Ready to learn more

Posted on June 6, 2023

I may not understand what all the letters stand for in LGBTQ. I also don’t know what these letters mean to people who use these letters as part of their identity. However I’m ready and willing to listen to learn more.

 I really want to understand more but I often feel awkward going outside of my comfort zone. It’s hard to reach out to people I don’t know in general. When I add anything else, my anxiety says “no way” and digs in its heels. When I’m anxious or uncomfortable it’s easy to put my unpleasant emotions onto other people. It’s not fair for me to do this and I’m not proud of it. I wonder if my emotions are similar to other people’s feelings.

Speaking of other people, my friend and community support person knows people who identify with the LGBTQ. She knows that I’m not very knowledgeable but would like to learn more.  I would love to go social events to meet new people and so would she but we have limited time. She spends her time helping me with a lot of stuff including editing my blogs but that takes most of our time together. We would need to plan and work ahead to have time to do community events for pride month.

 I also work with someone who is part of this community. I find this person really cool and very
 interesting. I would like to get to know them as a person outside of work but I’m not sure how to do that since I’m really not good the best at making friends. I should probably ask my community support person for advice about reaching out just in case.

As you can probably tell, I feel a lot of positive emotions towards this community, however, I’m not an active or engaged supporter. I don’t even know many people who identify as LGBTQ. I want to stand up and advocate when I hear people making negative comments about people who are LGBTQ although I usually don’t do so because I don’t know what to say due to lack of confidence in myself and feeling clumsy and awkward about my words that I would use.


 It greatly saddens me when somebody says something negative about another group of people. I also find myself getting mad and not thinking very highly of the person who said something negative and mean-spirited. I wish I had the words to politely say that I’m uncomfortable with what they’re saying and that I don’t think it’s accurate or true in most situations.

 I can’t control another person’s thoughts or actions and I need to come to peace with that. On the other hand, I can control my own thoughts, actions, and emotions and I need to take responsibility for them. If I really want to be a supporter of LGBTQ people, I need to put in the work to learn about the community and how to be an effective ally. I hope you found my blog interesting and thought-provoking. Wishing all my readers a happy June.