Being too weird for the LGBT community

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I just feel too weird around the LGBT community. At least around AFAB individuals. When I go to LGBT events I usually just go home around with the gay guys. They’re way easier to talk to.

I just connect with the LGBT community most of the time. I just never know what to talk about and just get bored quickly. To be honest what I was hoping from LGBT events was to just find a girlfriend. But I can’t even make it past one meeting most of the time.

Certainly online, there are a lot of subcommunites within the community itself and I've seen more than one person on various sites saying that the online queer subcommunity is more inclusive of them than the online LGBTQ+ subcommunity, if that makes sense. I don't know very much about in-person communities since I've never touched that area, but I can definitely see that it could work the same way as online lie I said above. I think the feeling of being too weird for a certain subset is perfectly normal for a lot pf people.

That's nothing. I feel it's deeper than that. I'm a gay man, and although I sometimes have small, and almost non existent/inconclusive bouts of gender dysphoria, mostly on jealously, and "what if's", and wishful thinking. (as a gay feminine black man, I wish I were a woman, as it would be easier to date, and fit in society.) But I know that transgender people, and more importantly, transgender people of color/black transgender people, go through a lot. So maybe I should be lucky, that for all intents and purposes, I am just a man who happens to be gay etc.

I also feel, I respect everyone. Even though I don't relate, or go through the same issues as they do, I'm the last person to judge, as a gay black man; and I just support my trans brothers and sisters, and non binary buddies, and other LGBTQ family members. I support and love everyone.

But again, that's nothing. I feel racism in the LGBTQ community, is a bigger issue. Friendships and dating, in the LGBTQ community, needs to be discussed. Discrimination, and social injustice in the LGBTQ community, needs to be discussed. Mental illness stigma/autism, in the LGBTQ community (as I'm a gay autistic man) needs to be discussed as well. So there is a lot of work to do. But supporting one another, even if you don't understand, or even if you're not gender neutral, or trans, or whatever, you should still support our fellow LGBTQ, brothers and sisters, and non binaries.. Because there are people in the community that don't, and I feel that's making things much worse, as far as support and inclusivity, but I don't know. Love one another, peace and love.

I’m gay with autism level 2 in Louisville Kentucky so I’m like in a small town I guess with people that just want sex basically and a relationship isn’t really something I ever want ..

What I would like is my own roof over my head and to feel somewhat safe .. but I’m in Kentucky you can’t really ask for much some potatoes and shut your mouth

I feel too weird to be bi. I grew up around homophobes and people treated me like s**t when they picked it up on their gaydar. But I had a hot lesbian hit on me and I had to act scared of being approached by her to let her down easy. She was understanding of it because I’m not mentally or physically well so hopefully she picked up on that and not think I’m afraid to come out of the closet as bi. I must admit there was sexual attraction between us but it became awkward as f**k because I never wanted to be with a woman or actually have sex with them. Just fantasize about them in my half gay head and do whatever I want to them in my sick dirty mind.

I feel that the LGBTQ community often are absorbed with certain affectations and if you don't play by those sorts of ways of behaving and speaking you are cruelly ostracised. There is also the problem of ageism in the LGBTQ community, which ties in to the shallow sex-obsessed atmosphere that ostracises anyone who

1. is over the age of 25 or 30. It appears as though the drive to keep up appearances and the image fixated stuff has only gotten worse and making people more and more insecure/demanding of photogenic perfection.

2. ostracises anyone that doesn't happen to want to talk about personal stuff relating to sex, accusing them in a reactionary way of being in denial about their sexuality just because they don't feel comfortable discussing it. It seems that there's so much apparent "sexul positivity" around that people who don't have it or don't want to have it are treated badly and ridiculed by bullies LGBTQ community.

3. some have nothing better to do than to gossip and end up mirroring the bitchy, jaded stereotypes they've grown conditioned to act out because they've either seen it in the mainstream media or based on people in their all social bubble all their lives.

4. The LGBTQ "community" is so pluralistic that it is not really a community that is bound by any common purpose or indeed common identity. As a result it is internally divided and will probably suffer from many setbacks before or if it ever pulls the cotton wool out of its ears and deals with its own shortcomings instead of relentlessly wanting to hear "positive vibes only" and censoring out all that pesky "negative, debby downer" stuff that noone likes to hear. God forbid there be any criticism within narcissistic subcultures.

I think a lot of that depends on where you live...Being gay and autistic and everything else I am hasn't been an issue for me

Yeah I kind of feel that. When I came out in my teens, I didn't really click well with the other gays kids at school (except for my ex-boyfriend of course). Maybe it's because I just had different interests than them or was just a staunch individualist that distanced himself from community. But it was most likely that most gay men in my area (a rural area btw) are just prissy drama queens and I can't get along with them haha

Because my post is long, and because I find bigger text easier to read, especially when there's a lot of text to go through, I've opted to try making it somewhat larger. I hope no one will take this as shouting or trying to be too self-important...

Back in the 1980s, when the city I live near had a tiny little ACT-UP group, I volunteered with 2 others to do the 3am wheat pasting to put up signs for an upcoming demonstration. That means we took the risk of being arrested on behalf of the group (and not for civil disobedience, mind you, but for gluing signs to lamp posts and other surfaces). I also participated in the non-violence training before the demo. But before the day of our action, the leader of the group told two of us who had put up the signs inviting others to join our protest that he didn't want us to be a visible part of the group. He made us be "observers" so we would only stand to the side to take notes and wouldn't be identifiable or speak. He explicitly stated that his reason for this was that he thought we "talked too much". So, in the era of T-shirts, posters, and such that said "Silence=Death" because of homophobia and AIDS related bigotry, and when women were struggling to be seen within the larger community and movement for rights (as far as I know the other person was a cis guy; I still looked like a woman at the time), we were told to be silent and invisible. In other words, we were good enough to take the risk of arrest for everybody else in the middle of the night, but not good enough to stand in a line in the light of day and shout slogans while holding signs. I left the group after that, because I saw no reason to participate any longer. I felt hated.

I later contributed to fundraising for a local AIDS and HIV related organization by making stuff that could be sold to local shops, so the proceeds could be donated by those stores. That involved the least contact with a community I thought I belonged with but couldn't be comfortable socializing in, so I could still help out those members within it who were struggling with illness and prejudice for being sick. I felt it was the right thing to do, as a person who wasn't HIV-positive, but who cared deeply about those who were.

When I finally came out as a Trans man, back in 2015, I understood how bigotry within the community against Trans folks had prevented me from coming out any earlier. It's hard to admit you're a man when thinking so gets you labeled as a self-hating woman who's trying to side with "the enemy" in order to get his power and privileges.

Back in the day, I also had the usual social troubles of someone on the autism spectrum trying to date and such, and I often left social groups out of simple embarrassment over feeling I'd made too many social errors and believing I should just move on to another bunch of people who didn't know me, so I could start over again trying to make friends.

I've done much better in the SCA, with my girlfriend at my side, so that we navigate social settings together. She's the only girlfriend I've ever had, she may be on the spectrum too, and we've been together for 22 years now (23 at the end of the summer). We joined the SCA after we'd been together a little more than a year. I think a lot of people in the SCA are neurodiverse, in a variety of ways. But I can still struggle, as I was shown last year by a big social disaster at a party where things were confusing to begin with, and then the situation played out too fast and hard for me to adjust.

Socializing is simply a potential mine field. I think the LGBTQIAA+ community is much more aware and accepting than it used to be, but it also depends on where you are and which people you happen to meet. Also, getting older helps, as does having someone solid in your life that you trust to help you navigate. Without my girlfriend, I don't know where I'd be today. I'm well aware of how lucky I am, and that not everyone has that, no matter how old they are.