AI: Allies Amongst Us
By So this week on French class, we reached that special time on the learning of any language where we’re expected to learn how to talk about families. Our textbook brought up familles recomposées, that is, family outside the father-mother-children standards, which the teacher saw as an opportunity to debate same-sex marriage.
There’s something about teachers that makes me always expect them to be reasonably supportive of LGBTQ rights, so when she started talking about how she wasn’t against it but… and went on to talk about how LGBTQ people should respect other people’s spaces and be whatever they wanted to be in their own time without it interfering with everybody else’s etc., all I kept thinking was “how the hell am I going to argue this stuff in French?!”
So when she finished and asked if anyone had any thoughts, I sat stunned (and angry at myself for not being fluent enough to argue), the guy besides me started talking… and I sort of fell in love with him right them. The dude was a law student and started defending all minorities from a constitutional point of view, in French, argued every point in her speech I would have argued (were I allowed speaking in Portuguese), and ended the conversation so convincingly I had to stop myself from hugging him.
Since then, I keep thinking how used I’ve gotten to being the only one worried about any social issues in certain crowds. I’d completely forgotten what it felt like not to be the one fighting for them, to have unknown people around me feeling the same feelings. I have no idea whether he is just an ally or if he is actually LGBTQ, but I know for sure it’s someone I want to be friends with. It’s a good feeling. So I ask:
When was the last time you found an ally somewhere you didn’t expect to have one?
The Afternoon Inqueery (or AI) is a question posed to you, the Queereka community. Look for it every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday at 3pm ET.
