internalized homophobia/transphobia is something basically everyone i know has struggled with at some point. it can be especially difficult to identify and work on if you're young or disconnected from the larger queer community or unaware of our traditions, histories, subcultures.
i get that this is a cool dunk but i wish it spent less energy belittling people who are afraid and ashamed of themselves when they grow up in a world that teaches them exactly that -- to be afraid and ashamed of themselves. i can't imagine saying this shit to a kid.
in the pic we are provided only a fragment of the larger discussion. but the anon views it as a conflict between young and old queers, despite there being plenty of young people participating in "over-the-top" aspects of queer culture... which is exactly the kind of mischaracterization a young person would make. so yeah, i do think anon is probably a kid.
and it honestly doesn't matter to me if they are or not. i don't think misunderstandings or ignorance, especially old misunderstandings that we are readily prepared to clear up and explain, need to be turned into Epic Idiot Kid Gets Owned By Leather-Clad Grandpa. i think resorting to hostility over this fails to solve the problem, it gets people stressed out when they don't need to be, it makes people less able to listen to each other down the road, and the widespread sharing of this moment as some sort of "total obliteration" to be applauded encourages further behavior like this.
i don't think newbies are to be treated as disposably as that when the problem is often that they simply don't get it yet. i believe that if you can help someone dismantle a destructive belief like "we need to change our culture to be more palatable to cishets" through graceful education you should at least try to resort to that first. and if that doesn't work, fine, you tried, go and use rhetorical force now.
Whether or not this particular interaction is in good or bad faith doesn't matter because it often doesn't play out in the context of some anonymous message, but rather between ACTUAL named people in ACTUAL shared spaces -- it's common for new queers who are still learning self-acceptance to not understand or to be put off by bold expressions of queerness. I think you should at least try to educate them about why they need to practice acceptance.
But, you know, maybe I'm just biased towards this because of my personal experiences. I alienated a depressing amount of friends in my 20s by refusing to understand their limitations and not trying to meet them halfway. So, for me, the approach of yelling at people is ineffectual and experience has shown me that when I am speaking to actual people, I need to reach for dialogue first and the cudgel second.
Honestly?
I can understand that drive of "Oh we cannot make others uncomfortable, we should be tolerant"
the thing is, the OP there is being extremely intolerant already
"I am not like them, I am one of the good ones, they should NOT represent me, I am ashamed of them"
Because every member of a minority is automatically a representative of all of them. Every queer person is an ambassador for everyone else.
They cannot just be themselves.
But by being visible, daring to be visible, daring to be out of the norm, those who want nothing more than to be acceptable, to be "normal" perceive them as "representatives of the whole" rather than being individuals at all.
"UwU no conflict" attitudes clash with actually telling others "no, you are full of shit"
And that assimilationist in the ask? Yeah no, if that is a kid, that kid is full of shit. If that is an adult stirring shit, likewise full of shit.
Weaponizing or giving credence to possible fragility over telling them they are full of shit is futile and less than useless.
The only way the OP and those with those views would not see kinky people and drag performers as representative is if they were entirely invisible.
If they did not exist.
That is the fucking point