18 years ago when I was coming out, y’all made the word “bisexual” so dirty that for years the only word I felt was accessible to me was “queer”, if I had any chance at having a community.
Queer was widely used at that point among LGBT+ people to refer to ourselves and our community, and while you’d look askance at a straight person using that word, it was most definitely acceptable to call another LGBT+ person queer.
And now y’all are telling me “Queer” isn’t an acceptable umbrella term to use and it just feels like another way you’re using subtle language policing to tell me that really the only people you want in your community are gold-star LG folks.
Those of us who like the word queer because it accurately reflects our misfit status are basically being told that this self-identifier is dirty and wrong, this is no longer the “queer community”, and the message yet again is that we don’t really belong.
I get it if someone doesn’t want to be called queer, and I would never call another person queer against their will but holy hell please stop acting like it’s common knowledge that queer can’t be used as an umbrella term for our community when it was for DECADES
“q-slur” is a very new concept, kids.
This is something that’s completely overlooked, by the same people who fling the word “ahistorical” at every viewpoint they disagree with.
When I first started participating in any kind of LGBTQ+ stuff online (so, 10 years ago), “queer” was by far the most common descriptor. It was pretty much agreed it had been reclaimed enough to be safe (I mean, show me an active slur that has academic disciplines named after it?) and people seemed much more keen to explore the ambiguity the term offers, rather than sticking with predefined categories. By “q-slur” logic, we should’ve been much less accepting of it back then if we simultaneously believe that LGBTQ+ rights are advancing over time, but the opposite is true.
So I would say that the current stigmatization of queer is based on two things: 1) reactionary essentialism (seeing “queer” as too dangerous for the more clear-cut categories), and 2) respectability politics.
Now by taking away “queer”, we don’t have any other term that’s both catchy (no version of the abbreviation is) and broad enough to actually be inclusive. Gay is not an umbrella term. It always has a default connotation that’s very specific. It only reminds me of all the time I wasted on bad gay-only discourse when I was first questioning my own identity, and for this reason it took ages to arrive at the conclusion that I’m just attracted to multiple genders and also trans without dysphoria (because the other bullshit I had to contend with was the truscum narrative of transness). So, gay is not a safe term for me. It doesn’t describe me and if I used it, it would actually misgender my own relationship. I’m not doing that for any of you, sorry.
Do you know who the majority of the people who still use “queer” are? Trans and MGA. Yet again, we have a political line that privileges cis LG people who are fine with binary categories over the most routinely erased parts of the community. Of course.
This, I imagine, is also why so many bi/pan and trans/nonbinary people aren’t against aces being included. Chances are most of us, at least those who are 25+ or so, have experiences like this, with either being actively policed out or just unable to find the right identifiers for ages because of the stigma and general ignorance surrounding them.
And now you’re telling us we HAVE TO use gay, which isn’t a functional umbrella term, because queer suddenly isn’t acceptable based on this new logic? Do you even hear yourselves?
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“But!” I can already hear the gatekeepers protest, “This all relies on a bunch of personal anecdotes!”
In which case, buddy, I have bad news for you about the vast majority of all modern LGBTQ+ history.
I first came upon Queer as both an umbrella term and a field of academic study. This was in the early 90s. There were queer studies, queer histories, “queering” of the text, queer theory…
And Queer, more so than other words, felt inclusive of people who, at the time, referred to themselves as “genderqueer” as well as people outside the binary, as well as bisexuals, who couldn’t claim gay or lesbian.
It was, at the time, being reclaimed at a time when all the words were being used as slurs, so there was a real reason to reclaim them.
I’ve problem with using words that people are comfortable using, but not at the cost of erasing parts of our history.
I guess now is the time we’re hitting New Essentialism and Respectability Politics 2.0 from people who aren’t old enough to remember any of this.
Yeah, that’s something a lot of folks in the younger generation don’t get.
When you campaign against words like “queer”, to those of us in the older generations, what it looks like you’re doing is trying to roll the nomenclature back to the bad old days when cisgender gay men were treated as the only “real” members of the community, and everybody else was lumped together as this peripheral pack of weirdos who were expected to be slobberingly grateful to their betters just to be acknowledged at all.
Hell, I clearly recall a time when the leaders of mainstream gay rights activism would routinely castigate even lesbians as parasites and invaders - and be applauded for doing so. It’s difficult to overstate just how deep it went.
And, like, that wasn’t all that long ago - I’m only 33 and I’m old enough to remember that horseshit.
honestly this feels like another one of those “young people are uncomfortable with something so are trying to change it? back in my day” outdated ways of thinking. no one is saying you can’t use the word queer for yourself here, to imply that is a vast misinterpretation of what young non cishet folks are saying.
what we are saying is that you should not be applying words to other people without their consent. especially a word that is a slur.
I got into the scene when “queer” was the biggest self descriptor, but I now am uncomfortable with any and all cis people who use it to me, because it is too reminiscent of MY first exposure to the word, which was literal violence. using this word for me against my consent erases trauma that I’ve been through.
For context I’m 21, but I came out in high school when I was ~16 as trans (~12 I tried to come out as not hetero but was forced back into the closet). This was around 2008-2011, my first exposure to “community”.
I identify as genderqueer and I want others to use that and acknowledge that as my identity, because I picked that one. The word queer was not really one I picked, it was something I went with because it was seen at the time as being the radical thing to do.
Things change. And the need to not trigger people’s traumatizing memories is something that we should be giving a shit about above people who get bitter and cynical because they can’t call others in the community slurs against their consent.
It’s not respectability politics and no one is saying you can’t use queer for yourself. But fuck off when it comes to trying to speak over young people and others who don’t want to call ourselves this, or have others call us this. Our trauma is valid.
See, that’s the thing: a big chunk of the pushback against the term queer jolly well is saying you can’t use it even as a self-descriptor.
There are three primary strands of the “q slur” argument that advocate against self-applying the term:
1. The argument that, since “queer” has historically been used a slur in some contexts, self-applying it reflects internalised homophobia/transphobia;
2. The argument that, by self-applying the term “queer”, you’re implicitly forcing it on everyone else who happens to share your gender or sexual identity; and
3. The argument that, since some folks associate the term “queer” with a history of violence and abuse, typing it out or saying it out loud in any context whatsoever is disrespecting that trauma.
Yes, technically none of those are arguments against using “queer” as a term of self-identity per se - but the line between saying “you can use ‘queer’ as a term of identity as long as you only think it in your head and never type it out or say it out loud under any circumstances whatoever” and saying “you can’t use ‘queer’ as a term of identity” is so fine as to be nonexistent.
If it was just folks saying they didn’t want the term applied to them, I totally agree that should be respected. The trouble is, a lot of folks are saying that nobody can apply it to anybody, not even in self-reference. The assertion that “no one is saying you can’t use the word queer for yourself here” is simply false.
