OKAY KIDS. HISTORY LESSON TIME.
Ironically, just before this crossed my dash, Oxford University Press shared a link to a new archive of queer oral history. If not for Tumblr’s recent push to wipe “queer” from our collective memory, I wouldn’t have thought twice about OUP using the term. After all, it was chanted in pride and defiance when over a million of us participated in the 1993 March on Washington to demand an end to discrimination…
Video clip from that day: “We’ve come to Washington to show everyone that we’re here, we’re queer, and we’re not going anywhere!”
Queer theory, queer studies, new queer cinema, queer liberation: it was and remains the umbrella term in academia, since “gay” leaves out the bulk of people discriminated against for their gender and/or sexuality.
In the past year, I’ve seen some Tumblr members trying to suppress the word “queer,” just as people back then tried to suppress us. The excuse is that it’s sometimes used as a slur. But so is “gay.” In my 45 years, I have heard/seen “gay” used as an slur far more often.
At first, I tried to respect the fact that “queer” bothered some Tumblr users, even though it was painful for me to see queer-positive posts tagged “q slur.” But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that caving in to those asking us to drop the term “queer” would permit homophobic and/or transphobic sensibilities to define our identities. Do we have to drop “gay” now as well, or tag it “g slur”? Since when did we stop reclaiming these words as a matter of pride?
Isn’t this just the latest ploy of internalized homophobia/transphobia sneaking up on us?
Unfortunately, erasing “queer” from our vocabulary has hurtful real-world consequences.
Silencing “queer” silences many of those who fought, marched, rioted and died for your rights. It erases those of us who are queer but not gay: trans, intersex, nonbinary, lesbian, bisexual, aromantic, asexual people, and more (see why the term is so necessary?) Erasure/minimization of queer people is how we end up with disrespectful historical revisionism like that Stonewall movie. Or the Photoshopped poster above, rewriting our history with a lie.
And that’s the real kicker.
Erase “queer” from our vocabulary, and we erase future generations’ ability to learn about their past. How will they be able to find LBGTA+ history, if you teach them not to use one of the main keywords they need to search for to find it?
How much of our past and present community will be rendered invisible and their needs ignored (this article is really, REALLY worth a read), if those now lobbying against the term “queer” are successful?
Decades ago, when being out was taking a huge risk, we chanted, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” It would be a bitter irony if, even as mainstream society becomes “used to it,” as demonstrated from the Supreme Court to the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, our own community becomes less “used to it.”
Think about the forces of prejudice who were trying to silence us when that “queer power” sign was made. Please don’t let them win.
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