Regarding this post, I realized the part that the concept of social trust plays in these interactions and how I’ve taken it for granted.
I recently saw the term resurface in an article on the pandemic, how the generalized social trust many of us have towards others has been frayed by those operating in bad faith. Specifically unvaccinated, non-masked presence in spaces that forego masks only for the non vaccinated. (Nota Bene: Yes, I’m aware of a recent change in guidelines that recommends even vaccinated remain masked in CQ spaces. Yippee)
The same principle that assumes people will not go into public carrying a deadly disease helps us assume that people are not going to pee on toilet seats, or steal our laptops from the table at Starbucks while we’re getting cream or that someone will share food with you without poisoning it.
Anyway, the place that concept has (or has had) in queer spaces is too important to ignore.
It’s like we’re in a cabal. All in a big conspiracy.
By and large, you’re not going to run into queer individuals without yourself revealing queerness by your mere presence. They “got something” on you at the same time you “have something” on them. There’s equivalent exchange and therefore an intrinsic expectation of trust for mutual survival. Survival. I say that like we’re still hunted like criminals. Well…. it depends on what country and what flavor of queer.
I digress. So this depends on a greater society that still stigmatizes queerness and therefore give a reason for someone to keep their queerness out of the public knowledge. Until that stigma is gone, this enhanced social trust in the context of shared queerness remains. And it makes it a lot easier to start off a friendship.