Rant incoming
I love when I talk about my own identity and what I settled on after years of uncertainty and insecurity only to have internet randos constantly yelling about not forcing identities onto folks who don't want them. That's some boogeyman shit.
I... Didn't? Like, it should be a given from any decent human being that I'm not sitting here forcing my identity onto others just by claiming it myself. That's not how it works. That's not how any of this works, actually, and it's the same logic the bigots and TERFs use if you take more than 10 seconds to think about it.
If Susan says she identifies as a butch lesbian, she is not calling for all of lesbian-kind to adopt butchdom. Maxille calls themselves the King Fruit? Surprisingly not a crusade to force that title on others, though an uprising or two may be due because I don't remember voting for them.
If I say I identify as queer and ask folks to respect that, I am not saying "everyone in the LGBTQ2S+ communities needs to accept being called queer" because that would be fucking stupid.
I am, quite literally, begging here: Leave queer folks alone. You don't have to use our umbrella. We are not threatening you by fighting for our right to just stand here, holy fuck.
We are allowed to point out literal campaigns designed to vilify us. We are allowed to point out that we reclaimed queer decades ago and that there are groups fighting--recently!--to undo that. We are allowed to draw attention to the hitlists and harassment, even if you don't want to see it.
We are not forcing you to listen, but a modicum of respect would be nice. If you can't stomach treating a queer person like a human being with feelings, perhaps you can manage the bare minimum and just leave us the fuck alone in our own spaces.
And on that note: Maybe, just maybe, you can block and move on if one of our posts breaches containment and hits your feed instead of jumping in and shitting on everyone just trying to connect with their peers and find a sense of belonging.
I am so tired.
/endrant
