Not him reclaiming the A in LGBTQIA is for Ally 🥲
You are correct, that's quite literally NOT what he did, at all :)
When you actually watch the over 2 minutes of him very thoughtfully elaborating on his point, he literally specified that he in no way lays claim to any queer identity or queer experience. The point he was making is that he feels like he would be remiss not to acknowledge the influence that the culture which CAME from such experience has had on his life; that so much of the art he's been drawn to his whole life, his inclination to rebel against rigid gender norms and expectations, the way he likes to present himself in the world... they're all informed by a sensibility that IS distinctly queer. He could say he's just "being himself" and leave it at that, but he instead *does* want to pay due respect to the fact that he is allowed to be a cis straight guy who has fun with his gender presentation and loves camp and is drawn to art that pushes against societal gender norms... because those are all things the queer community fought for first.
I think people are having this knee jerk reaction because they hear "culturally queer" and automatically equate it to appropriation, but they're not actually taking a breath to ask: is there NOT a very real element of queer culture that's simply about creating the freedom for everyone to be able to live and express themselves in the way that feels most authentic to them? And if so, why should cis straight people not also get that freedom? That's the whole issue I have with the "queerbaiting" claims Darren's always gotten; to me that just sounds like "how dare a cis straight guy genuinely prefer to present in ways that are traditionally associated with gayness, that's not allowed!!", and it's not cool.













