Week 4 – Monday
Releasing Internalized Oppression
Thinking you’ll be accepted if you look like, act like…well, the proper version of the All-American cisgender, heterosexual person (is there even such a thing?).

Internalized Oppression is: Being uncomfortable around queer people who don’t conform to “norms”.
You know, the “over the top” Drag Queens & Dykes on Bikes at pride.

It’s the idea that if we look and act like cis-het people, then we’ll appear “normal” and be accepted as “normal”.

It’s the idea that you’re a “respectable queer” and those Drag Queens and Dykes on Bikes are giving queer people a bad name; they’re not “normal”. They’re scaring the cis-het people and, as a result, the cis-het people think YOU aren’t normal.

Silence it: Make friends with someone you consider “over the top” and…
I think you’ll find they are just as delightful as you are.
Proximity with people who look, act, think differently than you do is one of the best ways to debunk our biases.

Also, disrupt the oppression by releasing the idea that anyone is “less than” or “better than”.

Respectability politics has never worked; it’s trying to fit into the oppressive system, which is accepting the system. This type of thinking is creating yet another “us and them” binary way of viewing the world. This type of thinking is you, the oppressed, becoming the oppressor.

Let me know what you think in the comments.
Are you queer and have you ever treated or thought about other queer people as “less than”?