How to be a Better Ally
By Tamara Pawloske on May 1, 2023
With the increasing visibility of the LGBTQIA+ community, it can be hard for an ally to know where to start; asking someone can be hard, awkward, or seemingly impossible if you aren’t close to anyone in the community.
This is where I hope to help.
Let’s start simple: Listen. Listen to people when they say they are a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. We know our experiences–we’ve lived through them. If we say “that’s offensive”, “that’s not how that works,” or correct you, it’s to try to help.
Don’t linger on apologies. Now, don’t get me wrong, as someone with anxiety themself, I understand that even a minor mistake can feel like the end of the world and worth a billion apologies… but the more attention you draw to a mistake–especially if it’s something like misgendering a friend–the more uncomfortable all parties become. Just like any other apology, try your best to apologize once, correct your mistake, and move on with the conversation.
(Credit: Tamara Pawloske)
If you have questions, don’t be afraid to ask (generally). With that said, things can get a bit weird when it comes to questions, so before opening your mouth, try to ask these questions of yourself:
- Would I ask this to my straight/non-trans* friends?
- Is this question very personal?
- Would asking this question help me interact better with this person?
If the answers are “Yes, I would”, “no,” and “yes”, respectively, then go ahead with the question.
Be open to learning new things. Always try your best to be open to learning more about those in the community. Sometimes even “well-established” things can change (ex. the generally used acronym changing from LGBT to LGBTQIA+).
If you don’t “get it”, don’t be afraid to ask. There are tons of great resources about LGBTQIA+ identities, so don’t be afraid to ask for more information about things you don’t understand. PFLAG has a great, expansive term glossary, and Straight For Equality has a lot of great pages exploring identity and allyship.
Along with resources on more general parts of the LGBTQIA+ community, there are also some sites that focus on more specific identities and the education surround them:
A great general resource is The Trevor Project, which has a lot of FAQs around sexuality, gender, and mental health, along with offering counselling to LGBTQIA+ people (youth included)!
These are far from being the only resources about the LGBTQIA+ community, and far from all the advice that you’ll hear about “being a good ally”, but I hope that this has got you off to a good start. Many people, myself included, are quite willing to go in-depth with resources and information.
Overall: be kind and keep an open mind.
If you have any questions about this topic, or want to talk about it more in depth, please feel free to reach out to me through any of the links in my Carrd.