Homophobic things straight people say

We get it. You added the rainbow filter to your profile picture. You tweeted #LoveWins. The last time you used a homophobic slur was in middle school. You are an equality-loving, socially-aware, 21st-century teen living in a world where nobody gives a flying heck whether someone is gay or straight or anything in between. I mean, you even have that one gay friend/cousin/neighbor/person/thing. Right?

Wrong. But fear not, straighties. Here to help you out is your friendly neighborhood homosexual.

1. For the love of (insert deity of your chosen religion here), stop trying to find the “man” and the “woman” in every homosexual relationship. The entire point of a gay relationship is that, by definition, it does not consist of a man and a woman. Your innate need to find heterosexuality in every relationship erases our identity.

2. If you’re worried that the gay person in class is hitting on you or checking you out, I have created this handy-dandy guide to find out: 1) they aren’t, and 2) you’re a narcissist.

3. Stop saying you would “go gay” for your #mcm or #wcw. Gay isn’t a verb, and the idea of “turning” someone implies that gay is a choice.

4. Unless someone has explicitly told you that they are gay, do not make your own assumptions. Other people’s sexualities are simultaneously not for you to determine and none of your business.

5. If someone has told you in confidence that they are gay, and you tell other people that they have not given you permission to tell, I will personally hit you. With a chair. Or a bus. Washington State may be a bastion of liberal equality, but that does not hold true everywhere. Even here, personal and religious biases can openly expose a gay person to humiliation and discrimination.

Just don’t do it. Any of it. Ever. Please.