#lemonade float

[lolitasweetenoughtoeat]

[radiomogai]

keep seeing a lot of flags that say "a queer person who does/is xyz" such as presentation terms for example, and we don't identify as queer or as lgbtq, i mean we are aroacespec and gnc and could be if we wanted to but are kind of unlabeled about it and idk, not everyone identifies that way and it bothers me to see so many terms that i want to use but it feels like it's excluding me, and i guess i could use the terms regardless but it bothers me idk why

Yeah, I think it's fair for you to feel bothered by it. I'm certain that the mention of 'a queer person' in those definitions is done a) using queer as an umbrella term, b) to signify that the term is intended to be considered queer and/or MOGAI, or c) simply because that's how it's done in similar terms, which is to say that I highly doubt it's done maliciously, but we do agree that there's room for conversation there and we've thought about it before!

One thing I do think it's worth noting is that definitions for identity terminology don't necessarily have to be followed word-for-word. At least through our understanding of them, identity labels should be used as tools for explaining and discussing pre-existing experiences, rather than markers with which new, strict boxes are created and separated from others. We have over the years noticed a tendency in MOGAI for people to stick to definitions very closely, and admittedly it is something we've personally done as well. It does on one hand make sense, given factors such as the individualism in the MOGAI community, the high number of autistics present (in specific, I am thinking about the common autistic trait of thinking literally and following directions and information to the letter), and the not only option to but encouragement for one to simply coin their own term if they feel none other apply to them. On the other hand, we believe it can be somewhat antithetical to some of the ideals and values of the broader queer community, such as non-conformance and pride in such, insistence of one's existence even when such existence is denied and silenced, and the fluidity and evolution of language. On what is admittedly a bit more of an arrogant, personal pet peeve note, we're frustrated with it given the simultaneous prevalence of misconceptions, re-defining, and even stubborn ignorance about the meanings of more structural, meta, what-have-you terminology, such as gender qualities or gender systems. All of this is somewhat tangential, admittedly, and I'll note that I don't bring up queerness here to push you into it, but rather I do so for ease of communication. The point in saying all of it: I don't think you necessarily need to be queer to apply these terms to yourself.

We have wondered before about why all of these terms specify queerness, making them exclusively for queer people. We've wondered before if someone who is, in every way, not queer, if they were to apply one of these labels to themself, would it make them queer? Given that these are queer terms, after all. Are these terms themselves a sort of... root, of queerness, for lack of a better term, or are they rather conceptualized as modifiers of a sort, additional layers of clothing to place on top of a previously-established queer body? What is it about these terms that makes them queer, why are they queer? If one were to define queerness (with of course the note that it is a term which escapes single, over-arching definability) as variance from societally-expected and societally-imposed norms for behaviour, self-identification, presentation, and/or social roles, then hold these terms against said definition, how would they measure? As an aside before I continue the previous sentence's line of thinking, there is, too, a potential implication with these sorts of terms that it is queer people and only queer people who are 'allowed' or who have access to additional terminology as well as flags to describe their presentations, which can be seen as not only exclusionary to people like you, anon, but also as a form of division between the queer and the non-queer, the variant and the conformant, diametrically opposed and lacking overlap.

There is great diversity in these terms, but to pick just a few from our recently-reblogged to use as illustrative examples (solely for the purposes of discussion and illustration, not as criticism), we'll use pathetic xenintation ("a queer presentation label based off the concept of pathetic-ness, aesthetics of being pathetic, or just pathetic things, etc.") and lemonade float ("any queer person who presents their gender through the colors white and yellow").

Pathetic xenintation is, as name suggests, a xenintation, which is itself defined as, "a queer presentation label umbrella based off general concepts for one’s personal presentation. A presentation outside the traditional gender binaries, and making their experience their own!" So, altogether, pathetic xenintation is an identity label for when one presents their identity to others not through relation to the gender binary but through the concept of pathetic-ness or of being pathetic. Here, then, there's a definite argument for why pathetic xenintation, as well as other xenintations overall, would be considered to be and labelled as being for queer people: pathetic xenintation is not simply a term to describe one who presents in a pathetic manner but it is a term to describe one who does not conform to the societally-imposed gender binary, and it is thus queerness emerges from this nonconformance to said binary. As for my earlier question, yes, a person who is otherwise conformant in every manner yet whom is pathetic xenintation would indeed be considered queer by virtue of being so. Perhaps the notion of "outside the traditional gender binaries [sic]", baked into the overall definition of what a xenintation is, is lost in most xenintation sub-term coining posts, resulting in xenintation terms being read in a simplified manner summed up as "presenting in [x] manner/a presentation related to [x]", with disregard (most likely most often unintentionally and/or unknowingly) to what it is that makes queerness significant in the idea of any given xenintation.

Lemonade float is part of the beverage presentation system, which as far as I can find has no explicit definition. An inferred definition, building out from the original coining post by satyrradio, would be that the beverage presentation system is a presentation system utilizing the names of beverages to describe identities in which a queer person uses a colour to present their gender; any queer person who presents their gender through the colour [x], to take from the definitions of the terms that were on said original coining post. So, once again we ask, what makes this queer? Why are these terms specified as being descriptive of queer people? It very well could be the case that it is not done so for purposes of excluding those who are conformant, but rather that queerness is noted in the definition as it is simply part of the label; these terms having not simply the purpose of indicating one presents their gender through the usage of a specified colour but also that they are, related or unrelated to said colour-presentation-usage, queer. It is possible and I would argue likely that queerness was noted in the definitions not to exclude those who are conformant but because the coiner was themself (I have forgotten pronouns and satyrradio is deactivated so I cannot check) queer and creating for their own community. Yet to ask again, barring those explanations and assuming it is indeed that these terms are intended to be in themselves queer, what makes them queer? What difference is there between someone who is lemonade float and someone who is a conformant woman who presents her womanhood through the colours white and yellow? To draw from the earlier discussion of xenintation, one might argue that it is not the usage of colours which makes beverage presentation terms queer, but a prioritization of the usage of colours above other aspects. An obvious retort to this would be the definition's lack of specification of this, as well as the open-ended nature of how it says "who presents their gender through". There is no clear indication of whether said queer person does or does not value ideas of the societally-imposed gender binary, there is no suggestion of in what manner this person is already considered queer (although when it comes down to it, at least in the Western society I write this from and thus use the lens of, there is heavy entwinement between concepts of gender, orientation, sex, presentation, and so on; a cis straight woman who presents masculinely is assumed to be a lesbian given that femininity is seen as tied with attraction to men, so when she rejects femininity it is assumed she too rejects attraction to men, and this is to say nothing of the role of race in all of this!) and how that may affect their presentation and/or perception by others. I don't have a confident answer to why it is that lemonade float, or beverage presentations in general, are considered queer other than they state they are so in their definitions, and I don't have an answer to if they are themselves, as stand-alone as possible, queer.

...

I didn't intend to answer this ask with a long informal essay. I'm not going to proofread this. I think I maybe kind of got away from what you were actually saying. Autism. Thumbs up.

[rainedragon]

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