#q-slur discourse

[lapdogchase]

"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

[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.

[kalosdyke]

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.

[bad-aew-discourse]

Maybe the worst thing about Toni Storm saying she is “here” and “q*eer” is that “q*eer” is a slur.

[kirintee]

these days i tag "q slur" not for the sake of tag filtering (since i don't think that anyone that follows me even cares whether it's tagged?) but rather purely to spite the people that get really fucking annoying when someone does

[gnometa233]

I know I said this in tags at one point and maybe made a post about it a long time ago but we have to stop assigning morality to having sex and/or are in relationships. Some people with the worst opinions of all time fuck nasty, even if it's missionary style with lights off. Some people who say the most bigoted, mind numbing bullshit are in long term relationships. I love celibacy sweep as much as the next person but we have to do better. Especially on the so called "queerest website in the world" where it's a well known fact that it is much harder to get into relationships/find people to fuck when you're queer.

And I'm not even either of these identities but some of these posts DO devolve into just hatred against asexual/aromantic peopme

[musclesandhammering]

I could get cancelled for this immediately, but does anyone else get really irritated when you see a certain subset of the queer community inserting themselves into other subsets’ issues?

Like when cis gay people think they can speak for trans folks just because “well we’re all lgbt.”

Or like gay men thinking they can make misogynistic comments about lesbians and use the word d*ke etc just because “well we’re lgbt too”.

Or (and this is a big one lately) queer women inserting themselves into conversations that are about issues specific to queer men, and acting like they have exactly as much credibility in the argument because “well we’re just as lgbt as you.”

It’s just like… yeah we’re all queer. But each individual group is their own mini community, and they all have their own things that are specific to them, and if you aren’t in that exact demographic then you don’t have the experience necessary to add your input on those topics. And if you go ahead and shove your way into the conversation anyway, then you’re like… only 5% better than a homophobe. If that.

[omegawizardposting]

I know that hairless gay men are (kind of, depends on where you look) overrepresented in porn, but my guy, out in the real world, men who shave get their heads stomped in, because shaving is seen as effeminate. I need y'all to stop acting like hairless twinks are evil overlords who are oppressing their masculine brethren.

I see this mostly in leftist queer spaces, by the way. You would've thought this kind of discourse stemmed from fandom girlies, but no.

[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

[iantosource]

i think the way people use the word queer to refer to ianto in this fandom is kind of uncomfortable to watch? he clearly doesn't wanna be called that (and you can reclaim the word as much as you'd like but its still very much a slur) yet people still call him a queer character left and right (you can say bisexual i promise it wont kill you) and if you cant even respect your favourite character's feelings on the word i dont even wanna imagine the way you treat strangers who dont wanna be called queer

EDIT: for people who do not understand the point of this post : this isn't just about a character. its about the way that we interact with media being intrinsically linked to the way we interact with the real world. if you can't stop yourself from using one specific word to refer to a fake little man i dont trust you to be able to stop yourself from using it to refer to real people who are uncomfortable with it

[gnometa233]

"If people say 'the queer community' they're not referring to you!!" Oh I'm sorry I didn't know I don't experience homophobia/discrimination because I don't reclaim queer. I didn't know I have to reclaim a slur in order to qualify for minority status according to this discussion.