Queerness

[Colinfromaccounts]

Is anyone else bothered by this becoming a catch-all term?

I’ve had relationships with both men and women, but never felt the need to define myself that way, I feel my sexual and romantic life is fairly private. I suppose in a way I feel both straight and gay rather than one or the other so never wanted to claim the term bisexual either as I then felt hemmed in by the LGBTQ+ label, when for all functional purposes I move through the world as a straight woman.

I’m not anti gay culture, loved a gay bar in my youth and still love gay books and films etc.

I just feel queer has come to define everything, either you’re in the gay and trans soup or you’re not, and it’s quite flattening to the multiplicity of the human experience. I have basically nothing in common with a man who has only been in sexual and romantic relationships with men.

It seems to me that the queer world itself wants to ungender everything. But try asking a gay man on Grindr to fuck a “man” with a vagina and see how far you get.

can anyone relate?

Sorry, Queer people are a danger to women and children? And coercive? These are outrageous claims.

For centuries, many generations have lived non-normative lives—experimenting with free love, androgyny, communal living, and countless ways of challenging social norms. Ever read Ovid? Wollstonecraft? Plato’s Symposium? Movements from the Ranters to the Shakers, early feminists, and utopian socialists all wrestled with sex, gender, and freedom long before your hashtags. Entire social experiments, like the Oneida Community or Fourierist communes, tried to reimagine intimacy and social relations.

Well yes, exactly. These were the non-normative lives and ways of living throughout history. I think that's awesome. Why do you not like non-normative cultures and lives today? I think they're great (and important).

@DeskJotter how would you define "normative" or "normal" people?

Do you have a problem with boundaries @DeskJotter ?

Still none the wiser

I don't wear skirts or dresses

didn't wear make up till I started scaring myself in the mirror

single, childfree - which feels like the biggest deviation from the norm

i'm often puzzled by how people explain things though

I joined a local social thing and one lady said "what I love about this group is everyone's a bit mad". What I love about the group is that everyone's pretty.. normal?

I asked her what she meant and she said "you know - into music and arts and stuff".

I don't think that makes anyone mad but apparently she does. I did look very puzzled because she then revised it to "eccentric". I don't think anyone in the group is eccentric. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Nailed it

Me too.

I think the main reason I hate it is because it's wishy washy.

A way of saying "I'm special" without actually saying anything at all.

What are "queer people" producing today that is in any way comparable to what those great people in history did?

The problem with people who identify as "queer" is that they spend far too much time navel gazing and not a lot of time actually doing or creating anything of value.

What are "queer people" producing today that is in any way comparable to what those great people in history did?

Well I guess you'll never know.

i'm of an age where i also bristle when i hear "queer" so i totally get it, but i also work with a lot of young people who prefer this word to anything else so there does come a point where i've accepted that this has been "reclaimed" for them (if not necessarily for me)?

its also worth saying, for those who are saying that anything but L G or B doesnt count, that most young people prefer "pansexual" to bisexual?

language is fluid and it changes, i dont think its ever productive to fight it? none of the young people i work with are aiming to offend or to erase historic fights that paved the way. They just prefer the fluidity and flexibility that "queer" has, so 'mostly' gay kids who sometimes get with opposite sex partners dont have to constantly adjust the labels they give to the world. Like i said before, it gives a lot of space for growth and learning.

I think the issues people are describing with "middle class straight people" using it are missing the point, i dont want the young people of today to HAVE TO fight the same fights that we did. If anything im super happy that they dont need the rigidly defined labels of the past in order to find their place in the world. Isnt that our legacy??

Why, is it a secret? Or can only 'queer' people understand it?

I don't know any gay people that use 'queer' to describe themselves.

I do know a super special queer non binary ( I.e. straight, married, and entirely unremarkable).

Im a straight woman and when I hear another woman use the word "queer" for herself, I think: "straight but has kissed girls every now and then".

i think queer people today are working to make more inclusive spaces?

I was so privileged to have Sir Ian McKellen visit a school i worked at, where he was very excited at our pupils imagining a possible future without the need for labels, and if he (who has worked so hard and so effectively, for LGBT+ rights) can imagine that then i dont think it is necessarily a bad thing?

By 'without the need for labels' you mean straight people calling themselves 'queer'?

That's 'Queer Thory' for you.

So they're not writing great works of literature or developing a cure for cancer or finding innovative solutions to tackle climate change then.

As I suspected.

PS - if what you want is a future without labels, the first one to drop is the nonsensical and meaningless "queer".

no

thats not even close to what ive said

sigh

Yes, we'll never know because they'll never be in the history books.

Not due to some great queer erasure conspiracy theory, but because they don't bloody do anything noteworthy. Because they're too busy being queer.

Cleve Jones is one of the great civil rights fighters - he hasnt done either of those things. People dont need to be extraordinary to have dignity and worth. And neither do queer people.
Are people only valuable based on their contribution to society?
Are you happy to be judged on that metric?

I didn't say they have no dignity or worth.

But I struggle to see why they are in fact different to anyone else in any meaningful way.

Nobody has been able to explain this.

they are only "different" because they are using a word you dont like!

They're not different. That's the point. They're identifying as different, and it is deeply irritating.

If they're Q rather than L, G, B or T it means they are boring straight people who think they're somehow different to other boring straight people.

What I object to is their perception that they are more special than the rest of us, despite a dearth of supporting evidence.

That's literally what you said as I literally used your words.

But hey, that's Queer Theory for you.

But they dyed their hair blue! And bought a tambourine to shake in peoples faces whilst screaming 'repent mutherfucker'. They are special, special people.

One of them even shouted "little fascist" in a baby's face.

I suppose that's quite noteworthy, if not for the right reasons.