"I Have Gay Friends": Why This Phrase Hurts Us

When you have actual gay friends, you know people are made fun of for saying "I have gay friends." Doesn't make sense to you? Let me explain.

A lot of people use the phrase "I have gay friends" to defend an argument that their gay friends would never endorse. And we feel used and hurt because of it.

I knew a young woman in college who, whenever challenged on her beliefs about homosexuality, used the phrase, "I have gay friends." And I see many others using it too, even politicians who try to implement policies that hurt us. (And yes, those policies do make our lives worse, sometimes very much so. A gay person would know.)

But to go back to my example, this person also used words like "choice" and "lifestyle" when referring to homosexuality. Words that no gay person would ever use. She was not listening to us. If she was not listening to us about ourselves, to whom was she listening about us? Why weren't her gay friends good enough to speak for themselves?

It had probably never even occurred to her to ask us about our own lives. Had it been a choice for us? What did we think of the words "gay lifestyle" when so many of us were monogamous, and at the time were fighting for the right to get married and settle down? How did her politics affect our lives? These questions probably never entered her mind.

And yet she called us her friends. Who doesn't want to know about their friends' lives, loves, pains, and experiences?

Given that she listened not to her "friends" but to her friends' opponents, my guess is that she did not actually have any gay friends. She thought she did. But really, all she had were gay people in her life who had to get along with her. (Or who wanted to witness to her about love, just as she hoped to witness to them about her own beliefs.)

Sometimes people think they have a gay friend just because a gay person is nice to them. I have heard from people who are counted as "my gay friend" by someone they consider only an acquaintance. In reality, they only consider friends those who believe in their love. They don't want to be hurt, even by people who don't mean to--who love them. They don't want to be used in an argument, much less one they don't agree with.

So, when straight people aren't around, occasionally in conversation one of us will say sarcastically, "But I have gay friends!" and the rest of us will laugh bitterly. We've all been hurt by this. We've been good enough to bolster an argument, or even to spend time with, but not good enough to listen to and believe about our own lives. The people who call themselves our friends, listen to our enemies instead of us. Our "friends" let our enemies speak for us. And it hurts.

This is one part of why you probably consider gay people so angry. A lot of people use anger to cover hurt--I've seen it on both sides, especially in politics. There are angry gay people--just like there are angry "Christians"--but sometimes when you see us, you're hurting us. Intentionally or not.

When you say, "I have gay friends" while making arguments against our love, we feel used. And that hurts.