Honestly “queer” is so useful for people like me w/ a “complicated orientation” b/c instead of having to say I’m “asexual panromantic” and explain what that means, I can just say “I’m queer” and it tells you all you need to know (that I’m not straight).
yeah sure good for you but don’t ever ever use that word for someone who doesn’t identify as it themselves, it’s not an umbrella term for everyone. also “pan/ace” would definitely work, even if you don’t want to use it, other people could. i use ace lesbian and definitely not the q slur.
Wow its almost like they were just talking about using it on themselves for individual reasons and you butted in to be an ass and be condescending because you think you’re superior for not using queer, then you called their identity a slur right to them. But that can’t possibly be what you were trying to do, right?
Anyone is allowed to use it for themselves, I never said no one should do that if that’s what they want. Queer is a slur though. I just want people to be aware of that, I have no idea if OP is aware of that or not but some people using that word aren’t. I’m tired of people including me and other people who don’t want to be included in that word, and before anyone asks, I never meant that OP did that, because I literally have no idea if they do.
Queer is a slur as much as any other LGBT+ word, I just want you to be aware of that.
“Gay” is used as an insult. It is used to be demeaning. Its used to discriminate. And yet its used as the all mighty umbrella – gay rights, gay marriage, gay community – when discussing the entire community.
Gay gets used as a slur. Queer gets used as a slur. But I don’t walk up to gay people and say “your identity is a slur, you know that right” or get pissed when they say “the gay community” when they mean the whole community.
Personal identity and preference in terms, even harmful words that get used as slurs, are not questioned; except for the word Queer.
Queer gets shut down. Queer people get others in their faces saying “your identity is a slur!” Queer people don’t have the freedom to identify in a community, but are forced under other terms against their will due to hypocrisy and double standards.
So if you’re not going to come onto gay people’s posts for the same behavior, maybe critically analyze why exactly you feel the need to be so condescending to Queer people, specifically on posts that ONLY have to do with personal identity. Why you feel the need to insist to Queer people that their identities are slurs, to directly slap away the power of reclaiming a word from them by demanding it remain in the hands of the Straights as a perpetual slur.
I think an important difference between gay and queer is however, that queer started out as a slur used against members of the community and continues to be used as a slur in many places. Whereas gay began as a word the community chose itself to describe itself and was then later used by homophobes and heterosexuals in general in a negative way, meaning however, that gay doesn’t hold the same negative connotations as queer for many people simply because it was our word that they took, and not a word that they forced on us to make us “strange” or “other” like queer means.
That’s…. Not true. People think so because the history before gay was reclaimed is way older (older than any love community member’s lifetimes, probably,) but gay had the exact same origins.
It was meant to denote sexually perverse people, most frequently sex workers and those who hired them. Anyone who participated in anything but married, vanilla, straight sex might have been referred to as “gay,” including any suspected LGBT person.
The word (already being one frequently used on the community,) was reclaimed as a community identifier when the community wanted to disconnect from the clinical and diagnostic implications of “homosexual.”
There is record of queer being reclaimed and used as a personal identifier literally before the popularization of gay. Both words are reclaimed slurs with negative histories, and BOTH are used as slurs against the community still to this day.
The more recent history of the mid to late 20th century more prevalently favored queer as a slur, as is represented in our media. However its clearly undeniable that the switch back to gay as the popular community slur (along with the ever present f slur,) happened in the 2000s. Which is trying to be denied and rewritten by the anti queer crowd, who completely ignore the words popularity with community members who actually lived through when it was a popular slur.
Yes to all of this. When it comes to words for “not straight” there are hardly any choices that didn’t originate as ways to stigmatize or pathologize us. We are all using reclaimed slurs to describe ourselves.
Also, queer is reclaimed in a particularly empowering way. It doesn’t just mean “same-sex attraction” but encompasses a whole spectrum of attractions and gender orientations. It’s a word that says to asexuals, pansexuals, bisexuals, trans folks, genderfluid and genderqueer and genderless folks and people who are still figuring themselves out, “hey, you’ve got a home here. We don’t need to categorize you to love you.”
This is important because there are a lot of divisions within the LGBTQ+ world, and in particular cis gay men and cis lesbians often overlook or exclude trans, bi and asexual people. Queer is the only word that not only demands equal acceptance for everyone, but leaves the door open for words and descriptors that haven’t even been invented yet.
Somebody else pointed this out earlier to me, and of course I’ve lost the post, but it’s really suspicious that of all the reclaimed slurs, the one that gets the most pushback is the one that is most radically accepting of all identities
“hey, you’ve got a home here. We don’t need to categorize you to love you.”
Lmao yeah! the pushback against this idea is overt and disgusting and I don’t trust anybody who perpetuates it.
Queer is an ideology and an identity, historically and now. It is an umbrella for that ideology and an umbrella for those identities, historically and now. They can’t be conflated (with LGBT) and it’s super fucking disingenuous to pretend one is just the tarnished besmirched dirty slur version of the other. They’re different. In my particular work for example, Queer bioethics is different from LGBT bioethics and conflating the two will muddle any discussion you try to have about them because they lead to literally opposite conclusions in some cases.
Yeah I freaking love pancakes
Wait wrong post
By far the best addition to this post
This is one of those things where I feel like an old.
Like, *the* slogan I associate with pride is, “We’re here, we’re queer – get used to it!”
There was a TV show called “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” that was total mainstream pap. (Not that the show wasn’t riddles problematic elements from the concept out, but ‘queer’ in the title was clearly meant as a positive.)
I just have a hard time processing queer as anything but reclaimed.
They actually shot “Queer As Folk” in my city!
TERFs and radical gender/sexuality bianarists are flooding social media and blogging sites with propaganda smearing the word queer in the hopes of silencing all of us who don’t identify with their hate politics. I fought hard to reclaim the word queer in the late 80s and early 90s, and it’s the one word that doesn’t worship exclusion. Which is why these people are trying to convince you not to use it. fuck that noise. there is literally no word i could use to identify my sexuality that hasn’t been thrown at me in hatred, fear, and violence. No way am I giving up the one of those that allows me to talk about all of my community without trying to put people in boxes they don’t fit in.
I will never not reblog this post. Queer, queer, queer here.
“Queer” has been claimed by queer people as a self-descriptor since at least 1910. It’s an insult to those historical people (and all the generations of queer historical people who have identified as queer since then) to pretend that the people using it as a slur owned it more than the queer people who used it as a self-descriptor.
Source: George Chauncey, “Gay New York,” page 101
They don’t want us to use queer because they don’t want to be lumped in with anyone who’s not cis gay or cis lesbian. So fine. You don’t like the word queer? You don’t want to be in the “queer” community? Get the fuck out, then. Y’all don’t welcome us in your community anyway, so we’ll just have our own.
And it’ll be queer as fuck.
I fucking love the word queer ❤
Or, to put it another way, using a great old slogan of the community: I’m not gay as in happy, I’m queer as in fuck you.
Yes yes yes yes yes! These younglings today don’t know their queer history but feel so free to comment on it. Trying so desperately to assimilate into straight culture by turning your nose up at queer, and all the people who take refuge under its umbrella. Queer accepted me when nobody else would, not even the LGBT groups.
Queer is full of the types of people who don’t make good poster children for the middle class assimilationist cis gay couple just looking to get married and have some kids. Queer forces us to realize the fight didn’t end with gay marriage, and cis gays are gonna have to step out of the spotlight sometimes, and realize cis gays have privilege, and fight for someone with less. Trans people, nonbinary people, people in nontraditional relationship structures, aromantics, asexuals, sex workers. Heck more and more bisexual people these days are switching over to queer because the amount of biphobia in the so-called lgBt community is so alienating, and also because so many of us feel the term bisexual reinforces a false gender dichotomy and we’re too tired of jokes about kitchenware to use pansexual.
Part of what I love about the term queer is that it does make people uncomfortable. It makes them aware of their privilege, exposes certain biases, even within the LGBT community. What’s so wrong with a movement that strives to fight for everybody, huh? Huh?
Proudly bi, proudly queer, and being part of this movement when I was young was an honor.
This is the post that changed my mind about “queer” I still have a knee jerk “ugh” reaction to it Bc of personal life experience but I understand it a lot more now. And sometimes I feel like queer is a good word to use for me.
Idk like personally dont care about the use of queer as a descriptor i do have a problem of people trying to push the boundaries of lesbians. Like if the queer community can get over the discust and pearl cluching because lesbians have attraction solely for the same sex. Like its not even their business but they want to be lesbians. I am really confused as to why they want to look down on us but want to take all of our words as their own descriptions. Also i have a serious problem with kink culture being considered queer. If that misogynistic garbage pile of getting off on harming women is queer than take your whole movement and go.
i was worried for this person that they might be inadvertently absorbing some TERF ideology from someone they follow: They’re actually a practicing Dianic wiccan in the year 2017,
anyway terf, trans lesbians are lesbians, and no queer person in the world actually considers kink to be queer. trying to associate queerness with misogyny and violence is nothing more than a tired, tired old terf tactic to discourage people from reclaiming queer, a word with strong ties to trans history and culture, so, we can guess why you don’t like it. and please for the love of fuck update your theories, the 70s are over. the second wave of feminism died of natural causes and it’s getting really embarrassing for you to be rehashing all of this decades past its used by date.
every time I see a post that’s addressing lesbians who have little to no experience with women, it’s always like, ‘it’s okay to have not kissed a girl at 16 or 18 or even 21!!!!’ and I know tumblr skews toward younger people, but it still feels like a harsh reminder that I’m years behind, even by other lesbians’ standards.
it’s totally normal and okay to not have experience with women at any age. it’s okay if you have never been with a woman and you’re 30 or 50 or 70 or even older. it’s okay if you didn’t come out until after you married a man or had children with him. it’s okay if you didn’t even realize you were gay until 25 or 45 or older.
you’re still a ‘real’ lesbian if you didn’t realize you were gay, or if you have a long history of dating men, or if you’ve never slept with a woman.
and no matter how old you are, you still have time. you have time to find a girlfriend or wife. you have time to make memories with a woman. you have time to fall in love.
I vow to never be the “cool girl” by prioritizing men.
I vow to never be the “chill girl” by laughing at or tolerating misogynistic language or sentiment.
I vow to never be the “real girl” by crafting an attitude of disdain for other women.
I vow to always be a woman for other women.
📢📢📢 radfems reblogging this are skipping my third point 📢📢📢
this is your reminder that you’re allowed to create new words for your gender identity.
if none of the existing terms out there feel like a good fit, for whatever reason, you’re allowed to create a new word that does. this is true even if there are existing terms that come close to matching what you feel but aren’t quite right and it’s true even if there are terms that match what you feel exactly but you just don’t like the term itself and want something different.
there is nothing inherently awful about creating new words for gender identities. it doesn’t make you a “special snowflake” or a “faker” or mean anything else negative about you or your identity. you don’t need some kind of special permission to do it. you don’t even need a tale of woe and angst about why you’re doing it. you don’t have to justify it, like you’re trying to explain why it’s okay, to anyone.
there is no middle ground that i can see. if just believing people about their own sexualities and identities is problematic to you, then you are supporting medical gatekeeping, you are agreeing with the straight and cis people who deny each of our identities regularly. if you don’t support medical gatekeeping, then believing people’s self-reported identities is your only option.
you can not pick which identities are real and which should be subject to medical scrutiny and examination. you do not have that right. you either believe us or abuse us.
does no one realize that robin hood was a terrible role model for young kids? i mean you are stealing from people (illegal) and those people (usually) worked hard to get their wealth. it really demotivates people to succeed when they know they can get something someone else worked for.
is this what rich people worry about lmao
who knew the sheriff of nottingham had a blog
How does someone read Robin Hood and miss the part where it’s set in feudal England. He stole from people who got their wealth by exploiting the poor, incidentally that’s all rich people to this very day.
Tune in next week when they tell you the story of Ebeneezer Scrooge, a benevolent job creator, harassed during his sleeping hours by the hellish socialist dead.
All right, my answer may be long because I think it is important to make sure we have a nuanced discussion around this.
The answer to this question is not a clear one. There are instances where asexual and aromantic people have been excluded from the queer community, but there are also instances where they have been included.
The problem with saying “Aces have always been a part of the queer community” or “Aces have never been a part of the queer community” is that you will be wrong either way.
Asexual and aromantic people have historically had to face exclusion from the queer community, and they still do today. They have also historically been a part of the queer community (I will always point people to The Golden Orchid because I think it is one of the most clear examples of asexual and aromantic inclusion in the queer community).
So to have this discussion in a clear and healthy way we need to first divorce ourselves of the idea that the queer community is some monolithic thing.
We have always had division; and in every place and in every time period the queer community is different. Queer people haven’t generally been able to organize on a global scale, so there is no truth of the queer community that is true everywhere and in every time.
The internet has given us an advantage in that we can have discussions internationally within the queer community, which has never happened before to the scale it is happening today. Which makes right now a turning point for the queer community.
The decisions we make today will be recorded in the history books of tomorrow. So it is time for us all to decide what kind of community we want to be.
Throughout history we have examples of when our community has been exclusive and catered only to a select few identities, and we have examples of the opposite happening. We have examples of people coming together to fight for the rights and the safety of not only people who share their exact struggle but for people who face a whole different set of obstacles. And it is time for us all to decide what type of people we want to be remembered as.
The very word queer is vague which many people now find issue with but I think is a distinct advantage. It does not narrow our community down to a series of labels we care about.
And if I have learned anything from my ongoing study of queer history, it is that how society has treated different sexual and gender identities has changed throughout time. And to assume that will stop with us seems pretty arrogant.
There have been times when being gay has been accepted in certain societies. But because of these times does that mean that gay people don’t deserve a place in the queer community? Of course not.
I fully believe there have been times when asexual and/or aromantic people have been fully accepted in society at certain points. But now is not that time. So we include them. We fight for them because right now that is what is needed.
I love the queer community. For all it’s many flaws I have faith in it. One of the reasons I love it is because of how inclusive we have the power to be.
I cannot make this decision for anyone else. But as someone who studies queer history, I can say that while the past can give us much, it is ultimately the present and the future we must make our decisions for.
the other day i saw some discourse that was like “if a lesbian is a terf she’s still a lesbian and belongs in lesbian spaces”
and i kinda had to stop and i was like…. “no. no she don’t” lmfao because like. lesbian spaces are built on love and support and safety and i can bet you there’s gonna be trans girls in that space who are not gonna be feeling any love support or safety if there’s a fucking terf there.
yes she’s a lesbian but does she deserve to be in our lesbian spaces??? fuck no and i will absolutely be the first to kick her ass to the curb. lesbian trans sisters over lesbian terfs everyday, all day.
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