#q slur discourse

[raviosprovidence]

"you don't use queer because you're so desperate to be normal!!!" if you had to partake in one conversation with me irl your bones would melt from how weird and cringe I am

[lostryu]

Personally, I love calling myself queer. It is liberating and makes me feel excited about who I am. It is upsetting when people tag my identity as a slur.

For starters, anon, I am so happy that queer makes you feel empowered and content with yourself! I am not saying that people cannot identify as such, I am saying not everyone has the exact same feelings when it comes to slur reclamation. We are not a hive mind and while you take comfort in it, others do not. The tagging system is a way for others to protect themselves or friends, and a way to filter things out when said people are not in a good space to interact with potentially triggering content.

Here’s an analogy for lack of a good way to explain. Say you love the rain. You love splashing in the puddles, getting wet, and sailing little leaf boats in the gutter. Any time there is a rainstorm you are the first outside.

Alex, however, does not like the rain. It could be a personal thing, like they don’t like how the water sticks to their skin, the sound or smell, or maybe they had a terrible accident during a rainstorm. Regardless you both are friends.

Because you respect Alex’s boundaries, when you both need to go outside during a rainstorm, you don’t say anything when they put on their rain jacket and boots. You don’t rip their jacket off and insist that they take joy in the rain no matter what. You respect their boundaries, and when you need to cross a puddle, you’re always the first to lay your jacket across so Alex can walk safely through it without getting wet.

Above is an example of why some people tag for slur usage. They might love using the word queer, but out of respect for friends that do not, they still tag accordingly. There is nothing bad about this basic respect and chivalry online. If you are that upset about someone caring about other people, you need to sit down and reflect.

[mouseratz]

no I am not afraid to say queer faggot etc & I think we should all be allowed to say it. but also. is it such a big fucking deal if someone tags it. does it matter. is this actual "censorship"? I really don't think so. my grandparents talked about "the queers" & called me a dyke for wearing a button up when I was thirteen. they're still like. used as slurs? reclaiming just means you can say it if you want. and it's ok. it doesn't matter if someone tags it. I prommy it's not 1984 that someone tagged q slur it's just how Tumblr is used guys (it would be if like. Tumblr itself started deleting or limiting posts or something with these words, for example, WHICH THEY HAVE DONE. like nuking blogs for having fag in the name. that could be an example! But your follower tagging a post when they reblog it is.....not that.)

[queerum]

if you can't handle typing out the word 'queer' and need to censor it, then use LGBT+. The only acceptable time to write q***r in my eyes is when you're discussing the word itself (but even then there's the block button if you don't want to see it). If you go out of your way to use and censor a word many people use to describe themselves, you're being an asshole on purpose.

[transradfem]

this explains so much about this stupid fucking website

[thatoneautisticfreak]

I genuinely don't understand why people keep saying that queer isn't a slur, it was used to harm people in the lgbtq community in the past and it's STILL being used to try and harm us ??? Like yeah, it's a label, and I get that it's an easy label to fall back on but it's still a slur. Idc if you use it as a label, but you can't just blatantly ignore that it was used to harm us and is still being thrown around to try and harm people

[aropride]

"cishet man who genuinely identifies as a lesbian" and "cishet woman who calls herself a dykefag" are two strawthems (gender neutral word for strawman) i've seen discoursed about on here a lot and i truly don't think they exist i think people just love misgendering nonbinary people

[yarkayaslava-is-onto-it-again]

but that's the thing though. yes, our community now calls ourselves by the same words that originally were used against us. yet it doesnt mean that every person wants to be called that, especially the ones who had been degradated by people using this word their entire life.

a very simple example: as a person who's first language isn't English, first time I heard the word "queer" was said by the person identifying with it. and thus for me it meant "not hetero/not cis" and that's was the entire way of how i ever seen it. at the same time i still don't want to be called a slur that is used for lesbians (aka, me) in my native language because i was called this once too many.

plus never have i seen someone saying "you can't use 'queer' to describe yourself because its a slur" but i heard "please don't use 'queer' when you refer to me as I don't really like being called that" instead.

"queer is a slur."

so is the word homosexual, to the point where I had college professors who'd sternly tell me not to use it, because it's a slur, but as a homosexual, I have decided this is my favorite word.

It sounds funny, and thus, it is mine.

It has a ring to it that its harsher cousin, gay, does not.

[quinni427]

I think if queerness wasn’t as stigmatised a lot of straight men (and others) would realise that even if they are sexually attracted to women they may not be romantically attracted to them. Being aromantic is more common than we think.

If it was widely known that someone’s sexual and romantic attraction don’t necessarily have to be the same cheating and emotionally unavailability would probably be much less common.

More people need to know that you aren’t necessarily a failure if you don’t have/want the average heteronormative family structure.

Knowledge about LGBTQ+ people doesn’t just benefit us it benefits everyone. You shouldn’t have to live a certain way if you don’t want to.

[lostryu]

a lot of online lgbt+ people are trying to say that queer isn't a slur and i find it so laughable as if the cis/het trump supporter two doors down doesn't call our apartment the queer house and the rainbow mat (it's not even a gay pride mat, its literally a childish rainbow) a fag mat.

like i dunno how to tell you that in the real world these are still being widely used against the community, and saying "oh they only have power if you LET them have power" is eternally meaningless as long as the oppressors view them as a derogatory class. To them we are always going to be other, lower, and disgusting.

Yes, we can reclaim, but we can't forget that these word's history and weight. We also can't forget that not everyone has had the opportunity to heal in a safe environment to reclaim. If you had the privilege to grow up in a space away from bigotry, do not claim that these were never slurs, or stopped being slurs. By doing so, you are stepping on the backs of those who did not have that privilege. This shouldn't be something that we have to keep repeating. It should be basic human decency.

[4evrgreeny]

This Pride month, please remember that just because you've personally reclaimed a slur, or even if your community seems to have largely also reclaimed that slur, DOES NOT MEAN EVERYONE HAS!!

Your local college having a 'queer arts' class doesn't mean you get to go around calling people queer without their permission.

Just because you've grown up with the word queer being used as shorthand for the LGBT community doesn't mean everyone else feels the same way.

Just because YOU don't see queer as a slur, doesn't mean everyone else does too.

[bytefriend]

tbh idont trust ppl who arnt lesbians making very vague complaints abt Queer Infighting like 90% fo the time theyre jsut talking abt like. actual lesbophobia being called out and thats the infighting

[gorgeousgreymatter-x]

one reason I like using queer to describe my sexuality is because it isn't specific. I don't even like telling people I don't know my name. Or shaking their hand. You think I want to tell them in plain terms whomst I enjoy, like, being in my mouth??

No! I want you to know zero things about me in that regard lmao

(Weirdly, especially when I started getting 🤢perceived🤢 for my ot3 and steddie fic, I had people accusing me of fetishizing because I apparently wasn't gay enough????? Or writing eddie/chrissy/steve made me...uh...less gay I guess????)

WhAT KiNd oF QueR ArE U Tho???

Idk man the type to paint themselves with tiger stripes and free all the animals in the zoo get off my lawn I don't know you that's my purse

[fite-club]

i didn’t even want to go there, but y’know what? every single person who isn’t L, G, B, or T who explicitly mocks and maligns LGBT people who are uncomfortable with (or even acknowledges!) the word “queer” as a slur needs to shut the fuck up immediately.

this isn’t me saying “if you aren’t LGBT you’re not allowed to be part of or have a say in our community”, it’s me saying “people whose identities are more visible and more historically targeted probably have a more accurate say as to how words are being used against them”. i’m getting really tired of hearing nonbinary aroace teenagers declare that “gay is a slur too”, which is laughably untrue and out of touch.

“queer” did not start as an identity, it started as a negative adjective and an insult. it became an identity for many, but that doesn’t mean that some people still aren’t using it as an insult. i’m not “erasing queer identity” by acknowledging that queer is a slur, YOU are erasing queer history by outright denying the reality of many LGBT people. you are erasing the pain and trauma that people of your community went through. what’s so “trans-exclusionary radical feminist” about pointing that out?????

[onsomekindofstartrek]

I think fundamentally the lgbtq+ versus queer nomenclature debate comes down to this:

Are we better served by creating a new in-group, or by coming together in solidarity and recognition of the fact that, broadly, we belong to the out-group?

Assimilation is possible for some, not for all. I don’t think we can imagine a practical path to complete assimilation for everyone who wants it, and even then, it’s not desirable for everyone. The whole paradigm is frankly sort of imperial. “Become normal!” So that leaves either liberation or separatism, and I thank heavens that we’re not earnestly discussing separatism anymore. Leave that for the MRA’s.

And frankly the neat little package of “these identities in this list,” L and G and B and T and whatever we feel like tacking on the end “as a concession to the times” feels very assimilationist to me. It says “here’s a new in-group,” one that’s neatly defined so that we can push media representation and inclusion of these specific identities, as if they were a DLC for human society more broadly.

And that doesn’t work for me. That doesn’t work for someone who’s queer in four different ways. It doesn’t work for someone whose identity is difficult to even express to the cishet majority. Not everyone is so neat as to go into this math equation of a cultural movement a whole number of times with no remainder. Identifying yourself as “LGBTQ+” is an invitation for someone to ask “well, which one?” And what of the people who can’t answer in a way that’s concise, unambiguous and digestible?

For assimilationists, that’s inconvenient. For liberationists, our project is to make society tolerate us in spite of that.

So, while I might dislike the actual audible sound of the word “queer,” (it’s just an unpleasant combination of sounds, with some very unpleasant-sounding words just a few consonants away) I still say it’s the more useful term and the more useful political project. I don’t think the gender, sexual and romantic minorities, taken as a whole, are such a fancy club that it needs a goddamned list of who gets to be in it, let alone be named after that list in the form of an initialism. We’re… the weird people; the fucked-up people; the strangers.

(And I think when you’re reclaiming a slur taken from people who value conformity and strict social roles, for it to be a slur that literally means strange/weird/foreign is an incredibly strong and provocative posture.)

Frankly I have little interest in distinguishing between “real queers” and people with adjacent or shared interests who can stand in solidarity with us and do not harm our cause. Are cishet poly people queer? I don’t know, and frankly I don’t care.

Do they have a useful shared interest in changing romantic and sexual norms? Do they experience social rejection because of this practice or identity? These are more interesting and important questions. Unless you think that poly people are inherently child abusers or inherently cisnormative or heterosexist, which are all harmful stereotypes, you should be viewing them as potential allies if you cannot bring yourself to view them as members of the community. But of course some people apparently can’t bring themselves to call asexual and aromantic people LGBTQ+ or queer despite obvious shared oppression along common axes, so maybe I’m asking too much here.

And the same goes for other groups and other identities. I’m not interested in defining who “is queer.” I’m interested in who has shared interests with the queer community and who is willing to stand with that community when things get tough. When we fight intolerance and exclusion, it seems unwise to use as our weapons, intolerance and exclusion.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what I think either. I just think there are certain perspectives that aren’t going to help us in the long run, and making a little list of specific things the actual official name of our community is one of them.

[kiwisandpearls]

I feel like some people in the queer community really need to reconcile with the fact that while they might not be comfortable using a certain label someone else will be and that’s ok, but the appropriate reaction to the information of someone using a label that personally makes them uncomfortable probably is not to immediately assume that that person is actually in some way bigoted.