Emmet's Broken Down Merry-Go-Round

identities, slurs, and safe spaces

sigridellis:

jedusaur:

So let’s talk about “q-slur.”

The word queer has been used to inflict a lot of damage. This fact is the basis for both the fierce claiming of the word as an identity and the fierce rejection of it as a slur. I work with older LGBT people (ages 50-100+) and this subject comes up occasionally, with strong opinions on both sides. Increasingly frequently, I’m seeing younger people on Tumblr with similarly strong opinions. In my daily life, I mostly spend time with people between the ages of 25 and 45 who are startled to learn that this is even a conversation because they thought it was settled once and for all in the ‘90s. There seems to be a lot of miscommunication happening here on a lot of different axes.

Many of these arguments center around accusations of historical ignorance. Some people think those who identify as queer don’t know about the word’s history as an insult; some people think those who call it a slur don’t know about the movement to reclaim it during and after the height of the AIDS epidemic. I think, in general, neither of these accusations is correct (though if anyone is interested in learning more about the history of the word, there’s a brief rundown here and also an excellent in-depth graphic novel on the subject.) As far as I can tell, most everyone is pretty much clear on the basic facts of the word’s usage over the years; the conflict is more complicated than that. It’s about consent, and everyone involved perceiving theirs as violated. Those who reject the word “queer” feel that they are under attack when they are subjected to a derogatory term against their will. Those who identify as queer feel that they are under attack when their identity is treated as if it were the derogatory term they fought so hard to divorce it from being.

I see a lot of people on Tumblr saying that they don’t feel particularly strongly about the word, but they don’t see any harm in tagging it for those who do. There’s a lot to unpack there, given that the “slur” label itself is the primary issue for queer-identified people, but I want to point out something I haven’t seen mentioned much in these discussions: the people who use the word “queer” most often are those who don’t feel like they fit into other standard categories, which means that the more widespread the practice of “q-slur” tagging becomes, the more nonbinary/pansexual/marginalized voices are silenced. These conversations have focused on the question of whether the word “queer” should be used, but not on the reality that it is used, and the practical ramifications of excluding the massive number of people who do use it from discourse.

The word queer has been used to inflict a lot of damage. So has the word gay. So has the word dyke. So will the next word we create to escape all that damage. They will use every one of our words against us, no matter who started using them first. Do we let them define us? Or do we define ourselves?

This.

We define ourselves. We only condemn the terms other use for the community when they are exclusionary. I will side-eye someone who says “the gay and lesbian community.” I will shrug and move on if a person chooses to call themself a term I consider derogatory. I will frown and object to someone saying “women and trans-women” because it privileges cis-gendered folk. I will shrug if you say “QUILTBAG,” shrug if you say “LGBTQA+,” though pronouncing it gets unwieldy.

If you say the “gay community,” though, unless you are just talking about men whose only sexual partners are men, you are ignoring  and erasing the majority of us, and I will object.

And if you are some sort of TERF, fuck off. I have been telling trans-exclusionary radical feminists to fuck off since 1993, I see no reason to stop telling y’all to fuck off now.

(via sigridellis-deactivated20181218)