This is a post I’ve been putting off making, and honestly I’ve felt kind of futile making it, I’m not extremely popular, I don’t have a huge audience, I don’t have any sort of pull, but I also realize, every single one of these is important, and part of the reason this has gotten so bad is the lack visible good faith pushback given the nature of what’s going on. and to stop avoiding talking about it any longer
This is about the Q slur, and I know some of you are going to be at my throat for calling it that I’m sorry, but please listen. This debate in the community has been to overwhelmingly dishonest for two long and It’s been absolutely disgusting. I’m going to be using this post to push back against some of the most common misinformation, some gently, some not so gently, I’m going to use this (https://discordsadvocate.tumblr.com/post/633599216872308736/trans-ppl-own-the-word-queer-we-use-it-to-stay) post as a jumping off point,
Before I start, and before any of the vultures descend, I am an Asexual Trans Woman (she/her) who’s specific orientation is somewhat fluid but I mostly just call this part Bi. I have been discussing this topic among the different communities I am a part of both online and in person, which include other trans women, trans men, cis bisexual men, cis bisexual women lesbians, and non binary individuals with varied pronoun preferences.
To begin with, The most common silencing tactic that’s been employed, and that’s what it is, a silencing tactic, is that proponents of the Slur’s adoption as a blanket term and academic term try to claim that those who are against it is a terf or other brand of exclusionist, and that claiming it is a slur is an exclusionist dog-whistle. These claims are tied into the second common refrain and I’ll tackle them together, that being the claim that Q**er is somehow sanctified and important because “Terf’s just remove the letters from the acronym they want, but Q**er is all of us and they want to make it a slur because of that“ This argument is quite frankly, absolute nonsense, that’s not an insult I mean the argument is literally not an argument. Think about the statement for a moment (and prepare to hear that command a lot in this post most of these can fall apart with concerted attention and nothing else) While some terfs have had a stopped clock moment and indeed make this claim, (though to be honest I have yet to actually see any of them make it) what happens far more obvious is the opposite: Exclusionists use Q**er to remove the individual identities in our community and substitute it as a word that can mean whatever they want it to mean, often with a deliberate focus on branding cis gay needs as universal community needs. The people who believe this genuinely should realize that people who drop the T from LGBTQA+ are always mocked and seen for what they are, while the slur allows these people to obsfucate, and that’s the most important issue, Obsfucation. Which leads into the third common argument
They’re is an ABSOLUTELY VILE claim, that the slur is a method of protecting trans women, I have no niceties here, the people who originate this argument can go fuck themselves. A group of these arguments is in the above post and can be seen there, but to quote a few,
“trans ppl own the word q**er we use it to stay safe so we don’t have to constantly announce that we are trans in potentially unsafe company“
“terfs want to retire the word q**er so trans women have to taxonomize themselves to self-identifythere is no other word that serves its purpose“
“ you’re not allowed to compromise trans women’s safety and demonize our elders because you’re sheltered enough to think nono words are the biggest threat to our way of life & you’re too ignorant to know your history “
So once again, it should be obvious what the issue is here. What the hell kind of communities and people are you encountering where referring to yourself as trans puts you in danger but Qu**r doesn’t? Seriously this argument genuinely baffles me. The only situations in which this happens are DIRECT DEMONSTRATIONS OF THE EARLIER ISSUE where this slur has been used to mean in some way a form of our community that doesn’t have to include trans women. But that last comment brings up the next oft repeated claim, history.
Now, frankly, I’m not qualified to speak on this, I’ve read up a lot on the history of the term and the history or our communities (these often get used interchangeably to give the illusion they’re the same thing) but I’m not a historian. But it doesn’t matter. Because of what it means. The word itself obviously predates it’s existence as a slur, meaning strange and unusual, and that tells you what we try to forget when we talk about it’s historic use, it was always, unequivocally, an act of violence and vile insult to those it was directed at, and that it’s use as something other than that was REACTIONARY. Whenever you want to say it was “reclaimed” (and believe me I’m about to fucking get to that) it WAS a reclamation inherently.
And about that. as much as we hear a word is “reclaimed“ we all know language and human nature don’t work like that. Reclamation is a personal act, taking something used to hurt you and choosing to wear it proudly. No one gets to reclaim violence for other people. Doing THAT is just spreading the agressor’s work for them, other victimized communities DON’T DO THIS LIKE WE DO. I’m not going to type the kind of words you shouldn’t use for a variety of ethnic and religious groups (which we need to remind ourselves we are not, we’re a collection of many different peoples united by similar oppression but we’re not the same kind of minority and the experiences don’t map, we have more in common with neurodivergent communities) oh but I’m sorry, “tumblr brain makes you think removing words from your vocabulary is the absolute height of activism, regardless of who is telling you to do it or why“ FUCK OFF.
I had a point somewhere here but honestly this has just gotten long enough and too draining to write any longer. add your thoughts, make your own post and build on or condense mine. I just want misinformation and dishonest propaganda to stop being unchallenged and eaten up by people primed to accept.
annaxmalina
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
origamiaround
titsay
theartofmadeline
tangentwithtanner
