Even worse idk much about codeswitching.
I can tell friends who are girls “I love you” and they take it as friendly. But guys can’t hear this without thinking he’s laid claim to a romantic and/or sexual feelings?
If I reject a girl asking me out with the attitude of a bubbly girl talking to another bubbly girl at a party, and say “I have a bf. But you’re a babe!, You can get another babe!” She’d totally be friendly back about it… But once I said this to a guy who asked me out, and he proceeded to ask me for my number 4 times in less than 10 seconds.
Shit like this puts me in fight or flight mode. I have very little awareness of how or why I have to codeswitch between men and women. My skin is crawling nearly everytime a friend points out to me in retrospect that a guy was actually flirting with me after my only intention was being friends or a friendly neighbor. Yikes. I want to go back in time and yell “Fuck you stop being a creep!” (Ofc, they’d be too creepy to understand why I would say that.)
That said, I love my bf because his fem side makes him chill and understanding if a girl talks to him like he’s another girl. I’m pretty quiet and mostly talk to him, and I have no guy friends. So I’m not learning codeswitching skills by watching him. How do you codeswitch and why do you codeswitch in the exact way(s) you do? I barely go outside, and I’m angry at guys everyday over this over past events I’m creeped out by.
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You very obviouly have no idea how many men have given me a reason for doing this.
you do you but i cannot fathom how doing this in a group setting would not create a really divisive and hostile atmosphere thus hindering organizing. i think someone was doing this in my union caucus but they left, membership is about 30% men
It creates a really inclusive and safe atmosphere for women and transfem nonbinary people, which i tend to value a lot more than men’s feelings in lesbian spaces, given that men have absolutely zero business being there in the first place. Shocking, i know.
Couldn’t do that in a union, obviously, but even in wider societal contexts you cannot constantly babysit men and tiptoe around their incredible fragility, you need to show them boundaries because they are encouraged every day to ignore these.