To be uncomfortable that my heterosexual friend is volunteering for lgbt kids charity?

[travellingbird]

My friend has to be the most conscientious person. She is exceptionally engaged with social issues and currently works in a lefty cause (climate change). She told me she was about to start with a work-approved charity for LGBT young people in schools. The aim is to go into schools and address homophobia and gender stereotypes etc. She is hetero and cis. I'm gay, and she has been one of my closest friends even before I came out at 15. She has witnessed and supported me through my battles with homophobic parents. Our mutual best friend is also gay and identifies as agender.
She is well aware of her privilege (in a good way) and has aired her concerns about not being quite right for it, yet is proceeding.

So, am I unreasonable to be uncomfortable with her taking this role? Should I just be happy she is er, "helping us" and being a wonderful ally?

She is offering support to young people that may have experienced prejudice or who maybe just need support. She isn't claiming to be lgbt is she?

I really don't get your problem with this, you are coming from it at such an obscure angle.

And of course men can be feminists . The problem is when men start preaching about how women are misunderstanding their own privileges.

I suspect several of you think men can be feminists. Hey ho. Translates as the OP knows she's onto a loser so she wants to change the conversation to one where other people might agree with her.

You dont have to have experience to have empathy you speak of your friend as if she is a do gooder who likes a trendy cause is that how you think of them?

You're not entirely clear in your posts about whether she's going to work with LGBT teens helping them or whether she's going to work with majority straight teens adressing their attitudes.

Tiggy Yes, exactly

By your logic gay teachers shouldn't be allowed to teach straight teenagers about sex education.

You are talking out of your arse.

It sounds like it will be for all teenagers well thats how I read the op

You say yourself that her role is not to talk about her own experiences but to address homophobia and gender stereotypes what about being straight precludes her from doing this? She has directly supported you against your homophobic parents and as a woman will likely have direct experience of challenging gender stereotypes. She has passed the recruitment procedure and will undergo training.

What exactly are you worried about? Would you prefer that this service is not offered at all (due to a lack of 'appropriate' LGBT volunteers) ? Why should your friend not be able to extend the same support to other people that she gave you?

You've not really answered any questions on this thread but I think some self reflection would be good for you.

You come across as being threatened, judgemental and 'sneery' about your 'lefty' friend, a person who clearly has strong values, practices what she preaches, and is making an effort to improve the world around her.
What are you doing OP?

I work with teenagers who have severe mental health problems. I've never had mental health issues myself (although their is a history of mental illness in my family) so does that mean I am "wrong" for my job?

The idea that your friend would have to be LGBT to care about LGBT rights and support LGBT teens is a very strange one. Is there a possibility that you're envious of her new role?

There not their, stupid autocorrect

Surely in a school the majority would be hetrosexual. As a hetrosexual, she is better able to explain how to support an LGBT person than you.
She is obviously more empathetic than you are anyway.

OP is here from Tumblr looking for fodder for her next whiny 'woe is me' post.

Ignore.

OP, I really think you need to explore why this is making you feel uncomfortable.

I could completely understand your position if she was going into schools and talking about what it is like to be a gay teenager. That would be encroaching on your "space" as you put it.

But as a white heterosexual woman, I own the fight for tolerance and acceptance as much as you do. The pursuit of a fairer society does not belong to one group more than the other.

You do not own the battle for LBGT rights. It is not for you to dictate the roles of others.

I think you have some unresolved resentment towards your friend. Are you jealous of her?

I am really disappointed to read this thread, my DB is gay and 3rd Gendered and a very out spoken member of the LGBT community. I have for many years supported him at events and have been involved with LGBT projects. I am not LGBT, but I have fought hard to educate people including teenagers on the problems many LGBT people face. In some instances I have gotten through the door and been able to have conversations that where closed to my brother and I would like to think that as a straight person it is equally up to me to push these converstations forward.

Yes I understand that if a trans person was specifically asking for advice that I would have no first hand knowledge but that could equally be said about a gay person. I could however offer support and what I have found especially important when working with teens is that as straight, married,mother, professional person I and many many others not just the LGBT community accept them in society and they can still do all the things that their friends can do. Job, family,president of the world.

Many of the young people I have worked with and who are battling with their sexuality feel like the life they have and wish for will be over the second they come out and they will have to move away (especially in small communities) and leave everything behind. They are looking for reassurrance and I think your friend can offer that and probably much more.

This stuff is interesting. At one point I was quite heavily involved in trans research with a colleague (male). We got very different responses when we were approaching groups to recruit participants. If he called, they welcomed him with open arms. The minute he asked if he could bring a cis woman colleague, we were both turned down flat. It took a few rounds before we realised that the researchers were being biased against, lol.

Which is a shame, because as individuals, we had an awful lot of people who wanted to take part in our study so that they could explore their own realities. A lot of these were young people still in school.

In all honesty, I applaud your friend for being the one who is trying to make lgbt less of an issue for youth. But I am always fascinated by this insistence that people having first hand experience is the only possible route to empathy and support.

The first essay I had to write at university was on a similar theme - and I caught myself out as I had experience of the subject matter, and wrote a long tirade about the importance of experience and sincerity etc etc blah blah bollocks. Of course, I have grown up now, and realise that experience, thankfully, is not the be all and end all. But it's an easy trap to fall into when you knee jerk and don't consider carefully.

My son's best friend is trans. As a 13yo, he is just experiencing some of the issues related to this subject, in a tight knit catholic school. I would love for there to be a volunteer who could go in and address the school community, whatever their own personal demographic.

We are heavily involved in youth disability groups (dd2 has a disability). Whilst the group has a remit to help participants eventually become volunteers in their own right, we also have a vast number of volunteers with no experience of different abilities themselves.

Is it the fact she's getting paid to be knowledgeable about the subject? When you feel intrinsically more knowledgeable, and aren't?

Sometimes filthy lucre can sway our thinking, lol...

Who said she was being paid? I thought she was volunteering.

Good lord OP

You're coming across as a bit 'Only LGBT in the village'.

Your friend is doing a great thing

Either support her or butt out.

I work with Class A drug users. Some of my colleagues are experts by experience and some of us aren't. We're all regarded as equally valuable. Some of our volunteers are experts by experience. Others aren't. The same applies.

I see what you're saying OP and I think some of these responses are a bit defensive. Of course the LGBT community is for "special paid up members". The black community doesn't include white people does it?

It would depend whether she's supposed to be talking to LGBT students, or directing anti-bullying talks to cishet students. If to cishet students, an ally is a fine person for the job. If to LGBT students, it is problematic that someone with privilege is telling LGBT people how to accept themselves etc.

Is the charity Diversity Partners?

YABVU.

What about people who volunteer for animal charities? "Nope, mate. Sorry, we can't have you do any volunteer work for us: two legs; no tail and what's with the lack of fur? No one would take you seriously. On yer bike."

YABU.
Sorry, but that's how it is.

It is possible to have compassion and understanding for members of a persecuted or minority group without being a member of that group.

Op you said she supported you, surely this means she does understand a bit and I think actually it might be good for teenagers who might not have much other support or be scared about telling their friends that there are people like her who care enough to volunteer, it highlights that people dont need to be lgbt to care or speak out against homophobia.

cishet

Dear god that is a shitty term.

Not everything needs a sodding label.

I actually don't think you are being entirely unreasonable. Well, I do in the sense that I think the work you describe (in schools to counteract homophobia) could quite effectively be done by a straight person just as it could by an Lgbt person. I've done that work myself (as a volunteer) and I am gay and worked with a gay colleague but I don't think there would be any particular assumption on the part of the students that the person running this should be LGBT.

Where I think you have a point is in an LGBT drop in or similar where people attend knowing that they are going to a space where everyone there will be LGBT. It's a safe space and one where they can feel as if they are in the majority rather than the minority. I've been running groups like this in my area for nearly 20 years (for people of all ages) and have never worked with a straight volunteer. The project I volunteer does not take on straight volunteers.

I'm sorry if people don't understand or think that's unfair. It's not about people of any sexuality being more or less capable of the job it's the fact that you're trying to create a space in which LGBT people can feel safe in the knowledge that the staff have lived it themselves and so understand lots of the potential difficulties first hand.