{"id":9420,"date":"2013-06-28T12:45:47","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T19:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/?p=9420"},"modified":"2019-12-23T16:00:16","modified_gmt":"2019-12-24T00:00:16","slug":"my-issue-with-straight-but-not-narrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/2013\/06\/28\/my-issue-with-straight-but-not-narrow\/","title":{"rendered":"My issue with &#8220;Straight but Not Narrow&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='__iawmlf-post-loop-links' style='display:none;' data-iawmlf-post-links='[{&quot;id&quot;:2878,&quot;href&quot;:&quot;http:\\\/\\\/www.reddit.com\\\/r\\\/SRSDiscussion\\\/comments\\\/1b4r1v\\\/the_hrc_equal_sign_logo_vs_the_pride_flag&quot;,&quot;archived_href&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;redirect_href&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.reddit.com\\\/r\\\/SRSDiscussion\\\/comments\\\/1b4r1v\\\/the_hrc_equal_sign_logo_vs_the_pride_flag&quot;,&quot;checks&quot;:[],&quot;broken&quot;:false,&quot;last_checked&quot;:null,&quot;process&quot;:&quot;done&quot;}]'><\/div>\n<p>While I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve come across it terribly often lately, one of the phrases that used to be common among LGBTQ allies was &#8220;Straight but Not Narrow.&#8221; I&#8217;ve used it in the past, as have other friends, and I have a CWU Pride shirt from a few years back that uses that phrase.<\/p>\n<p>However, as I&#8217;ve thought more about it over the past year or so, I&#8217;ve become more and more aware that something about that phrase really bothered me. I&#8217;d started putting it into words a little while ago, and had talked it over with Prairie, but something I came across today brought it back to mind.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/SRSDiscussion\/comments\/1b4r1v\/the_hrc_equal_sign_logo_vs_the_pride_flag\/\" title=\"Reddit: The HRC 'equal sign' logo vs. the pride flag: misappropriation and straight allies\">this Reddit post<\/a> (which is actually about problems with the HRC organization &#8212; problems I was not aware of before, and will want to consider in the future), a couple lines stood out to me as tying directly in to my discomfort with &#8220;straight but not narrow.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n  [The &#8220;equal sign&#8221; logo is] the easy way to display your political stances without having anyone question your gender identity or orientation. It&#8217;s the physical embodiment of &#8220;I&#8217;m not gay but,&#8221; much like the rebranding of feminism to &#8220;egalitarianism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>  &#8230;it&#8217;s also <em>extremely<\/em> offensive, I think, to attempt to distance yourself from the movement with qualifications like &#8220;I don&#8217;t hate men, but&#8221; or &#8220;I&#8217;m not a feminist, I&#8217;m an egalitarian,&#8221; and &#8220;I&#8217;m not gay, but.&#8221;\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>While I know that the &#8220;straight but not narrow&#8221; phrase is well-intentioned as a way to express support for LGBTQ issues (&#8220;I&#8217;m an ally!&#8221;), the very fact that it starts with the &#8220;straight but&#8221; disclaimer lessens the impact of that support. If you truly support a community, why express that support through a phrase that begins by separating yourself from that very community? It feels like a socially-accepable way of saying &#8220;Well, you know I&#8217;m good with the gays and all, but <em>I&#8217;m<\/em> not gay. Uh-uh, man. Not me. No homo, y&#8217;know?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I certainly don&#8217;t regret using the phrase in the past, nor having bought the shirt (I&#8217;m quite happy to support the campus LGBTQ organizations). Also, please note that I don&#8217;t want to sound like I&#8217;m censuring anyone who does use that phrase, or doesn&#8217;t have problems with it. As I said, it&#8217;s well-intentioned, and for many people, that will be fine. This is just a personal thing for me, and I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ll be using that phrase or wearing that particular shirt again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you truly support a community, why express that support through a phrase that begins by separating yourself from that very community?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2043],"tags":[13],"class_list":["post-9420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","tag-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9420\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelhans.com\/eclecticism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}