Queer-eye for the straight woman

[KnottedYet]

No ones ever been banished from the kingdom as it were, but I do know of two people who chose to leave.
Sometimes people take things too personally or don't have the wherewithal to simply brush it off.

My favorites are the ones who leave with great fanfare, talk trash about TE forums on another women's bike forum, then come quietly back to TE.

While that is deeply offensive (yes, I'm a d*ke, but not a "vegetarian earth goddess witch," just ask my minister at the next church potluck) it does say a LOT about the quality of TE forums. Despite vitriolic diatribes elsewhere, this is still a "home" on the internet for women cyclists and they come back.

In large part, I think, due to the amount of LEARNING that goes on here. We all love bikes. We all understand that love. And through bikes we meet folks we'd be unlikely to meet otherwise. We do a little bit of looking through someone else's eyes, simply because we *do* see eye-to-eye on bikes and riding.

Yeah, we *all* put our pedals in our mouths (good one, IFJane!) but we take a step back, take a second look, and work to understand what's going on from another's perspective. (and I don't "go after" the woman who said these things about me, because I can understand the closeted world she's struggling in don't want to "run her out" of TE. I know how I'd feel if I lost TE, and I can imagine how she'd feel if she lost TE. It's a learning experience.)

Now, if we could just rule the world...