The Myth of Queer Safety

Unpacking harm within queer relationships and communities

When I tell other women that I’m a lesbian, I often get responses that fall in the box of, “You’re so lucky!” 

• “I wish I was gay!” 
• “If it weren’t for my boyfriend, I’d be a lesbian too.” 
• “Being a lesbian must be so fun!” 
• “I’ve always thought about trying girls.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love being a lesbian. I love my lesbian friends, being in a lesbian relationship, and being a nearly instantaneous role model for younger queer kids. I do feel lucky to be a lesbian, and my lesbianism is one of my favorite things about myself.

Still, while I am so clearly celebrating my queerness, I also think that, sometimes, we miss experiences of harm within the LGBTQ+ community. This is a concept that, while centered on the experiences of queer people, is important for everyone to understand in order to 1) identify experiences of causing and/or being harmed, and 2) support people who have been harmed, and 3) support people who have caused harm in changing their behaviors, 4) learn how to be conscious and change our behavior to avoid causing harm in the future. 

There is so much to be said about harm and queerness (more than this post allows!). Today, I would like to start this dive by exploring the queer adolescence and dismantling the queer utopia.

Queer Adolescence

I went on my first date with a girl the summer after my freshman year of college. I was excited and also nervous. I was out to only a handful of people in my life, yet I still felt, simply, ready to start dating. I ached for a relationship. Most of my straight peers had seemed to master this whole dating thing, or at least were on their way to mastery. Not me. I had just fully internally accepted that I was a lesbian in the months before this first date, after pushing down these feelings for years. I felt, in one word, behind. 

And there I was! On my first date with a girl. It was the type of date you go on when you’re 19. We had the types of conversations you have on the dates you go on when you’re 19. The date was fine. Sometimes I share pieces from it when I want to make my friends laugh from secondhand embarrassment. I also ghosted her, a decision I am first-hand embarrassed by and would not have made as I continued to learn how to date. 

All of us who desire romantic or sexual relationships, regardless of sexuality, have to go through this song and dance of learning how to connect with other people. This can be exciting, awkward, uncomfortable, freeing, and so many other adjectives. For queer folks, though, this experience can look different. This difference can be described for some people as the queer adolescence.  The queer adolescence is commonly defined as when queer people begin to meet developmental or cultural milestones later in life (like in the late teens, early twenties, or sometimes later) as their more authentic selves. This may include behaviors commonly associated with traditional teen adolescence, like having a crush, first kisses, going on dates, starting a first relationship, or starting to have sex. 

The queer adolescence can sometimes be as awkward and uncomfortable as traditional adolescence, except this time, you’re an adult and allegedly have already figured all that stuff out. This time does not always lead to causing harm, but it can. Here are some reasons why: 

• Shame: Nothing good comes from shame, and many people feel shame when they feel “behind.” There is no set or right timeline for relationships and sex, yet knowing this does not make the social pressure go away. When we feel rushed or on a timeline while in the pursuit of connection, love, intimacy, sex, or whatever brings us closer to other people, we run the risk of not being as conscious of the feelings, wants, and desires of other people. Boundaries may be unintentionally crossed.
  • When you’ve already waited so long to experience intimacy, it can feel unbearable to wait even longer to ensure that everyone involved feels safe and respected.
• Lack of relationship representation: Growing up, I knew no queer adults. I had no real-life representation of what it would look like to actually be a lesbian or have a lesbian relationship. If you’re straight, accessible media and general life set you up with many examples of what your relationships might look like, with both healthy and unhealthy representations. This may still be there for queer identities, but it is certainly not as common. This lack of knowledge of what a healthy queer relationship looks like can lead us to behave in ways that may harm others.
• Privacy/Secrecy: Many individuals experiencing the queer adolescence may be out to very few people in their lives, and consequently, shy away from sharing their dating experiences. This lack of communication about dating may set up spaces for causing and experiencing harm in relationships without an outsider’s perspective. When you’re already scared of rejection as a result of who you’re dating, can you imagine sharing information about a hookup or date that felt off?
• “Proving” Queerness: Being queer is not just about having sex, yet sometimes, especially for certain subsets of the queer community where casual sex may be more commonplace, having had queer sex may be viewed as legitimizing sexuality. There can be a certain level of pressure to have sex just to prove that you’re “really” gay. In this case, having sex is not for connection, fun, or really any other value surrounding sex. other than to gain social capital and respect. People may ignore 1) their actual wants, needs, and desires and 2) ignore the wants, needs, desires, and boundaries of their (potential) sexual partners.
• How do you know you’re actually gay if you haven’t had sex with *insert blank gender identity*

Dismantling the Queer Utopia

I started this post by recalling the fawning response I occasionally get when people learn that I am a lesbian. From what I have seen and experienced, it is not uncommon for there to be a perception that queer relationships, particularly lesbian relationships, are somehow “safer” than straight relationships – creating a perception of a queer utopia. While rates of relationship violence may be different between straight and queer relationships, we must acknowledge that harm still occurs. 

Harm that is caused within queer relationships, and the queer community more broadly, deserves to be acknowledged, especially because this lack of acknowledgment can contribute to the belief that queer people cannot cause harm. 

Everyone is capable of causing harm. Just because I am in a relationship with another woman does not mean that I do not possess the capacity to hurt her. Of course, I do not want to hurt her, and I work to be conscious of my behavior to avoid harm, yet I still might. People hurt each other, and harm can occur in all relationship dynamics. 

A lot of times, we have the misguided idea that only one type of person causes harm. This can show up in the “stranger danger rape myth,” which frames sexual violence as something only committed by a dangerous man against a young, innocent woman, or the general misconceptions on where and how violence is occurring, like how on college campuses, harm may be thought of as mostly occurring in a party context perpetrated by a man onto a woman, facilitated by alcohol. These perceptions completely miss the harm occurring within queer relationships. 

Beyond missing experiences of harm simply because the individuals involved don’t look like our typical portrayals of violence, queer people themselves may be hesitant to call it out due to a fear of denigrating an already marginalized community. There are already enough stereotypes of the “predatory lesbian” or equivalent to make this fear legitimate. This may make it more difficult for us as queers to recognize when our behavior crosses the line, especially when certain forms of harm may be pervasive and normalized. Yet, harm is harm, regardless of who is perpetrating it and who is experiencing it. 

I have heard stories about dates crossing the line. I’ve listened to accounts of treating dating partners poorly and being treated poorly in turn. I’ve heard about feeling isolated within a queer relationship, being roofied at a gay bar, receiving unwanted sexual messages, and experiencing unwanted touch. I’ve heard conversations objectifying sexual partners. All of these forms of harm were committed by someone within the queer community. We must recognize that many of the people hurting us, are us. 

We cannot rely on the fabled existence of a queer utopia to avoid recognizing, preventing, and taking accountability for when harm occurs.

Conclusion

I’m hopeful that maybe one day we can reach the queer utopia, and that queer adolescence won’t be a potential space for harm. I love being a part of this community, and because of this love, I believe that there are things we can do to create a world that is safer for us, and that starts with seeing the harm we cause each other as legitimate. 

We can all:

• Recognize power dynamics present in queer spaces, and be conscious of our own power. 
  • Who makes more money? Who has more social capital? Who is more sexually experienced? Who is physically stronger? What racial dynamics may be present? Who has more knowledge on navigating queer spaces? 
• Stop and pause if a dating or sexual interaction feels off. 
• Hold ourselves and the people close to us accountable, all while supporting survivors. 
• Cultivate empathy and demonstrate care for those around us. 
• Challenge the idea that queerness alone makes us safe.
• Practice self-reflection.

Queerness doesn’t exempt us from causing harm, but it does give us the tools, the community, and the imagination to do better.

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