#it's to get rid of the people who don't neatly fit under the LGBT umbrella

[not-poignant]

Your post about queer history really resonated with me. As someone who identifies as queer but also aspec and cis, it's sometimes hard to feel like I have the right to use that identifier. I've seen a lot of "queer spaces aren't for cis people" rhetoric or aspec/bi/pan erasure around me and it's really nice to see a post that calls that out. Thank you for sharing!

'Queer spaces aren't for cis people' is honestly one of the stupidest things I've ever heard, because most gay and lesbian folk fit into that category (most gay folk are cis, most lesbian folk are cis).

So to use the word 'queer' to rule out like generally the bulk of the statistical proportion of like actual queer people is like meeting a species of fish that has decided to talk and purposely misuse words, like, it literally makes no sense.

Whoever is sharing those messages literally understands nothing about queer culture, what it means, or dare I say it, even what the word cis means. There are plenty of cis people under the queer umbrella, it's not a word only trans people own, for example.

There's definitely still a lot of ace/bi/pan erasure, and there sadly always has been (along with nonbinary erasure and so on), though in some ways, and in some circles, it's getting better. But it only gets better through vigilance, education and compassion, and a big part of all of that is making sure everyone understands queer history in the first place, because our queer ancestors - the ones who laid a path so we could write like this without being afraid for our lives (for the most part) - didn't fight so hard for us to just ignore everything they did for us.

But my god, 'queer spaces aren't for cis people' made me laugh, that would automatically eliminate almost a huge chunk of the LGB part of the LGBT~ acronym, and I can't with how mind-numbingly off base that is. Like, toss those fish back in the ocean, anon, or turn them into fish fingers. The only version I've heard is tbh the radfem version that trans people don't belong - and I've certainly seen groups eliminate the T in 'LGB' - you can sadly find those sorts of radfem groups on Facebook. But again, a total waste of time.

I am always here to call that stuff out, and you're welcome to go back through my queer culture tag for similar posts!