sorrynotsorrybi:

I’ve said this before but I’ll say it again: it comes down to whether you want more false positives or more false negatives. Do you want to have such stringent requirements for ‘counting’ as lgbtqiap that some people who many consider lgbtqiap get left out? Or do you want more lenient requirements so occasionally someone may ‘count’ who some people within the community think shouldn’t count, but get included anyway? 

I am always going to err on the side of false positives and inclusion, because that’s the kind of community I want to be a part of. The potential negative impact of having a ‘faker’ or something in lgbtqiap+ spaces is far outweighed, in my mind, by the persistant negative impact of this sort of aggressive, vigilant gatekeeping that causes people to have to prove their oppression and hold it up to some shifting standard of what’s ‘oppressed enough.’ 

A community built on that kind of code doesn’t feel safe for many of us whose lives don’t fit a very specific narrative. Hypothetical false positives are far less damaging to our sense of community and inclusion than this sense that any of us could have our lgbtqiap membership revoked whenever gatekeepers come up with a good enough excuse to exclude us.