoken rules in the first place it’s a minefield.

Dismissing voices that are expressed in a way that makes people feel uncomfortable takes the focus off the lived experience behind the voices. It has the effect of silencing and reducing participation and visibility of marginalised people.

It’s not just the neurodivergent who are marginalised within the LGBTIQ world.

Intersectionality is important because it acknowledges the full marginality of lived experience. We all have intersecting identities that come from the groups we happen to find ourselves in. Inclusion means recognising that difference impacts on some groups disproportionately and is experienced in different ways.

Those within the queer community who are white, educated, cisgender and non-disabled are in a relatively privileged position. When the only experience of being on the margins is being LGBTQ, there’s a tendency to be blind to the experiences of those who are more marginalised. It is easier to celebrate your difference when it only comes in one shade.

Privilege is relative of course and I’m not claiming that my experience of exclusion comes close to that of trans and gender diverse people or even the erasure of those who identify as bisexual. But it’s all part of a bigger picture of a community that needs to be more conscious about how it accommodates the huge diversity of identities that comprise it.

The LGBTQ community doesn’t provide an automatic antidote to exclusion from a heteronormative world. Yet it’s almost taboo to suggest that the LGBTQ community would be anything but inclusive and welcoming. Battles for equality in relationships, parenting and other areas of life have been fought on behalf of “the community”. A powerful narrative of equality has grown from the political and historical context.

Whilst maintaining the the appearance of a united front in advocacy and campaigning has been important, it has also had a tendency to obscure difference. We need to be careful that in fighting exclusion from the mainstream community, we’re not perpetuating further exclusion within it.

There’s an unavoidable conundrum in calling for more to be done to accommodate difference. Relying on others to fix things only reinforces the same barriers. Change needs to be grounded in the lived experience of marginalised groups and be articulated by people within them. The more people who find their voices and speak out, the more visible they will be and their experiences represented.

How do you get to that place where you are free to be yourself and make your voice heard?

Discovering I was autistic confirmed that I was not like everyone else and gave me permission to stop trying to be. This has meant disentangling society’s version of happiness from my idea of what I need to be happy. It’s brought enormous freedom to be myself, but I’ve had to dig deep to figure out what that is. These days I’m driven by the need to be authentic about all else.

I’ve found that there’s been a shift from expecting others to give me something to tapping into what I can give. I’ve been drawn to opportunities to work with community organisations to utilise my skills and perspective in advocacy and support. This has been my way in, a key to feeling part of something. I’m finding my voice and carving out a niche.

I think I’ve started feeling a sense of belonging. But it’s not what I expected. Brene Brown sheds some light on this when she says:

It turns out that trying to fit in was the wrong approach. In the words of Brene, true belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are, it requires you to be who you are. Until I found the courage to be myself, true belonging eluded me. The connections that I make now will be more meaningful and sustainable because they are grounded in the true experience of being myself.