what it really means to be an ally
Dustin on May 7th 2007
There’s a common misconception in the LGBTQ community that our friends are our allies. But this is not always the case. As an OUTSpoken trainer, making sure that parents and their friends understand what it truly takes to be an ally is one of my top priorities. The LGBTQ family movement needs allies. Allies are active participants in our struggles. They support us. They motivate us. They stand up and fight.
But the line between friend and ally is not always clear for people. So let’s have a discussion. Consider the following scenarios and tell me–who’s being an ally and who’s being a friend:
Scenario #1 — The child of an LGBTQ parent is bullied at school
Sam, a straight parent, gets a call from her friend Marcus. Marcus is a gay dad with one child, Grey. Marcus is tearful; he says, “Sam, the worst thing’s happened. Grey was cornered today. Some kids said his fag dad made him a fag, too. He doesn’t even know what the word means, but he knows it’s bad and he won’t come out of his room. The teacher ignored it. What do I do?” Sam drives to Marcus’s house, makes coffee, lends an ear. Marcus is thinking about going to the principal but is afraid he won’t be taken seriously because he’s gay. He asks Sam to go with him for support. She considers this, says, “Why don’t we wait and see if it happens again. If it happens again, we’ll both go, okay?” “Okay,” says Marcus, “okay.”
Scenario #2 — The state legislature is passing a gay adoption ban
High school buddies Shana and Diane now live on opposite sides of the state they grew up in–Shana near the coast, Diane near the capital. Shana is a foster parent and is transgender. She is just weeks away from legally adopting her foster child Robbie, who’s been with her for years. Robbie wants nothing more than to call his current home, his current mom, home and mom forever. And Diane can’t wait to become Robbie’s godparent–they’ve all gone through so much together. But this year, their state legislature is dangerously close to passing a bill that would prohibit all LGBTQ people from adopting. Shana is terrified, but can’t make the trip to the statehouse to lobby against it. She asks Diane, “Please, can you go? We need as many people there as we can get.” Diane is torn. She makes up her mind: “Shana, you know I love you, but you know politics just isn’t for me. I’ll do anything for you–I just can’t get involved in all that.” She calls Shana every day for a week, to make sure she’s okay.
Scenario #3 — An anti-LGBTQ family e-mail is circulated around the office
For being so young, Byron has made a lot of older gay and lesbian friends, many of whom are parents. Byron is also gay, but has no kids. He works for what he considers to be a tolerant company. One day he gets an all-staff e-mail, a forward from Jean, one of the more conservative members of the team. Jean is commenting on an article she’s just read about the White House Egg Roll, in which LGBTQ families participated as a group. “You all know I don’t have anything against gay people,” she writes, “but I just have to say that they should not be parents. It’s bad for children, it’s just not right.” Byron knows that the staff looks to him as the go-to guy on gay issues. He thinks, “Is it even worth it to say anything back? It’s just Jean being Jean. They all know that.” None of his parent-friends will know that he let this pass, but his fellow staff members will. He leaves work early and takes Jesse and Lee’s kids for ice cream.
So, who here is being an ally? Who’s being a friend? What actions make these characters just friends or both? If you don’t see allies on this page, tell me why. What’s lacking here? Where did all the allies go?
Leave a comment below. Spark discussion. The only way we’re going to work through these issues for ourselves is by digging in together.
For more information on what it means to be an ally, visit our allies page.
Filed in general |
As a straight white female, I think we ALL as people need to be more willing to open our mouth in the face of all prejudice of all kinds. And we need to be willing to be present to stand up for that.
With #3, I find if someone is emailing something like that and I’m unsure if I want to confront them, I just keep asking them ‘why’ or ‘give me specifics’? Eventually they’ll run into a brick wall and I know I have the facts then to show them that the gay community does make good parents.
A scenario we faced as straight parents is that our daughter was invited to a vacation bible study by a good friend of hers from school. We are Christian but this group was very condemning of gays from their national office and regional activists. I know it wouldn’t have been discussed at vacation bible study with seven year old children but I didn’t want to be supporting them with our presence even. Because really, isn’t her attendance an endorsement of their policies, all of them? Just because it doesn’t apply to us doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect or offend us.
Another secondary option for allies - BLOG it. Get it out there. As I posted on another thread, most straight people who have adopted from foster care that we know don’t have a problem with gay parents adopting. People who have read the horrors of the children’s files just want healthy homes for them. We as straight adoptive/foster parents can do more to support our gay counterparts with blogs to help change minds.
I haven’t been shy about it (or here). I have gay families on my blogroll, I’ve posted about this. I have this blog linked on my site. I’ve shared our stories with gay and trans people. We explained early to our child about gay friends.
(I’m sure you all are getting bored of the straight woman posting but I do find this all very interesting! I didn’t see any comments here and I hoped I could get it rolling at least.)
[…] few weeks ago, Dustin wrote about what it really means to be an ally. In that entry, he hit on a really important point: friends are not synonymous with allies. A […]