There are a lot of misconceptions around different identities within the Queer community as well as misconceptions about the community itself. I'm going to try to go over the ones I know that I think are most common or effect the entire community. I will also explain why these ideas about Queer people are simply untrue.
"Being Queer is a choice." I don't know where we are born this way or become this way over time but I know we don't choose to be queer. I think of it as are we born being able to love or do we develope the capacity to love as we grow. I know being queer isn't a choice through. Would someone choose to loose male privilege ( trans people assigned male at birth)? Would someone choose to put a target on thier back making themselves more likely to exspeerince all types of vioilince, higher chance of committing suicide, higher chance of being murdered (specifically but not limited to trans women of color, trans people who don't pass, gender non conforming folks, butch females, and effeminate queer males)? Would someone choose to be more likely to be bullied? Would someone choose to risk family rejection and homelessness? Would a religious person choose possible rejection from their faith community? Would someone choose to loose civil rights like not being fired, rejected for an apartment/condo, not receiving treatment at a public hospital, health insurance covering your needed medication, access to public restroom, the ability to adopt, and say in your romantic partners affairs if they are ill/dead just for being part of a spefic demographic? Would someone choose to loose the possibility of justice for their murder (in most states "Gay Panic" is still a legal defense that will get a person off for murder)? Would someone willingly choose a higher chance of exspeerincing hate? No! No one would. So when people say that being Queer is a choice they are saying we knowingly choose all of that. Or they are saying when a person found out that being queer came with all of that they choose to stay queer. That notion is so far from the truth. Someone can choose to ignore what they know to be true. Someone who is not heterosexual and/or cisgender can choose not to do homosexual, transgender, and/or asexual things. That part is a choice. Mental health professionals say those who choose not to embrace thier queerness are usually extremely depressed and suicidal. Someone who is queer can choose not to be part of the queer community. I have friends like that. They don't go to gay/queer bars, clubs, spaces, centers, or events. They aren't part of an online or digital queer/gay comminty either. They don't go to pride. They seem fine and happy. My friends like that aren't doing it becuase they are being forced not to, they just don't want to. My friends are making that choice. My friends that don't particapte in the queer community still embrace their own identity how they want and don't avoid other queers. If one of my non community queers meets another queer at a party my friends don't run the other way. My friends treat the queer person like any other person. My non community queers meet possible romantic partners doing things my friends like to do, like visiting old book stores or whatever they enjoy doing. My non community queers are still living their truth. You can't choose whether or not to be queer. You can choose whether or not to try and be happy (and safe).
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