Jameela Jamil comes out as queer

[ItsLateHumpty]

twitter.com/jameelajamil/status/1225165342965669888

See screen shots attached.

www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/jameela-jamil-comes-out-queer-amid-criticism-her-role-hbo-n1131141

“Actress Jameela Jamil formally came out as queer Wednesday in response to critics who attacked her role in a new HBO Max competition series, claiming her judging a voguing show wouldn't be representative of the black LGBTQ community in which voguing originated.”

And it seems the community are doubting her motivations, with IW questioning if she is in fact queer as she has a boyfriend (linked below), who then comes under fire themselves for bisexual, pansexual, etc. ‘erasure’.

I had to look up ‘queer’ to understand how Jameela was applying that label, so looked up PinkNews. Not terribly helpful but in essence “queer has become a useful umbrella term for some sexual and gender minorities who do not fit into the traditional categories around gender identity and sexual orientation.”
From Twitter I read it as “It’s usually an umbrella term for LGBT+ when someone doesn't want to disclose their sexuality/can't identify with a singular label but knows they aren't straight.”

www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/06/23/whats-the-difference-between-gay-and-queer/

twitter.com/IndiaWilloughby/status/1225201756394659840

India Willoughby @ IndiaWilloughby
Replying to @ jameelajamil
Here you go, Twitter falls for it. SHE’S GOT A BOYFRIEND. You don’t think it’s odd she comes out as “queer” after being criticised for possibly taking a gay person’s place on a show? #Mugs #Coincidence #Gayface

I was also interested to learn the origin of vogue “Many felt that despite Jamil's comments, her place as a judge was inappropriate as voguing has its roots in the LGBTQ community. The dance style was part of drag competitions popularized by queer people of color and became ingrained in the community's culture.”

I am saddened that Jameela as a woman of colour has to take a third label to qualify for being a judge, and it seems a turf war could be breaking out.
Could this be the start of the backlash within the LGBTQI+ as the umbrella is now so vast, virtually all of us stand under it?

She went to a very posh private girls school in Central London (Queen's College, alumni include Anna Wintour, Jane Asher, Susannah Constantine, Emma Freud, Gertrude Bell, Katherine Mansfield, Jacqueline du Pré and Winston Churchill's daughter).

You mean she hasn't got a fucking clue what 'oppression' and 'disadvantage' is?

What a shocker.

but as he was marrying a pansexual woman, this now meant that he is no longer strictly straight and they do not want to be defined as having a heterosexual marriage

Does it rub off on you like dandruff then?
The things you learn....

So yes I agree about the slap in the face to all those who had it spat at them as a term of abuse

There’s an argument to be made that if you haven’t been subjected to a slur, it’s not yours to reclaim. I think I lean towards that, although can also see how, for some, it’s part of a heritage/continuity with the struggles of the older LGBs.

Just freak the 20 somethings and tell them that women have been like that since we crawled out of the swamp. Blow their brains completely and ask them to speak to their nannas about it.

And no - she would really have faced much oppression in her life.

Will there have to be a discussion about Brendan Behans play "The Quare Fella"?
Quare inbIrish vernacularbisbtacked onto many things.
Quare hawk.
Quare looking

Yeah, I grew up hearing Irish men refer to their wives as 'the quare one'.

Quite funny in this context now, how things come full circle

Oh dear Jameela. Of course she would be out and proud as "queer" already if it had ever been a reality! It means "special in a way I don't need to define and therefore worthy" as well as "noooooo, don't be mean to me because I'm straight! I'll do better!"

She can't say bisexual because it contains the word sex and that's transphobic dontcha know. She can't say non-binary because she's not even slightly non-binary in terns of stereotypical gender performance. But she can say queer because that just means "cool enough to be allowed to live".

As an old straight cis lady I think I might as well just call the police on myself now.

My mum uses it alot and I will use it with very old friends who use it the same way.
Now, I dont know if this is the place to bring this up, but I get the feeling that being a white straight woman is a sort of figure of fun, or to be jeered at when scoring cool points
Listening to an American podcast and persons said "yea, I was behaving like an old white woman" I.e. complaining.
A drag queen saying she would vote out straight white girls in a competition, just because. Even though her entire schtick is a trashy white woman.
All the Linda's Karen's and Brenda's
Are white straight women not a good subset to be lumped I with these days.
Sorry if I have missed a beat but it just seems to be popping up a lot

Now’t as queer as folk....

Very very different from the life experiences of WOC from poorer backgrounds.

But still someone who faces prejudice because of her skin.

I have a different life from white women of poorer backgrounds, I still experience sexism.

This is akin to saying Clare Balding shouldn’t complain at being paid less than her male counterparts, because she was still earning 400k per year.

So my interpretation of queer is a toe in the water of bisexuality or quite liking the idea of it.

At the end of the day you are gay, straight, bi or unsure. End of. Liking transgenders is a fetish, not a sexuality, because they are not another sex. And thinking about getting with a girl doesn't make you bi/queer - same as thinking about stabbing someone doesn't make you a murderer.

This is great and entirely logical.

Isn't it?

thinking about getting with a girl doesn't make you bi/queer - same as thinking about stabbing someone doesn't make you a murderer
This has raised an intriguing tangential thought train for me - does one have to be sexually active, therefore, to have a sexuality? If so what counts as sexually active - touch, kiss, clothes off, orgasm, (penetration? clearly not). At the end of the day sexual orientation is always going to have an element of self-declaration about it isn’t it. I don’t think I agree with the above quote tbh. I think that sexual thoughts and feelings, not actions, define sexuality. Queer to me is not a sexuality, but some kind of umbrella term, I would understand that the person perhaps has or identifies with homosexual/bisexual feelings/thoughts/culture but for some reason doesn’t want to call themselves gay or bi, either because they are actually heterosexual despite their politics/philosophy, or because of prejudices about what bisexuality/homosexuality is, perhaps it not fitting with their beliefs around gender identity and related issues. So ‘queer’ is a nice blurry catch-all.

Minty, I was not expecting people to agree with me. I just wonder whether JJ to some extent cherry picks her identities. Yes she is a WOC, but she also could identify as an expensively educated upper-middle class woman now living a well connected life in Los Angeles. But we don’t hear that, instead, conveniently, she identifies as queer.

Again personal, but I would like to see a world where skin colour was not noticed. I worry that gender identity ends up reinforcing sex stereotypes...born in the wrong body, so change the body, rather than accepting who someone is. I also worry that people like JJ, by emphasising their skin colour are increasing awareness of difference in an unhelpful way. And essentially promoting their own specialness rather than tackling the real issues faced by many women of colour who dont have economic advantage to protect them.

Has she really had much direct experience of racism? I would not know. However DC went to another central London school with a similar affluent and international catchment and as far as I am aware skin colour was not an issue. (The only disparaging, quasi racist, remarks DC and I picked up seemed aimed at the British, regardless of skin colour. There seemed to be plenty, whether from New York, Stockholm, Paris, Moscow or Beijing, who saw London as inferior to their home cities and who perceived the British as lazy and stupid. That said Americans, Russians and East Asians seemed far more race aware than Brits.)

I guess it depends on whether you believe using identity as a way of confronting disadvantage is helpful or unhelpful.

The word "queer" is the homeopathy of gayness.

@Cwenthryth I'll have to disagree. I think it's your actions.

I understand what you're saying in regards to say, a Christian boy who is gay but but never acts on it due to his Christian beliefs - but let's be honest. Do they really never act on it.

And I would say that actually if you don't act on it, you're not really gay. Because a thought is just that, you may act on that impulse and find it was a massive mistake. Or maybe we need a schrodinger's gay?

You can't truly know you are gay unless you act upon it. And you're also not part of the less privileged and marginalised group unless you have acted upon it.

With respect, Pulp, is the assumption that everyone is default heterosexual unless they are sexually active? Because, um, I think that's a fairly erroneous assumption.

At a slight tangent, when I first read this on my Sky News app, I noticed that they used the word cisgender, and there was no explanation of this word. Which made me wonder if Sky news, a mainstream media organisation, have editorially decided that cisgender is now a commonplace, known expression. Which implications depress me.

I think this just shows that being female and woke is never enough, in the end.

It's all very Orwellian.

tobee I was watching something the other day, I think I was 3 episodes in, when a character piped up as "a cis white male / cont.", and I could see no reason to add cis to their monologue.

I think I only caught it because I'm sensitive (?) to the word, but I'm guessing most wouldn't, and like you it stuck me that the producers expected the audience to understand cis.

It's a slow creep to normalisation and it's insidious.

I stopped watching the program in protest.

A fair response Humpty

Agree OccasionalKite. I'm wondering how JJ is feeling now she's being 'cancelled' when she is (was ?) such a vocal 'ally'.

There is no protection.

At a slight tangent, when I first read this on my Sky News app, I noticed that they used the word cisgender, and there was no explanation of this word. Which made me wonder if Sky news, a mainstream media organisation, have editorially decided that cisgender is now a commonplace, known expression. Which implications depress me.

Complain. The Guardian had to row back on this.

She calls Twitter a hell app and runs away when she knows she is going to be facing a backlash yet is quite happy to cause problems for other people. Very hypocritical.

Jameela is slowly morphing into Titania McGrath. She’s too ridiculous for words these days. I used to think her body positivity messages were a good thing and that she seemed like a well meaning lass but these days she’s just a desperate, insufferable hot mess. Queer, my arse, unless by queer she means “I’m into men but I sometimes get emotional feelings about connections with women”...because that’s a new thing apparently. Us muggles would never understand. Pack it in Jameela, fgs. It’s such a huge cringe.