Queer is the label we used when we werenât sure. Queer is the label we used when we were sure no other label would do. Queer is a gender that is my own and only my own. Queer is a sexuality that defies definition.Â
Queer is the label which became genderqueer, and from which non-binary and genderfluid sprung. Queer is the label which is the un-box, in which everyone who is not cishet (including ace people!!) fits. Queer is community.
Queer is activist. Queer is in the streets screaming âweâre here, weâre queer, get used to it!â Queer is not ashamed.
Queer was ours from the beginning. Queer was ours a century ago. Queer was used against us, and we said âfuck you,â and we took it BACK. Queer is butches and bears with bats, protecting our community.
Queer is blue-collar. Queer is working-class. Queer is poor. Queer is people who canât afford to sit out Stonewall quietly and then go fight for marriage equality when the tax bills come due. Queer is a distinct identity, and queer is the un-box.
Queer makes TERFs and exclusionists angry, because it doesnât let them define people by gold stars and terms like âSGAâ that come from conversion therapy. Queer doesnât give a shit about historical revision to exclude members of the community who have always been here, because queer has always been here and always will be.
Queer is the life raft onto which we climb. Queer is community. Queer is important, and people will have to pry it from my cold dead hands. Iâve been queer for thirty years. My community is queer, and it is opt-in.
If you tag my fucking posts âq slurâ or any variant thereof I will immediately fucking block you. Donât fucking do it. If you feel obligated to tag my posts âq slur,â donât interact with them. My identity is not a bad word and does not require censoring.
âslurâ isnât the same as âbad wordâ. everything this says perfectly illustrates that you literally donât know what a slur is.
queer is a slur and none of this changes that fact. is it so hard to have some respect for LGBT people who choose not to reclaim it?? it wasnât âoursâ to begin with. society took a word that means âweirdâ and used it against lgbt people (AND continue to do so!) some people have chosen to recclaim it and thats fine! what i do not understand is how you have no sympathy for people in the very community you claim to love so dearly that you willingly throw their pain at their face while also delegitimizating their pain.
like. at least others who recclaim that word can at least recognize that its a slur ??
Cool, so everyone is gonna stop using âgayâ all the time, because thatâs the word that was used to attack me, and is still a widespread slur across the US? Weâre all gonna have respect for that now?
No? Because thatâs an okay reclaimed slur, but queer is so toxic that somehow in the last two years and only on Tumblr itâs become such a discourse point that y'all gonna ignore that the first uses of queer for our community are a century old, and come from within the community?
Literally everything you said is either incorrect or can be equally applied to gay. So, no, Iâm not going to censor my identity out of sympathy, because I have to listen to people call themselves gay every day and do so with the knowledge that itâs their identity word and is important to them. I, you know, made my trauma my business and worked on it and didnât insist that other people stop being gay (and calling themselves gay in my earshot) because thatâs the word that got weaponized against me.
I have PTSD. I know how trauma and triggers work. I also know my trauma and my triggers are my business to manage, and not the business of another person to change a core part of their identity so I can manage my trauma. Insisting that other people change their identities for the trauma of others has nothing to do with âsympathy,â it is about control. This sudden upswell in âq***râ and âq slurâ and âq*eerâ - censoring an important identity word as if it is a swear word, making it a word so bad it canât be spoken, as if itâs a communityâs Voldemort - did not come from nowhere.
We literally sat here and watched it happen. We watched TERFs start this particular virulent bit of discourse, marrying âqueer is a slurâ - with the implication that âslurâ means âirredeemable and unable to be redeemedâ - and we watched exclusionists pick up the water of TERFs and carry it for them. This isnât some bit of old contention that goes back decades - five years ago, the word we had PSAs about how it shouldnât be weaponized was gay.
But queer is everything I said: it doesnât let TERFs and exclusionists know for sure if they should be hateful because itâs the un-box. So that just canât be tolerated.
The âqueer is a slur (and slurs arenât reclaimed and slurs should be censored and slurs should not be used for a group but gay is fine, gay is not a slur like that)â thing isnât about individual trauma and it never was. This âqueer is a slurâ thing is about gatekeeping and control, so no, Iâm not here for it, and Iâm not for my identity being censored as if itâs a bad word when people interact with my posts.
Lest you forget, the most famous mantra we had as a community coming together was⌠Weâre here, weâre queer, get used to it. You canât erase that. Itâs the name for academic studies of our community (which btw, is always led by queer people themselves). You canât remove the label for people who are still trying to find their place in the community. For the people who never mind a word who describes them as well. Most of our labels are words that have been hurled back at us in hate. So you have to ask, who in our community started to say it wasnât acceptable? And do you want to stand for what they do? Piss off a TERF this Pride by reminding them that weâre here, weâre QUEER, and they can just shut the hell up.
God am I sick of this asinine fucking discourse. I see weâve reached the point where not being comfortable with a word that is regularly used as a slur means these clowns are going to imply youâre a transphobe because guilt by association which is totally sane and reasonable. Like I identify as queer and donât consider it a slur in most usages but I still have the capacity for empathy and thus can respect that my comfort zone is not the be all and end all of acceptable positions to have on the issue. It costs me nothing not to call people queer when they dont want to be.
Saying âwhen you repeat âqueer is a slur and should never be usedâ you are repeating TERF talking pointsâ isnât calling you a transphobe, itâs saying that you are using the same talking points as transphobic people, talking points that were deliberately created to try to split the community.
I understand itâs much easier to say âwah how dare you say Iâm a transphobe by associationâ than to acknowledge that youâve been taken in by people who are working very hard to split the community, so if you donât want to do the work of examining where you got your talking points and who your talking points benefit, I guess I understand, but that doesnât mean thatâs what I said.
Just because the truth that TERFs are behind the âqueer is a slurâ discourse makes you uncomfy to acknowledge doesnât mean you get to change what I said so it makes you comfy in your unchallenged assumptions, and reassure yourself that youâre not saying the same things as TERFs!
You are. If you donât like that?
CHANGE WHAT YOUâRE SAYING SO YOUâRE NOT AGREEING WITH TERFS, YOU CABBAGE.
No one is under the obligation to pretend youâre not agreeing with TERFs just to make you comfy.
This is something that drives me insane about the âQueer is a Slurâ crowd. We point out they are quoting TERFs and they get mad at US! They say it canât be true because they are trans and/or hate TERFs.
You know what I would do if someone told me a belief of mine was a TERF talking point? I would LISTEN! I would look into it. I would reexamine my beliefs. I would be horrified at my own ignorance. And I would grow.
Saying that you are quoting TERFs is not calling you TERFs, you fucking walnuts! I means reexamine your stances! It means look at where you are coming from! Take a step back and look at the big picture!
Literally gay has a much more troubling use history than queer. It is still used as an insult more often at least in my experience. But queer is inclusive so queer is out. Thatâs the truth.
Donât hate us for telling you the truth, hate the assholes who lied to you!
That is not to say there arenât people who are offput by the term, the difference is they do not police other people for using it.
I mean, I'm personally against the word 'queer' purely because it literally explains nothing about your gender/sexuality. Saying that someone is 'Genderqueer' means the equivalent of nothing. What are you supposed to garner from that?
Personally, I've never seen the point in using 'queer', which is a term that tends to have negative connotations, doesn't explain anything, when you can use a word that is pretty self explanatory: Questioning.
I've never really seen a good explaination on what 'Queer' means besides 'Weird/Deviates from the norm'. Which, is a bit counterproductive imho. Afterall, isn't a big part of the LGBT movement just bringing awareness to the fact that not everyone is, well, straight, or born the right gender, and to push for that stuff to be accepted?
Afterall, claiming that you're entire gender identity is 'queer', and by saying 'I'm not normal', seems to be more so to say 'lol I'm just weird'. Well, why use a word that means 'weird' when we want to reach a point where that isn't considered weird? And that it is, in fact, considered to be a normal fact of life.
Idk, that's why I've always just preferred 'Questioning' for 'Q' instead of 'Queer' because it explains a lot more, and feels much more open-ended and accepting. Saying that you're questioning your sexuality or gender is something that we've heard a lot for people in the community, who weren't sure who they where- be it gay, bi, trans, whatever.
Questioning includes anyone who might be unsure if they are LGBT or not, and I've always seen it as a big part of the community in terms of how open and accepting it's pushed itself to be for so long.
(Also, quick side note: I had never even heard the whole 'I'm here and I'm queer' mantra until, like, two or three years ago. And this thread is cool and all for saying that it's TERFs who started this anti-queer campaign, if it is true, but some links and evidence would be hella dank.)
^Despite that little bit, I do still think 'Questioning' is just better then 'queer'. Easier to grasp and understand, while still being just as inclusive as 'Queer' is claiming to be and without all the baggage.
