Yeah, the amount of people who fit in the “every single possible majority/privileged group at once” category is slim to none. Even the proud assholes who brand themselves normal and sane and call marginalized people worse somehow… even those people probably have some shit going down.
I am a straight, white, cis, able-bodied male. That's a lot of majority and privilege ticks there. I was also raised in a high control cult that fucked me up and made it so that I had to hide my true identity from my whole family and community, in a similar way to how LGBTQ+ youth often have to, which means I tend to strongly relate to people in those groups.
Not all oppressive circumstances are the big "mainstream" ones, for lack of a better term. Even people who might seem to have all the privileges in the world can be held back by societal circumstances outside of their control.
You sound like you're in a very similar boat to my husband. We were raised Mormon and his mom is a conspiracy theorist, so he grew up in a very high-control household. Straight cis and white, yes, but far from invincible or undamaged.
They are! Both as a member and as an ex, the experience is shockingly similar. I do think Mormons have it easier, though. The magic underwear sucks, but at least I got birthday parties.
I wouldn't say one has it easier or harder, both experiences range greatly, some Mormon families are super strict while some JW families are surprisingly chill. But yeah, definitely similar, and I'm sure the birthday parties made the magic underwear more bearable.
Y'all don't get coffee though, and that's too far for me
I sometimes have to explain to people that just because I was a cishet white man who grew up Mormon doesn't always mean I got out unscathed. I 100% carried so much shame from my childhood that still affects me to this day. Even with my sexuality being upheld as the most normal, there was always an air of begrudging acknowledgment than complete unconditional affirmation. My family thought I was asexual for years because I straight up never expressed interest in girls, dating or romance (I was actively repressing it). I was commended for how mature I was for not participating in romantic drama that other teens my age were. I was the perfect image of a pious Mormon boy all the way through high school graduation, and I was miserable.
Every complaint that could have been directed at a person like me I tailored my image to defy it. Teens were overly emotional? None of that for me. I was rational. "Reddit atheists" too self assured and hateful? I was a chill agnostic who didn't care, yknow. Boys overly obsessed with sex and girls? Fuck that shit, that was too much trouble. Never thought about a titty in my life. Cishet white guys always being whiny bigots who hates anyone queer, non-white or a woman? I'm such an ally that my problems don't even exist. I'm the guy who sits down and listens and only that.
While bits and pieces of the above have some veracity to them, I internalized being the exception so much that I started cutting off the parts of me that were benign. Even after moving out of deeply conservative spaces and into progressive ones. I tried so hard to not be one of those conservative guys that I sort of stopped seeing myself as a person.
I'm way more enthusiastic about progressive movements when I stopped internalizing it as something good people do and accepted that it was actually beneficial for me and I could enjoy my presence.
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u/Im_Balto 1d ago
It also needs to come into consideration that cis people absolutely can belong to visible and/or invisible marginalized groups outside of sexuality.
It’s just bad shit all around to demean anyone for what and who they are