#homo.theory

[transgundam]

like the take that socially constructed categories are not important and we cant use them because thats oppressing ourselves is so fucking bad like man and woman are arbitrary socially constructed classes yes but the power structures and our society are based around these categories to dismiss them so easily just because they are socially constructed is bad. like they are Real in enough ways that its important to note how these classes and identities impact people and shit idk and like who is to say that these classes HAVE to disappear in order to be liberated like that fails to realize that most of these classes outside of the power structures inherent are neutral or positive like it gets back to me saying shit like Defining being gay or being a woman by suffering fails to address that these things exist in a specific cultural context. outside of the oppression of these people structurally there is nothing inherently bad or suffering inducing about these classes so anyway im done writing cuz i got bored but fuck queer theory and shit like that and let people find comfort in who they are idk

[transgundam]

i feel like people would be happier and LGBT communities would be better if we all just realized queer theory was a mistake and bad and its time to move on to new ways of knowing and being that dont rely on holier (Really Queerer) than thou politics filled with hot takes like “Being unemployed or homeless makes you queer” like come on

[transgundam]

honestly as someone who like prison abolition and thinks it A Process You Work towards and not just “Release all violent people unto the world and thats fine” i just think 

1. The number one priority of prison abolition should be to get out people who do not deserve to be in there specifically people who were incarcerated on mass for non violent crimes especially those affected by the “war on drugs” and largely poor and black communities that have been decimated by Mass Incarceration need to be restored and payed reparations by the for profit prison industry and officials that profited from their incarceration.

2. I HATE HATE HATE when people say “Oh do you want all rapists and abusers to be out in the streets” because guess fucking what they already ARE. Like as a survivor i fucking despise this so much because guess what? 90% of rapists are just walking around Right the Fuck Now THEY ARENT IN PRISON TO BEGIN WITH BECAUSE THE CURRENT PRISON SYSTEM ISNT DESIGNED TO PROTECT US. The abolition of the current prison system has no impact on this because the current prison system doesnt exist to protect us from these people to begin with lmao.

3. Just because we abolish the current prison system doesnt mean something that still keeps violent individuals away from those they can hurt that cant be made under more ideal circumstances that doesnt exist to funnel bodies into prisons for essentially cheap labor and dehumanizes and degrades people for the sake of increasing recidivism rates to keep people trapped in a system for the benefit of those in power and not for the benefit of society at large 

[transgundam]

Litcherally like people who hear “Queer is a slur” and immediately say “Well people use gay as a slur” just like dont understand what a slur is?? like a slur involves an overwhelmingly negative connotation usually within the original definition of a word or in its connotation socially, a historical backing of it being used that way, and the weaponization of the word must come from a very specific position of power and a clear intent to harm and Gay does not fit because Gay was chosen BY GAY PEOPLE because it means happy or joyful and was chosen BY GAY PEOPLE to empower, find community, and to find pride and beauty in oneself. Queer was chosen to degrade us because it means unusual and seeks to Other us. Homosexual was weaponized against us in order to pathologize Gay people and make them into a Diseased or Pathological category of people which in turn places them in a category lower than Normal Humans

When people say gay in a negative sense the word gay isnt being weaponized because the definition is bad its being weaponized because people think being gay is bad. To say that makes being gay a slur any marginalized identity then becomes a slur because it can be weaponized in the same way. Queer was not originally chosen by Gay communities and it was Historically imposed on them by those who saught to do harm. 

Now as far as reclamation goes i have a very nice simple checklist for how to think about reclaiming slurs which is something i believe people should be able to do and can be a powerful political act, but in the same vein refusing to be called a slur and removing the power from it in that regard is also a powerful political act. but anyway 1. Ask yourself WHY you want access to this slur, why you feel it belongs to you, and in what ways is your use of the slur going to be subversive of its original intent. This is the step 90% of tumblr Queer Theory stans fail to do and is in my mind the most important one. and 2. How are you exporting that slur into the world, are you wielding it against those who do not consent, are you using it to degrade and harm yourself, is your use of it meant to empower or shame. This one is obvious but a lot of people reclaim words only to repackage them and use them against others, this is in fact not reclamation because reclamation is to me 1. intentional and subversive 2. Kind and Loving and 3 which is most important it is PERSONAL

You do not get reclaim slurs for others yes you can organize and mobilize around these categories but understand just as Gay communities are exclusive and refer to only specific categories of people, Queer communities are also 1. Not All Inclusive 2. are actively EXCLUSIVE and 3. Exclusive spaces despite what validity and inclusion politics tell you are Actively Good in many contexts and also incredibly useful

Finally even if a term is not a slur which you may choose to believe about queer, coercively identifying someone in such a way that they have not consented to and have actively refused to consent to is an act of violence and always will be no matter how woke you think you are for being queer

[transgundam]

Honestly where a lot of people play themselves is by making suffering an immutable part of the experience of being an Oppressed Identitything like if your definition of what a gay person is involves suffering or violence than you’ve already lost tbh. Suffering is a part of homophobic structures that are in place within societies being gay itself is good and happy and when these structures cease to be in place those who defined gayness by suffering will be at a loss I feel. It’s important to talk about suffering when discussing material oppression and thinking about how people operate within oppressive structures but especially with like things like being LGBT or a woman like the major groups I see who define these terms as “Having had to suffer to be that thing” tend to be like t*rfs and tr*\scum and also OVERWHELMINGLY white and they tend to ignore that there are people of those states of being that are not suffering and are in fact benefitting from the suffering of others of the same group a la conservative white gays who benefit from being general dirtbags to everyone else

[transgundam]

honestly discursively having an identity that is just “Attracted to nonbinary people” is 1. Meaningless and 2. probably fetishistic because to say that agender people and nb women and nb men and genderfluid people are all people youre attracted too is either probably not true and you should be more specific, youre bi and are genuinely attracted to more than one gender in which case you should still be specific about who you are and are not attracted to unless its every type of person youre attracted to, or you fetishize trans people and see us all exactly the same in terms of relationships with us. like the definition itself “attracted to nonbinary people” includes a whole host of people who are so identifiably dissimilar and unrelated  to one another that the definition basically says nothing about who youre actually attracted to and again you should be more specific. 

[transgundam]

basically gender conformity and colonization are incredibly intertwined and is something all colonizers should make known to themselves as part of the work it takes to decolonize ones mind and begin to make reparations for colonialism because you cant do that without making yourself familiar with the tools of colonization and how they persist today 

[transgundam]

men are just always so threatened by gender nonconformity they push back against anything and anyone who performs gender in ways that dont align with the story they were sold and believe themselves to be. it is at the root of things like homophobia and transphobia and its why its so frustrating to see trusc*m and gay men dumpstering all over gender nonconformity especially in lesbians and other trans people and people playing with gender and things like that.