"queer-owned business" means nothing anymore. OpenAI and Palantir are both queer-owned businesses.
if this is how you find out that both sam altman and peter thiel are gay im sorry
I'm going to address a specific set of notes in this post (without indicating who wrote them) because it's a valuable insight into criticisms of this post. Also keep in mind broadly that this post is a JOKE it's supposed to be FUNNY. But also I'm not stupid enough to think jokes aren't a very effective way to communicate and persuade.
"This is like saying female-owned businesses mean nothing because J.K Rowling is a businesswoman". Incredibly, that's exactly what I'm saying. I applaud this critique for correctly identifying how my stance might be applied elsewhere.
But what I would ask is this: do you not remember how JKR (being a successful female author and businesswoman) was lauded as a feminist hero during the peak of the books' success which allowed her to make a large part of modern feminism incredibly TERF-y because of her influence? Because I think we should all do well to remember that.
Interestingly, this critique then goes on to make my entire point for me, albeit maybe slightly more charitably than I. It goes on to say "queer people are not a monolith" and that we should inform ourselves as to who owns these businesses. Yes! Yes! This is my point! Relying purely on identity politics to judge whether businesses (and people) are good or not is bad!
It closes out by saying big corps "don't count" when talking about queer-owned businesses. Honestly? Yeah, I agree. Most of the time, people are talking about small queer-owned businesses. That is because this post is a joke. I have applied the label of "queer-owned business" to some businesses the label is not usually applied to to point out the limits of identity politics in business.
Corporations are not your friends. Small businesses can be your friends, and they are closer to your level than Big Corporations - but that doesn't mean they always will be.
