I think I came across as angrier than I intended. My personal experience with poly people, for one, lines up pretty well with yours. There is many reasons I’m an ethical monogamist now, and all of them are people I’ve dated. I was only a little offended at the jab towards poly people. The main reasons I am angry are just that there’s so much else that wrong out there.

I also did not intend to compare you to my Christian friend. I meant to use her as a human example of the other problems out there. Tbh I think it undermined my intended point, which was that we should not be direction anger into our own community when I know you can see how shit it is out there for gays. It’s much better than back when you were a baby gay, that’s for sure, but there are so many bigots out there trying to shove us back in the closet. Why waste you energy on stuff that doesn’t matter?

I also just want to be clear I don’t think you are homophobic or anything like that, and I think we agree on pretty much everything. That’s why I am talking to you. I just think you are wasting your energy on stuff that doesn’t matter. Forgiveness takes energy. Our community is full of traumatized people who have big complexes about bullshit that doesn’t matter and will lash out over microaggressions they’ve been conditioned to expect but aren’t actually there. Baby gays don’t know how to deal with their own trauma yet. Hopefully they will get better about it as they get older and more experienced.

I think a little more relevant example for forgiveness is this one time I had a kid in my class who was a Ukranian refugee. He was 3, so he was old enough to talk but not old enough to think through his actions before he does them. Very smart kid, but he had no way to deal with the trauma of being a refugee, and was definitely either autistic or something similar. He was quite prone to tantrums. How else was he supposed to deal with it? He has, at various points, bit me, stabbed me with pencils, screamed in my ear, broken my glasses, tried to rip my ears off my head, and many other things. I always made it clear thst i forgave him, and he always said sorry to me after. He got better over time. I know this isn’t a perfect metaphor, because it’s not acceptable for an adult to react to misgendering by stabbing the misgenderer with a pencil and breaking their glasses, but I think you see what I’m talking about. Most importantly, I have to forgive this child. What’s the alternative? Holding a grudge against this 3-year-old? Caving his face in? No! That doesn’t make sense! Giving forgiveness doesn’t mean “I absolve this child of guilt for stabbing me and breaking my glasses”, it means making an effort to let go of your own pain so you can heal and move on without your life.

Edit: wow, that was a wall of text. I think I needed a reason to get that off my chest. Thanks, I guess