Dealing with homophobia in your community can be a stressful and at times frightening experience. When a woman on Reddit found herself in this situation in her new neighborhood when a homophobic neighbor, she enlisted her more open-minded neighbors to help smooth things over.
But when the homophobic neighbor felt bombarded, she wondered if she’d handled things incorrectly. So she went to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit for perspecitve.
The Original Poster (OP), who goes by the name newhomoner22, asked:
“AITA for asking 10 neighbors to have a talk with a homophobic neighbor?”
“I didn’t expect they all would…”
“But all did, one after another, and angered her more.”
She explained:
“I moved to a new area with my wife and one of my next door neighbors had some rude comments for us, since I’m a woman too. Nothing too agressive, just petty little things like saying this was a family neighborhood and she didn’t understand why we’d moved there.”
“In a way that implied we were unwelcome.”
“I tried to smooth things over by saying it was what we could afford but she got more irritated like I was saying her area was cheap?”
“Anyway, when we met all the other neighbors, they were a lot nicer and nobody else seemed to have a problem with us being gay.”
“Now, in my experience, if someone is being bigoted, and you tell one or two people, nothing gets done. If you actually want stuff to be addressed, you have to be like the ‘squeaky wheel’ and tell everyone.”
“So when I met the other nicer neighbors, I asked each of them or each family…”
“‘Hey, I’ve felt so welcomed to your community. Except.. Janice next door had made some kinda homophobic comments, and I could use some help smoothing stuff over because I hate to start in a new place on the wrong foot’.”
“‘If you happen to know her, can you have a word with her? I want to work things out but I feel like she might be more receptive hearing it from someone she’s known for years instead of a newcomer’.”
“‘If you do end up talking to her, could you let her know we don’t want any trouble, we’d just like her to stop making comments about our sexuality or us not being welcome here…’.”
“All the neighbors I asked this of were upset someone in the neighborhood had been so rude, and offered to have a word. Now, from my experience, if 10 people offer to help with something like this, maybe one or two will actually follow through.”
“So to my surprise, they all did. Obviously a very different community than I’m used to.”
“And after the sixth person brought it up to her, she blew up. I actually heard her screaming from the next house that she was fu*king sick of everyone coming to her house to lecture her, had the women next door sent them too?”
“And she screamed at the neighbor that had come by that they were the sixth person to come by for a ‘nice little talk’ and after 6 of them it wasn’t a friendly chat anymore, and she was being harassed by everyone coming to her house.”
“I came out of my house with my wife and she blew up on us saying that by sending every other neighbor I was harassing her. I said I didn’t send anyone, anyone who came by was their own person who wanted to say something after I told them what she’d said to us.”
“After that apparently the few neighbors who didn’t stop by in person called or texted and she blew up at them.”
“I went back in and apparently she made a Facebook post chewing us out but I didn’t see it because my wife and I don’t use Facebook”
“AITA for asking 10 people if they could speak with a homophobic neighbor?”
People on Reddit were then asked to judge who was in the wrong in this situation based on the following categories:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
As you might expect, they were firmly on OP’s side.
“I think it’s smart you and the neighborhood just laid it down from the get go. The ‘two sides to every story’ only has legs when there’s history.”
“You literally just moved in. Now there’s no way for her to conceal her bias.”
“No chance for a death by 1000 cuts, whispering in neighbors ears, masking her bigotry over petty complaints. You weren’t trying to be heavy about it, but I’m glad they had ur back and made it heavy.”
“This is literally your HOME. Nobody should feel so comfortable to impose on you simply existing near them.”
“NTA whatsoever. She just mad a finding out what kind of neighborhood she actually lives in – a nice one.” –hillyfog
“Even more than that. OP, what you did there, was you instigated the perfect response to bigotry. This community-wide reaction is exactly what should happen when someone decides to be a bigot in a community.”
“It’s sad that we’re even discussing it, but it’s still so rare that when it happens, we’re left feeling like something’s missing or something’s wrong. The thing that’s missing, OP, is apathy.”
“Congratulations on your amazing new neighbors and your awesome new paradigm! NTA!” –JadieJang
“The fact that everyone said something means this woman is a known a**hole. It’s hard for me to put myself in the neighbors position simply because I’m also queer, which would definitely affect my decision making.”
“But in general if I had a neighbor that seemed perfectly friendly until someone moved in and called them a bigot, I would want to do my own investigation. Not that I would automatically suspect the new neighbor of lying, but because that would be surprising. I’d probably talk to other neighbors and try and figure out if I missed something.”
“It sounds like everyone knew this woman was a piece of work and were more than happy to call her out.” –Elaan21
“NTA”
“if she didn’t want people to lecture her against being a bigoted a-hole, then she shouldn’t be a bigoted a-hole! Honestly I’d get more neighbors on it as well!”
“Start throwing her language back at her! (‘This is a neighborhood for loving and accepting families, why are you even living here if you have no intention of being either to us?’)”
“Personally I’d start making a timeline of events and saving any comments she made against you (online) that you can, so that way if the harassment continues you can go to the police to charge her with harassment (or if the police won’t help, a local pro LGBT advocacy group to pressure the cops)” –RailRoader17
“Anything other than the verbal abuse (and maybe that, even) would be considered a hate crime against a protected ‘minority’ i.e. orientation. Just saying, documentation isn’t a *bad idea.”
“Also, OP is NTA by any extent. Glad you found such an inclusive neighborhood. If 10 out of 11 neighbors are this progressive, I definitely need to move from this BFE rural midwest dystopia to your area…” –MsMistySkye
“NTA she couldve said nothing or just ignored your presence all together. She went out of her way be irate and homophobic.”
“So 10 people went out of their way to let her know she’s an asshole. But for you op it should be good to know the kind of neighbours you have though right?” –letsmakeathread
“NTA – you did nothing wrong. I can see why the neighbor feels ganged up on, because she kind of was (I’m just imagining the sitcom version with a literal line out her door to all tell her off), but it was unintentional that it turned out that way, and you and all your neighbors were individually totally justified.”
“Unfortunately it sounds like things may have backfired a bit and now this lady has gone from relatively quiet bigotry to open hostility, which doesn’t feel like a solid win really. Not sure where you go from there, but you’re still not the a**hole, she is.”
“Just be happy you’ve got other supportive neighbors. Honestly, given the tremendous response you got, I’m guessing this isn’t the first thing they’ve wanted to go tell off the old lady for.” –Gbdub87
“NTA and this was clearly not a first offense for her as far as the neighborhood goes, otherwise they wouldn’t have all jumped in like this. The only place for me that this veers into ah territory at all is the idea that you were actually asking these people to advocate for you.”
“You literally did sic the neighborhood on her. If, on the other hand, you just discussed with them how she had made you feel and they took it upon themselves to go have a conversation, it reads totally different. Either way, it sounds like you’ve got a great new neighborhood. Enjoy!” –Bozobozo11
Hopefully OP’s neighbor can either learn to be a bit more tolerant or mind her own business.