pulling stunts that strengthen the public’s perception of gay people as satanic perverts is a shitty thing to do. the end
counterpoint: it’s really funny.
lil nas x: i was demonized from a young age because of the unique intersection of my blackness and queerness within the church and now im reclaiming that for myself and showing young queer people that they always have a place where they’ll be accepted, even if they have to carve it out of the hell they were promised
random shitforbrains tumblr users: actually portraying queer people, including yourself, as sexually empowered or subversive in any way makes the homophobes mad :/// maybe just act normal??? idk pulling that “”stunt”” is kinda homophobic
OP’s statement implies that there is a way of acting that will convince the bigots that gay people are not satanic perverts.
There isn’t. Every single method has been tried: Being quiet. Blending in. Acting like middle class suburban straight couples. Being closeted and only finding partners who will keep the secret. Having one partner publicly take the role of another gender. (And then acting like a suburban straight couple.) Being ALONE, and just pining quietly for years.
None of it works. When the straights figure out who the gay people are, even if they are abstinent and solitary, there’s a swarm of bigots ready to denounce all queer people as evil, as corrupting children, as causing the downfall of society. A swarm of bigots ready to physically attack them to drive them off.
There is no polite enough, no ordinary enough, no invisible enough to keep us safe.
So fuck that.
Queer people should act like they want to act. If part of that is going all in for the “I am your worst hellscape nightmare” tropes, that’s part of reclaiming the right to be full members of society.
And queer people of color have at least twice as much right to ignore all the stupid “don’t do that because you’ll offend people!!!” rules.
What offends those people is queer people of color existing, not whatever they did that got them noticed. The bigots just like to pretend that the issue is “I don’t want to see it” instead of “I don’t want the person who did that, to exist.”
Because if the issue is “I don’t want to see it” - just don’t watch the video.
Specially, LIL NAS X tried that. Y’all remember his first his? Old Town Road? With the lyrics:
Cheated on my baby
You can go and ask her
My life is a movie
Bull riding and boobies
Cowboy hat from Gucci
Boy was STEALTH. AND WHAT DID THEY DO TO HIM????? They OUTED HIM. OUT OF REVENGE FOR BEING BETTER AT THE GAME THAN THEY WERE. FOR BEING A BLACK QUEER MAN WITH A HIT. THEY. OUTED. HIM.
Y’all DO NOT get to tell him to sit down and shut up about his gayness when he LITERALLY DID THAT AND WAS OUTED. what happened to the quiet polite gays, you ask?
Y’all killed, bullied and outed them so you’re stuck with us. Deal with it.
THIS ☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾☝🏾
Performative Purity has never kept any person of color, queer folks, and ESPECIALLY queer persons of color safe in the eyes of a society that WANTS to hate us for existing as is. NEVER.
Been my literal experience the last few years.
