#and like yeah before some chode is like “’ohh but words mean things’ yeah sure. to an extent. i don’t care to enforce it as a rule

[childballad58]

i’m stoned so i don’t expect i’ll articulate this well but aj and i were talking earlier about the way that identity politics has been so terribly reduced from “queerness is politicized not only in the theoretical (ie the idea that everything is a political choice or act) but also in a real material sense wherein the legislating of queer and esp trans bodies seeks to demoralize, dehumanize, and destroy trans people and their sense of safety and community)” all the way down to “this person used words to describe themself in a way i don’t like” which is. obviously pretty bad. and sure there’s people out there using certain vocabulary to describe other people and not just themselves which is also sucky, i guess, but do we… maybe have bigger fish to fry, here? sure we could sit around all day debating who gets to use what slurs but is that… actually a productive use of our time? seriously? idk. i don’t care if people medically transition or not. i don’t care if someone wants to call themselves bi and a dyke. i don’t care if someone doesn’t feel like the word queer applies to them. it makes me sad and sort of uncomfortable to see people framing queerness as some sort of hierarchy where the more danger you’re in in your life the more authority you have to like, get mad online about the words other queer people use. like how about we address the root problem — the danger that people face for daring to exist as queer or trans or both — rather than the same kind of semantic bullshit spouted in queer- and transphobic rhetoric?