I refuse to be silenced

I've seen and experienced more than my fair share of homophobia. I understand that different people will process things differently. I don't want to be the person who points at someone else's experience with homophobia and say it's false because there are truly vindictive people in the world.

My tell on whether or not posts like this read as true or false is the tone. When there's a sense of glee in the post it reads as false to me because why would you be happy this happened to you. I understand having moved past it but it still has to be a painful memory. Why are you happy about it?

I can only speak from experience is that these things are painful to talk about. When I speak about being in an abusive relationship, I don't feel like going into detail. I feel a pressure in my throat just having to relive it by writing it out or speaking about it. There's some people here who talk about their abuse and trauma with a sense of glee that just rings false.

I don't want to be the person who says that someone else is full of shit, but a lot of what gets posted just really rubs me the wrong way. You worded it best by saying it reads as if it's been written by someone that has only experienced homophobia in media because when you live through it...it's just very different than how it's usually portrayed.

Yeah I was one of the people talking about the way that the fake stories are clearly written by someone who's never experienced homophobia, and the creepiest thing about them is the fact that their always the hyper sexualised and almost always at some point have incest in them. Anyone who's LGBT can spot the fakes a mile off, but a bit like the blatant racism in the DD series someone who hasn't experienced it doesn't notice. There's been a couple of stories that i've been certain are fake because of how 'fake gay man' they feel but i didn't know how the fuck to report that, and the real world knock on effect is OP has had this horrible experience with the sub because that's what so many posters really think gay people act like now.

Thank you. This made me a bit emotional.

The core support provided by the network is still there. It's just been buried very deep. I received some very good advice in a lot of my posts about how to deal with the shit my mother-in-law stirred after my man proposed.

I think this community will survive. It likely won't survive within the network itself but it will survive. A community is made up of people and not the room that they're in.

I agree wholeheartedly with this. The post that the comment was on did not make clear OP's gender or orientation so the original comment was an innocent mistake. (Like the commenter I missed OP's first post where it was made clear). The people jumping down OP's throat for having a reaction (even after his edited apology) were way out of line. I hate that OP had to give way more detail than he was comfortable with in order to tame the mob.

In OP’s case, I remember their first post. JNMIL is an inverse of the rest of Reddit in the sense that everyone is assumed a woman, and even I didn’t pick up on the fact that OP was a gay man until they reacted to someone calling them a term that was feminine (I can’t remember if it was ‘girl’ or ‘queen’). They hadn’t used pronouns for themselves or anything.

Of course, once OP clarified, that should have been enough. It’s understandable that someone could get triggered by that, especially if they’re LGBTQ.

I fully understand the need for a disclaimer because majority of the network are straight DiLs. It's helpful to have it there for me because it prevents people misgendering me.

It doesn't stop all of the assholes who do it, but it makes it clear from the beginning that I'm a man in a homosexual relationship.

I am concerned about the armchair diagnosing that goes on despite the rules against it. Some people are nasty. Period. Justifying their nastiness by saying they're probably mentally ill opens a can of worms.

I think you also raised a good point about the “advice” that is given not only do they encourage really sketchy behaviours but a lot of users are quick to play amateur psychologist. Every MIL is a Jocasta/narcissist/sociopath/has borderline personality disorder.

This is why I've never posted about my family, even though I came to the sub looking for advice on how to move on past some issues I've been having with them. My father definitely has mental issues but he refuses treatment and I am not qualified to diagnose him. Even with many questionable things he did, I still love him, I appreciate all the good things that he did as well, and I understand where does his behaviour come from. My mother is overprotective to the point that it's smothering, but she is no malicious and always supports me in everything. But if I tried to describe some problematic situations on JustNoMIL, I'm absolutely convinced that I'd get the type of advice you describe. There is something deeply toxic about the community, although at the same time there are many wonderful people there, who can give great advice.

I'm really not sure how to change it, but I'm certain that the shift towards only expressing support and agreeing with everything the OP says is not the way to go.

I'm so glad someone else noticed this-- it's pervasive homophobia to automatically assume anyone talking about their male SO is a woman/their female SO is a man. It just reinforces the idea that being gay is an abberation and the "normal" sexuality is straight.

Also, with regards to mental illness, it's really whether or not the person is an asshole that determines that. I've known mentally ill assholes, and I strongly believe they'd be assholes even if they weren't mentally ill. Likewise, I know very kind neurotypical people, and it's hugely insulting to imply they'd be anything less than kind if they were mentally ill. In my experience, shitty parents who are mentally ill would still be shitty parents if they weren't-- they'd just be shitty in different ways.

One last thing-- I am so thoroughly sick of the stigma against overweight, chronically ill, mentally ill, middle-aged women, because my JY mum is all of those things. She wasn't perfect when I was growing up, sometimes far from it, but she's a JY in my eyes because she was trying to get help the entire time, and now she owns it. She takes responsibility even though some of the problems were arguably not her fault. So if you have a shitty mom, or your partner has a shitty mom, it's not because she's crazy. It's because she's an asshole.

It's so hard to find balance. On the one hand yeah, an armchair diagnosis, especially of a stigmatized disorder, is dangerous. On the other, it can be really helpful to know. Like, if your loved one has an abrupt shift in personality or values, suggesting a doctor is good advice. If you know Bob has the symptoms of a disorder it can be easier not to take things personally.

Thank you for the offer. I have just received them from another user who has access to them and will be updating them into my OP as soon as I get in front of a computer as I can't do it from mobile.

What made me uncomfortable about the Devil Dadi posts were that the language she used to dehumanize an entire subset of people was painfully similar to anti-LGBT+ rhetoric. I also did not raise my voice in concern because I convinced myself that I was being sensitive and seeing fire when there was no smoke.

I'm sorry you had that experience in which you felt you could not be heard.

We can hope that there will be changes. I just don't think my hope is well founded currently.

it has also allowed me to be able to identify what is and is not ok with me, and I hope that I'll make the progress to be able to feel my opinions are as relevant as other people's.

You phrased this perfectly. I’m too quick to doubt my own feelings especially when it seems that everyone else is perfectly fine with whatever is making me uncomfortable. I need to remember that it’s ok if I feel differently. Different isn’t wrong; it’s just different.

I'm doing good. Sauron has given up on her stalking after we spent a few days in a hotel and there's been nothing from her since.

I've been quiet there because a combination of factors. One of which was my increasing discomfort with the place. I also pretty much posted everything that was major about my MiL already and I didn't see the need to keep making posts about all the minor things she's done.

Of course, I'm pretty sure there's several saga posters who'll jump at the opportunity to write an essay about how their MiL refused to pass them the potato salad that one time but I personally don't see the need to.

Unfortunately one of the people who became a mod after her saga wrapped a long time ago seems to be the spawn of a lot of what has been mentioned here becoming the normal tone of the sub. I will leave it at that because they are highly respected but their own words/tone are the epitome of nearly every point made on this post.

u/TheNameIsPoseidon this could be exactly why it’s come to this tbh

Errr... for some of us, it's also an intrinsic part of who we are as people. As human beings. There's a lot of "isms" that affect me too, but I and people like me don't need to deal with being kink-shamed on top of baring our trauma for the sake of support and advice about harmful family members.

I understand where you're coming from... but really. Have we come so far as to forget our roots? That leathermen were literal boots on the ground during the AIDS crisis? That Dykes on Bikes did a LOT of fundraising during the plague? That our first LGBT officials were voted for in the leather bars...? There's a lot more shared history than not. Particularly in America.

(*Also, you can lose your children if you're kinky and it comes out- Divorce lawyers live for that shit. So do workplaces with morality clauses and church organizations.*)

Once again it is the South Asian community of the JN network that must be thanked for breaking the silence and giving many of us the courage to speak out. I know that had I not seen others speaking out in discontent, I'd have bitten my tongue.

You and the others were a rallying cry for the disenfranchised.

I will elaborate that the cop in question was my man's cousin and he had been manipulated into joining my mother-in-law in her visit. He still faced consequences because we reported that shit to his station.

However if I opened the door naked and exposed myself to my mother-in-law in front of a cop, that makes me the aggressor. I probably would have been charged for indecency.

Following the advice given is a double-edged blade because some members of the community do not have your best interests at heart. I am relatively new to the network but many people have spoken about a time when there was actual good advice being given.

There is now just a very small subset of good advice that is drowned out by the overwhelming amount of people trying to advocate the route that will cause the most drama.

You raise a very important point about living vicariously through the OP. We all sometimes wish we could just do something terrible to the JN in our lives. I am guilty of this. The number of times I fantasized about murdering my abusive ex was deeply unhealthy in retrospect.

When it isn't your life that could implode, it's very easy to advocate that someone else go nuclear. You're the observer who gets to see the drama and fallout without experiencing any of the pushback and pain.

Thank you for being one of the users that shone a light on the ageism and anti-Semitism that has been growing in prevalence within the JN Network.

Only time will tell if our voices have made a difference. I am hoping for the best while preparing for the worst.

I'm not sure what walking out of my apartment naked would have accomplished in those people's heads but it definitely wouldn't have improved my relationship with my mother-in-law or solved our problems.

Something I've noticed is that a certain group will always advise an OP to take the path towards more drama. If the OP follows their cries to escalate the situation, it becomes a source of drama for them until the OP's life goes to shit. It's not their problem because there's always a new OP to latch onto once the old one has been drained of everything.

Everything points to them shutting it down permanently to consolidate in the main sub.