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「we're here, we're queer, we're filled with existential fear;」
Thursday, 7 June 2018 02:26Had a good talk with a friend yesterday about "queer" as an umbrella term and I want to jot down my thoughts, although I still haven't reached a conclusion and I'm still not sure what a good solution is.
It seems like the main point of contention around the whole "queer is a slur" issue is whether or not "queer" is acceptable to use as an umbrella term for all non-cishet people―individuals can choose to reclaim it for themselves, or reject it for themselves, but nobody should be coercively labeling people against their will.
My two main issues with this:
There is no perfect alternative. Every term has been used as a slur. Every term has ideological problems. Different terms have different applications. While I can say queer community and just follow it up with "if you don't consider yourself part of the queer community then I'm not talking to you," it gets complicated when using "queer" to actually discuss, you know, what it's like to be queer.
Personally, I hate that "gay" has in many circles become the replacement umbrella term, because it's… literally not one. I'm not gay, by definition. Sure, I may sometimes join my friends in playfully screaming "IM GAY" on Twitter, because it's fun and catchy and I like screaming and I pick up slang trends really easily, but at the end of the day, I'm not gay. I'm trans and pan and queer and I take issue with those identities being erased.
On top of that, I personally have had much more experience with "gay" being used as a slur than "queer." I realize this may not be everyone's experience, but I know for sure that I'm not the only one with this experience. "Gay" itself is a reclaimed slur with its own history of hurt.
Then what about LGBT? Aside from the fact that LGBTQ+ is just clunky and awkward and not as catchy, it also erases identities that don't fit within its letters, which is why you end up getting the alphabet soup that is LGBTQIA+ (which I not only also have bad associations with, of people mockingly saying LGBTQIAPKEDMWTFBBQ and so on, but is also ridiculously clunkier and I do think that it's sociolinguistically important to have a label that is easy to say).
In a way it brings up the issue of who, at the end of the day, gets to define terms. I actually disliked "bisexual" for a while, because I did associate it with only acknowledging and being attracted to two binary genders. But now the general consensus among the bi community seems to be that bisexuality refers to being attracted to "same" and "other" genders, as opposed to "male" and "female." And I still feel uncomfortable labeling myself as bi most of the time because of my associations with the word. But if someone called me bi I guess they wouldn't technically be wrong, even though I generally won't use it as a label for myself.
"Queer" is the only word I've found that I can feel fully recognized and safe in. My experience with it is so formative and positive, admittedly, that I do sometimes feel defensive when I see posts on Twitter/Tumblr that feel like they are trying to take that away from me, even though the things that I've gotten from that word have also taken away just as much from other people. It's hard, if not impossible, to find and spread a word that works for everyone, because any word we find will be used as a slur at some point. And I think this speaks to the diversity of experience within the community, which is important to recognize, and I don't particularly care for arguments dismissing all people uncomfortable with being labeled queer as TERFs, or too young to know their own history.
That said, queer is valuable to me specifically as a community identifier.
I used to really dislike the term "person of color." I didn't like the term and I didn't like people labeling me with it and it got to a point where I would even avoid community events solely based on the name. But at the same time, it's very much a community/umbrella identity―that's the whole concept behind it and how it was coined―so it was difficult to tell people that they couldn't use it as one even if I personally didn't identify with it. Ultimately I accepted that the term was used as an umbrella term for non-white people to refer to shared experiences of systemic racism, but it was also a term of political solidarity that individual people might choose not to identify with. (And I've gotten a bit more comfortable with it since then, after contextualizing it more within a US/western-centric political identity rather than a global racial identity, but that's a different discussion.)
So I guess when I say queer I mean it in a similar context, in that individual people can choose not to identify with it, but I use it to refer to a community bound by experiences that those people might also share and also sometimes use it as an adjective to refer to those experiences. Because that's what it was coined for―not as an individual identity, but as a way of speaking to broader experiences of marginalization.
But I don't know if this is a satisfactory answer―if I refer to a big nebulous group of people with a label, I am also by extension referring to each individual within that group with the same label. The problem in this case is that sometimes that means labeling people against their will. And I wish we had a word that worked for everyone. I wish we could unite as a community without so much intracommunity discord and without so much hurt. I find that there's a lot of bitterness and anger in the "can queer be used as an umbrella term"/"is queer a slur" debate, on both sides―because it hurts, to feel like people are intentionally ignoring your request to not call you something because of the trauma it digs up. But it also hurts to have something that gave you so much strength and safety and belonging after a lifetime of struggling with self-hatred, and then suddenly be told that it's bad and you can't use it anymore.
It seems like the main point of contention around the whole "queer is a slur" issue is whether or not "queer" is acceptable to use as an umbrella term for all non-cishet people―individuals can choose to reclaim it for themselves, or reject it for themselves, but nobody should be coercively labeling people against their will.
My two main issues with this:
There is no perfect alternative. Every term has been used as a slur. Every term has ideological problems. Different terms have different applications. While I can say queer community and just follow it up with "if you don't consider yourself part of the queer community then I'm not talking to you," it gets complicated when using "queer" to actually discuss, you know, what it's like to be queer.
Personally, I hate that "gay" has in many circles become the replacement umbrella term, because it's… literally not one. I'm not gay, by definition. Sure, I may sometimes join my friends in playfully screaming "IM GAY" on Twitter, because it's fun and catchy and I like screaming and I pick up slang trends really easily, but at the end of the day, I'm not gay. I'm trans and pan and queer and I take issue with those identities being erased.
On top of that, I personally have had much more experience with "gay" being used as a slur than "queer." I realize this may not be everyone's experience, but I know for sure that I'm not the only one with this experience. "Gay" itself is a reclaimed slur with its own history of hurt.
Then what about LGBT? Aside from the fact that LGBTQ+ is just clunky and awkward and not as catchy, it also erases identities that don't fit within its letters, which is why you end up getting the alphabet soup that is LGBTQIA+ (which I not only also have bad associations with, of people mockingly saying LGBTQIAPKEDMWTFBBQ and so on, but is also ridiculously clunkier and I do think that it's sociolinguistically important to have a label that is easy to say).
In a way it brings up the issue of who, at the end of the day, gets to define terms. I actually disliked "bisexual" for a while, because I did associate it with only acknowledging and being attracted to two binary genders. But now the general consensus among the bi community seems to be that bisexuality refers to being attracted to "same" and "other" genders, as opposed to "male" and "female." And I still feel uncomfortable labeling myself as bi most of the time because of my associations with the word. But if someone called me bi I guess they wouldn't technically be wrong, even though I generally won't use it as a label for myself.
"Queer" is the only word I've found that I can feel fully recognized and safe in. My experience with it is so formative and positive, admittedly, that I do sometimes feel defensive when I see posts on Twitter/Tumblr that feel like they are trying to take that away from me, even though the things that I've gotten from that word have also taken away just as much from other people. It's hard, if not impossible, to find and spread a word that works for everyone, because any word we find will be used as a slur at some point. And I think this speaks to the diversity of experience within the community, which is important to recognize, and I don't particularly care for arguments dismissing all people uncomfortable with being labeled queer as TERFs, or too young to know their own history.
That said, queer is valuable to me specifically as a community identifier.
I used to really dislike the term "person of color." I didn't like the term and I didn't like people labeling me with it and it got to a point where I would even avoid community events solely based on the name. But at the same time, it's very much a community/umbrella identity―that's the whole concept behind it and how it was coined―so it was difficult to tell people that they couldn't use it as one even if I personally didn't identify with it. Ultimately I accepted that the term was used as an umbrella term for non-white people to refer to shared experiences of systemic racism, but it was also a term of political solidarity that individual people might choose not to identify with. (And I've gotten a bit more comfortable with it since then, after contextualizing it more within a US/western-centric political identity rather than a global racial identity, but that's a different discussion.)
So I guess when I say queer I mean it in a similar context, in that individual people can choose not to identify with it, but I use it to refer to a community bound by experiences that those people might also share and also sometimes use it as an adjective to refer to those experiences. Because that's what it was coined for―not as an individual identity, but as a way of speaking to broader experiences of marginalization.
But I don't know if this is a satisfactory answer―if I refer to a big nebulous group of people with a label, I am also by extension referring to each individual within that group with the same label. The problem in this case is that sometimes that means labeling people against their will. And I wish we had a word that worked for everyone. I wish we could unite as a community without so much intracommunity discord and without so much hurt. I find that there's a lot of bitterness and anger in the "can queer be used as an umbrella term"/"is queer a slur" debate, on both sides―because it hurts, to feel like people are intentionally ignoring your request to not call you something because of the trauma it digs up. But it also hurts to have something that gave you so much strength and safety and belonging after a lifetime of struggling with self-hatred, and then suddenly be told that it's bad and you can't use it anymore.