I feel you dude, I’m 24 so still pretty young but I’ve felt super disconnected from the “mainstream” LGBT/FTM community for a long while now. I even feel it in this subreddit, but I browse it to partake in convos (especially to share support if it’s a question I have an answer to since I’ve been out and transitioning for awhile).
People are so obsessed with labels and arguing over said labels and it just feels so frustrating to watch. Before I came out I was in a deeply conservative area with transphobic parents and I couldn’t COMPREHEND the idea of spending so much time fighting about who is or isn’t valid, what labels are or aren’t valid, what pride flags are or aren’t valid, whether or not a term is outdated or a slur and if so who’s allowed to say it… Like, I was trying to survive, lol. And then once I actually came out, when I see this discourse continue and this super clique-y attitude I’m just like… no offense but just go outside lol? Go interact with actual LGBT spaces, go to pride events, talk to gay/trans people in real life, because so much of the identity politics and discourse of the internet STOP MATTERING if you just talk to other LGBT people in the real world and live your authentic life and let them live their authentic life.
Almost all of my queer friends are significantly older than me (like, 30+ if not 40+), and I vibe with them a lot more than most online queers. It feels like so often these communities just are so wrapped up with these little microcommunities and this clique-y discourse opinions that hold more or less no weight in the real world. In real life LGBT spaces you will hear lesbians use the f slur and gay men use the d slur, you’ll see GNC trans people, weird straight people who we just sort of vibe with, you’ll hear all sorts of strange identity labels that might sound contradictory from the outside, you’ll see people of every age, every style, every interest.
I understand that communities need to “gatekeep” on some level to keep out predators and creeps and those trying to water down what makes the community matter to begin with, obviously. But why the hell are so many young LGBT people so obsessed with clique-y in-fighting about things that frankly don’t matter if you log offline?
I guess it might in part be due to the age in general; many young people are trying to develop an identity for themselves and sometimes that means kinda overcompensating and getting super wrapped up in “us versus them” mentality. I just wish so much that the LGBT community could better prioritize real world issues. To be blunt IDGAF about discourse over what flavor of queer person can use what slur or what each pride flag means when there is a systemic attack on trans people across the globe resulting in the mass restriction of our rights and autonomy. When gay people are still being killed, gay panic laws still exist, conversion therapy still exists, trans youth are under attack, why are we fighting over hypotheticals and treating this community like a fandom…