#i’ve been using queer a lot more lately because umbrella terms are the only thing that seem to make sense to me anymore | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rainbowsky · 3 years

Text

More on the Fan Fic issue

I have a few more asks about the issue raised the other day, some of which are long and go into detail on the 'wars' that have been happening on Twitter and AO3.

Sorry for grouping these but I wanted to put it all under a cut because these are long, and also in case people don't want to dig into these issues (which would be understandable).

Anonymous 1 asked:

"I am very strongly of the opinion that the BJYX term is still a fandom umbrella term" I agree. Mainly because Bjyx is the most popular. Many antis always say bjyx, and have no idea the others. So sometimes it's easier just to say bjyx instead of explaining all three. I myself more like "who cares as long as they happy." So I enjoy Yizhan in all contexts. Many bxgs I know also like that, mostly ibxgs. I think deep down all bxgs (no matter which position they prefer) just want Yizhan to be happy

Not sure we can be so certain about that last part, Anon (I think for a lot of people GG and DD are just characters in a smutty story they have in their heads), but I agree about the term being popular regardless of the type of fans people are.

From what I can see the BJYX term seems to be used 80-90% umbrella, 10-20% dynamic in both international and c-social media (for every 10 times you see the term used, only one or two of those usages - probably less - are referring to a dynamic). This is my totally unscientific estimation, but I think even 10-20% dynamic is being generous. The number of people who are fixated on a sexual dynamic aren't nearly as large as they'd like to believe.

Anonymous 2 asked:

about the promptfests - i’ve been on twitter since early 2020 and what i’ve noticed is that this influx bjyx-only promptfests started gaining speed once lots of rational voices started leaving the fandom recently either because a) new interests have caught their attention or b) the toxicity of the popular bxg circles on twitter have become too much to handle.

gdgdbaby was usually the organizer of dynamic-inclusive events, and she’s received lots, and lots, and lots of backlash by bxg, sometimes even by accounts with thousands followers, for using bjyx as a catch-all term. and as her interest in yizhan has since waned—hopefully for reasons unrelated to fandom toxicity—many of the people who were attracted to the welcoming environment she created distanced themselves as well.

zsww/lsfy fans have become an outnumbered circle who try their best to create exclusive events to avoid the “is bjyx a catch-all term” discourse, but never seem to gain as much traction as gdgdbaby (who has a sizeable following) or those who host bjyx-only events (who also have sizeable followings).

meanwhile the dynamic war has only become more and more hostile and bjyx is clearly the more populated group… ao3 is simply a battlegrounds, if i may dramatize the situation a little for the sake of humor, and the promptfests are a reaction to this irritating t/b discourse that has made bxg twitter completely inhospitable for me…and lots of other fans too.

(i’ve also noticed a huge reinforcement as of recently where ppl will call gg laopo, a milf, an omega, etc even outside of rpf (i.e. posting pictures of him at events and saying he looks pregnant or he’s going into heat) and it’s just… uncomfortable.)

(also please note i have a biased account of all of this drama bc many of my friends were harassed over it, and anyone who disagrees with my take may feel free to interject.)

I took the liberty of adding paragraph breaks because they are pretty important for some readers, particularly ND readers like me.

It's sad to hear how fucked up everything has become, but I'm not even remotely surprised. Toxicity leads to toxicity, and the whole idea of dividing up a RP fandom by sex position was misguided from the outset - no matter why it was done or how good the intentions might have been.

And yes, like I said, these people aren't just framing things this way for fan fic. This is how they talk about IRL GGDD.

I had written a lengthy essay here about homophobia in the fandom but deleted it all. Perhaps I'll post it separately at some later point. Suffice it to say that this stuff creates a climate that's often hostile for queer people. So much of it is deeply homophobic, whether people are aware of it or not.

It's really sad to hear about gdgdbaby being mistreated in any way. Anyone who steps up and sticks their neck out to help organize and coordinate activities that benefit a broader group of people should be celebrated and supported, not run out of town by an angry mob.

I've read some of her stories and even have one or two on my rec list. And here's someone who is not only writing good works, but also supporting others to write more good works. Such a shame.

Anonymous 3 asked:

Hello Mr. RBS! I think I can chime in a bit about the fanfic topic as I’ve watched this all unravel on twitter (where a majority of authors/readers are). I apologize if this gets long but it’s been something that’s also been on my mind.

I want to preface this by saying that I’m not a fan of the distinctions of dynamics as, like you said, the supposed line between real life and fanfic is long gone, so I’m not trying to be biased against one group over another.

Short answer to the question of, “is this retaliation?” : I do believe it is. (From here onwards I’ll be using bjyx as the dynamic term just for the ease of simplicity.) To understand why, I’ll have to explain with a bit of background info. On twitter, I’d say that there’s a quite large divide between bjyx and zsww/lsfy. That itself isn’t really a problem because people are free to like what they like and associate with whoever.

However there is a big problem where bjyx people are not just bjyx but also anti-zsww/lsfy. To the point where I’ve seen people say that they feel physically ill when they accidentally read zsww. I don’t think this type of behavior should exist in any dynamic bc in the end GGDD are real people with a real relationship behind this content and it’s just a gross fetishization at that point.

With all this happening, zsww/lsfy people have gotten more outspoken on how GG is often portrayed in those types of scenarios, mainly the over-feminization of him, bc it’s not just done in the context of fanfic but regular discussion of GGDD at this point. This tension between the dynamics kind of boiled over when the pregnant xz fest was announced, as you can take a guess at how that went over with zsww/lsfy people. lol.

But around that same time, another zsww/lsfy event was announced (I’m not sure if it’s the one anon was talking about) but the creator of the event suddenly got a ton of backlash for excluding bjyx, with the reasoning that bjyx is technically a part of lsfy. But the event was done to highlight zsww/lsfy (as all specific events are) bc the community and content for these dynamics are much less than bjyx.

Which is how we come back to the starting point of, is all this recent bjyx stuff retaliatory. I believe so bc the events (preg fest, dark event) are very specific prompts that target exactly what zsww/lsfy people have been outspoken against.

As to the point anon made about trying to drown out the tags, keep in mind that zsww/lsfy content is very minimal compared to bjyx and has only just recently started to gain more traction. I think most people would love to just peacefully exist in their own circles but I don’t see this problem between dynamics disappearing anytime soon.

Like I said with the above Anon, I've added paragraph breaks for ND readers.

What a mess.

I have absolutely nothing useful to say here about the fandom on AO3 and how it's managed by community members, but I do think it's unfortunate that people choose to be war-like rather than make space for diverse voices, and I think it's a real shame that some people have been essentially run out of the fandom because of this garbage.

Thanks for giving some context for how/why the major shift in tone of fan fic lately. I had no idea any of this was going on.

I urge people to work hard to give space for all voices and perspectives, and not just the ones they favor. I'd also urge people to reflect on how their thoughts, behavior and actions in the fandom might affect queer people in the fandom.

As always, we have no control over what other people do, say or think. All we have any control over is how we respond to what other people do, say or think. Hopefully we'll chose the path of peace and try to avoid fan wars or fights that only ruin the experience for everyone.

I guess one thing I'd ask any of the Anons who have written me about this issue - or anyone who has thoughts about it - is, what can we as readers/fans who care about diversity of voices and perspectives do to support that here and on AO3, without getting involved in any kind of war?

#fan fiction #fandom reflections #top bottom #ask

21 notes · View notes

the-great-lucario · 2 years

Photo

Been thinking a lot about my gender™ lately and after a lot of consideration I think I'm going to start using the term queer (along with already using gender apathetic) to describe myself. I chose queer specifically because its sort of an umbrella term and gives me some wiggle room to figure some more stuff out along the way, not just with gender but my sexuality too which I’ve also been trying to figure out. I just feel like non binary, demi, agender, bi, pan, and omni don’t describe what I’m feeling but using queer does since I’m definitely feeling too many things to still be only cis or straight.

#queer pride #queer #lgbtq #gender stuff #gender #the great lucario #shiny army #coming out #questioning

6 notes · View notes

robotslenderman · 3 years

Text

Someone on Reddit was asking why labels were important and I went into a whole goddamn essay because my Vyvanse is kicking in.

TLDR - Labels are important for communication. Without communication, we are isolated. Sexuality is so fundamental to our experiences as human beings that being able to describe those experiences succinctly can mean the difference between feeling isolated and feeling connected. Also sneering at ace people for microlabels dismisses the asexual experience as so unimportant that we SHOULDN'T be able to describe our exact experience of it, when discussing asexuality often requires these labels because of how varied and complicated the asexual experience is.

I've been waffling on the fence about microlabels but I've decided that no, microlabels aren't overthinking it, for the reasons I discuss below. In the past I've reblogged things saying that microlabels are about isolation instead of connection, that further dividing our sexuality into smaller and smaller boxes creates increasingly exclusive clubs.

I no longer believe that. I believe it does the opposite. I believe that being in touch with your sexuality just as much as you need to helps you connect to others even outside your microlabel, not just within it, because then it makes it clearer to everyone involved what experiences you have in common and makes it easier to set aside the ones you don't.

You don't understand how important labels are until you've struggled without one. It's human nature to use language to describe our experiences, and when we don't have the language to do so it is stressful and isolating. Because language is how we connect to other people, so when we can't use easy language to summarise our experiences, it becomes isolating.

My personal experience - I struggled with my asexuality for years, even before I began to realise that I was asexual. Even once I started letting myself admit it, I didn't feel that the word "asexual" was enough. Sure, I could explain to people "I'm asexual and don't want to have sex, but I love sex in theory and in novels and I love reading about romance and daydreaming about them, but don't want a relationship." That's a very specific type of asexuality that people don't think of when they hear "asexual". People hear "asexual" and think "doesn't like sex."

But people use labels because others don't want to stick around and listen to your dissertation on what your sexuality actually is, they want bite sized information as soon as possible and sometimes YOU want to describe who you are without spending a ton of time explaining it. It's not just because I want to understand myself, it's because I want other people to, too, and labels is how we communicate. It's the fundamentals of how language works. Labels are so important that they consist of two entire grammatical categories - adjectives and nouns.

So when I found out about aegosexuality? I was like "oh thank god, I'm not a broken asexual, I'm this specific TYPE of asexual."

Most people haven't heard of aegosexuality. I used to actually roll my eyes at microlabels like that, thinking it was needlessly self absorbed and pretentious. But now I get it. Now I have the ABILITY to summarise my experiences in one word, and it turns out that having that ability to use language efficiently to describe myself has brought me quite a significant amount of peace. Because when I tell people I'm asexual, they often have a certain idea in their heads of what asexuality is, and I don't fit under most of that. Many asexuals don't, because asexuality is the most complicated sexuality there is.

But god is it fucking exhausting to say "I'm asexual" and then have to hold a fucking Q and A session about how I'm asexual and yes, I really am asexual even though I'm not adhering to someone else's idea of what asexuality is. By knowing I'm aegosexual, I can say, "oh, you're thinking of X type of asexuality, which is when you experience Y. I'm aegosexual, which means that I still get horny and love sex in fiction, but I don't personally want to experience it, unlike X type of sexuality which doesn't like sex at ALL."

And then people get it! They don't get "I'm asexual, but different." That just makes them think I'm not actually asexual, or that I'm an allo in denial who needs therapy to be "fixed". They get "I'm asexual, but this specific type of asexuality that has a name." People respond to names. People respond to labels. They GET labels, even ones they haven't heard of, even ones they roll their eyes at because they think we're over thinking it because they assume that because their sexuality is so fucking simple, everyone else's must be too.

I still tell people I'm asexual because a lot of the time my type of asexuality isn't actually important. Actually, most of the time I tell them I'm queer and leave it vague because queer is a wonderful umbrella word and my sexuality isn't anyone's business. For me, "queer" is often enough because it communicates that my experience isn't a straight one, and that's usually all people need to know.

But having that label just on *hand* that describes my experiences, and having the option to use it to people who do know what it means, and being able to hand it to people who are lost like I used to be lost -

That's powerful. It's important. It *matters*.

It's not like needing a label for yourself because you prefer pineapple on pizza, this is sexuality, this is the kind of thing that makes or breaks your experiences with other human beings. When you're straight your sexuality is so simple and easy that you don't even need to think about it. You're straight. That's easy. And as homosexuality becomes more accepted I'm seeing baby gays start to take that attitude as well because they're gay and as homosexuality becomes less stigmatised, it's allowed to become more simple.

But other sexualities don't have that luxury.

Bisexuality and pansexuality are more complicated because often people experience a split attraction model, or they don't have equal attraction to different genders and they're not fully comfortable describing themselves as bi or pan because again, people hear "bisexual" or "pansexual" and assume that you experience the same amount of attraction to different genders and it's important to be able to communicate to people that no, you don't. The whole point of using a word is so that the other people understand you - if they don't understand the word, they don't understand YOU. So I think bisexuality and pansexuality is also a spectrum in that there's different types of both depending on how your attraction works, and that it would help bi and pan people to have more specific words - using bisexual and pansexual as an umbrella term much like queer and asexual - to allow them to better communicate their experiences.

And asexuality is, I think, the most complicated sexuality of all. It's based not just on who you're attracted to, like other sexualities, but if you're attracted at ALL. No other sexuality has a footnote attached of "but this one likes sex" or "this one doesn't like sex" or "this one is indifferent to sex". Even bisexuality and pansexuality don't. It also has the contradictory feature of involving some level of attraction - demisexuals and grey aces experience attraction! Just only under specific circumstances. The split attraction model is also much more significant; whereas some bisexual people are explicitly homo- or heteroromantic, many asexuals are not aromantic, and many aromantic people are not asexual. This is far more common with us.

It's also the ONLY sexuality where the split attraction communities are actively hostile to each other. Aromantic people have lately been slinging a lot of shit at asexual people because in their need to be told apart from us (I say "us" even though I'm aromantic myself because I'm also asexual), some have gone to the extreme of showing outright hostility to asexual people and show offence for being associated with us at all. When I thought that I was bi, for example, I NEVER saw this kind of shit between homoromantic bis, heteroromantic bis and biromantic bis. Only the asexual and aromantic community has this hostility.

I respect that aros don't want people to mistake them for asexual people and that's important for the same reasons I've been discussing in this entire essay, but here I'm referring to outright hostility aimed AT asexuals because of other people's failures to understand them. "Aromanticism isn't the same as asexuality" is not hostility. Treating asexual people like garbage - or even aroace people because they dare to exist as asexual AND aromantic - is hostility. This hostility is rising.

So asexuality is deeply complicated, and when you have completed concepts, you need simple labels to communicate that. And frankly - allos don't fucking get it. Bi and pan people do to a certain level, but their sexuality, while more complicated than being gay or straight, is still not as complicated as asexuality. That's not a bad thing, having a more complicated sexuality doesn't make us superior, nor is complication the same thing as depth. Other sexualities are not shallow for lacking the same level of complication, nor should they be taken less seriously.

But it does mean each sexuality has nuance to it that you can't understand without being that sexuality, and it's vital not to fall into the same trap straight people do that your experience of sexuality applies to everyone else, of assuming that because your sexuality isn't complicated to you that it must be the same for everyone else or we're overthinking it. And it's important for us to be able to succinctly sum up our sexuality so that we can share our experiences.

People who've never faced that don't understand how important it is to feel connected to people by being able to efficiently describe yourself. To use language is to connect, to use language and labels is to communicate. Without that, it's an isolating experience, simply because people do not fucking want to hear you bring out a PowerPoint presentation to talk about yourself when they just want one word. And when you're talking about something that defines your human experience, that makes your ability to communicate it THE difference between being isolated and disconnected, and feeling human.

Having different levels of labels helps, too. Sure, I'm aegosexual, but even if most people knew what that meant, most of the time it's completely fucking irrelevant. Most of the time all I need to do is say I'm queer - because I'm communicating that my experience isn't a straight one (or a cis one, if you're queer because of your gender). Sometimes I need to say I'm aroace, or just asexual, because that's what the conversation calls for. It's only when discussing asexuality itself that I actually need to say I'm aegosexual - but that's important, too.

Discussion of asexuality is no less important than being able to say I'm ace, or that I'm queer, and a lot of allos think that distinguishing yourself from straight people is important, that distinguishing yourself from non straight people is important, but asexuality itself is so unimportant that we're not allowed to distinguish ourselves among each other. And that's just another form of aphobia. It doesn't mean that we're going "ew, we're not THOSE asexuals" like I've been seeing in the arosexual community lately, it's being able to say "this is my experience of asexuality, so I'm viewing our discussion through THIS lens, whereas you might not."

And it's so fucking typical that allos think that that shouldn't be important to us. I regret ever thinking the same.

At the end of the day, we need language. It describes our experiences, and without being able to describe those experiences, we are isolated. We need language and labels to connect.

#Dusty has opinions #I need to stop talking on the internet when my Vyvanse kicks in #I just don't fucking stop

7 notes · View notes

imaginebeatles · 4 years

Note

Hello, I'm a homo-romantic ace whose been having a lot of weird conversations lately about who belongs in the LGBT umbrella. I think anyone who is ace has the space if they want it because it is a little understood sexual orientation that experiences a lot of corrective reactions. But lately people have been arguing to me that only aces with non-hetero rom orientations and/or folk who are non cisgender have access to the space. I was wondering the following things:

2/2 what’s your take on asexuality belonging to the LGBT term, the LGBT community and the LGBT complex (cuz I think it’s gotten more complex as a functioning being)? Does asexuality belong in a tertiary space like BDSM which crosses over with queer (and shares similarities) but is not fully within it? Thanks for sharing about your thesis, every time it pops up on my dash I feel very excited. It’s been awhile since I engaged in queer theory and I am loving your work! No pressure to answer tho!

Okay, so…. this is a very contentious topic, but I have a lot of thoughts on this, especially since I’ve started doing research for my thesis. I’ve read some articles on asexuality and the queer community so… here we go. I’ve put it under the cut, so people can easily scroll past it if they’re not interested.

(I would also like to first say that I will be use the word “queer” here. I know some people are uncomfortable with that because its past use as a slur, however, because it is an actual academic term that is used by everyone writing about these issues, and especially within queer theory, I will be using that word too. I use the word to talk about all non-normative identities/practices related to gender and sexuality, which includes the LGBTQ+ community, but is more extensive than that, including any letters not part of that acronym. Queer is also a (political and academic) practice, not just an identity. This already possibly shows where my answer to your question is going…)

Firstly, I want to say that I understand why some people within the LGBTQ+ community might be uncomfortable about letting asexual people into that community. There is a difficult relationship between asexuality and queer identities. Some people in the field of asexuality studies have begun to write on this (I’ll list them down one or two down below). Within queer politics, historically but also now, there is a heavy focus on sex. Because queer people have struggled against oppression based on their sexual habits, not having sex is generally viewed as conservative or as a form of assimilation. For wlw this is further true because for a long time healthy sexual behaviour (aka having sex at all) was seen as impossible between two women, because both women would be sexually passive. Not having sex is not radical. This is why hetero-romantic aces are often dismissed as being “straight anyway”. Non-normative sexual practices (like cruising) are an important part of the queer community (academic work within queer studies in especially the 1990s and 2000s shows this too, wherein theoretical and political potential is mined from non-normative sex acts, including bare-backing because of its relation to the HIV crisis in the 80s).

It therefore makes sense that queer people (especially gay men and women, but also others) are uncomfortable with asexuality’s focus on not having sex, and as such asexuality is often seen as being “sex negative” instead of “sex positive” and thus bad. At least, politically.

I, however, and other academics, do think asexuality is queer, if you define queer as being non-normative in relation to hetero-normativity). Asexuality is seen as non-normative in our current hyper-sexual society and sex is seen as a vital part of heterosexuality too (you have to reproduce and women are meant to be sexually available to men at all times). Asexual people are discriminated against because they refuse sex, which society sees as natural. While the struggles of asexual people are different from those of gay people, bi and trans people (and other identities) also have their own struggles against which they fight. This does not diminish their struggles.

Acephobia is based on ableist ideas: if you don’t want sex, there must be something wrong with you either mentally or physically, because sex is naturally and everyone should want it and have it (often). Asexuality is often dismissed and not seen as “real”. There must be something that inhibits you from having sex, whether that is physiological, hormonal, or having to do with trauma, or maybe just because you are not “hot enough to get a boyfriend”, which reminds me of how for a long time lesbians were seen as being men-hating ugly women (and feminists). This view leads to asexuality being pathologized (as homosexuality used to be). There have been numerous ways in which low sexual desire or a lack of sexual fantasies has been sees as a disorder in the psychoanalytic tradition. Attempts to “fix” asexual people are made through things like therapy or hormone treatment (or stuff like viagra or other such things), but also through corrective rape, either in a medical contexts under the idea that sexuality needs to be “awakened” within the patient, or in the private sphere at the end of a partner or friend. Research has also shown that people see asexual people as less human, more machine-like. They admit feeling uncomfortable with asexual people, and that they may discriminate against them, such as refusing them rent.

Asexual people have their own political issues to work through, just as any other identity within the LGBTQ+ community. However, each of these issues and more are related to the fight against hetero-normativity. Another example is that asexual people, especially those who are also aromantic, can help critique the way society privileges heterosexual romantic couplehood, especially married heterosexual couples. Asexual and aromantic people often privilege non-romantic and non-sexual relationship, such as friendships or family, allowing us to re-evaluate these other relationships and open up new forms of queer relating, which will also be appealing to other queer people, who often form their own social group or families and whose relationship and friendships are often in some way “queer”.

On top of that, it is important to realise that there is a lot of overlap between asexual people and other queer identities. However, queer asexual people constantly remark on how they do not feel safe or represented by the queer or LGBTQ+ community, even those who “welcome” queer aces, but not hetero-romantic aces. The queer and LGBTQ+ community are heavily sexualized spaced, which makes aces feel unwelcome, but also leaves many non-asexual queer people to complain about the lack of safe spaces for queer people that aren’t about clubbing, such as the lack of queer cafes or library. The queer community (and LGBTQ+ community) is itself deeply entrenched in compulsory sexuality, just like hetero-normative society, making aces feel like they don’t belong to either community.

If an asexual person if gay, or bi, or non-binary, or trans, or queer, or whatever, it is the LGBTQ+ and queer communities that should provide them a safe space and fight for them. Their asexuality informs their experience as homo-romantic or trans or anything else, and cannot be separated from that part of their identity. These are not separate issues. If we want to protect trans kids or gay kids or any other member of the queer/LGBTQ+ community, these communities need to be inclusive of asexuality and provide spaces where these kids are safe and can talk freely about their experiences and the challenges they face. These will undoubtedly also be informed by their asexual identity.

We are stronger politically when we fight together. We fight the same cause. Asexual people do not ask other LGBTQ+ or queer people to not be sexual. They only ask that they are included and that their own issues are being taken seriously.

On top of that, asexuality intersects with a lot of other queer issues. For trans folks, for example, the focus on sex in society and romantic relationships may leave them uncomfortable because of their body dysphoria and may thus run into similar issues as sex-repulsed aces. Stone butch women may find common ground with asexuality too, because of the focus on penetrative sex in society. The hypersexualisation of gay men may find that they experience similar issues as asexual people who feel they are being (hyper)sexualised despite not being sexual. There is a lot of overlap, and these issues need to be addressed. We can help each other and offer new perspectives that will help us fight for the same rights.

On top of that, on a more abstract level, can also be valuable for queer politics in the way that it undermines our current understanding of sexual identity. The way we now think about sexuality was constructed by straight people with the aim of pathologizing and thus actively discriminate against and eliminate perverted sexuality. This started with homosexuality with Freud, and quickly began to expand. If you want to know more about this, Foucault’s History of Sexuality is a good place to start. This allowed for sexual object choice to be used to group specific people together and make them into a specific type or “species”, as Foucault calls it. Our conception of sexuality, then, was constructed to uphold heterosexuality as the norm, making heterosexuality (that is the opposite sex as the sexual object choice) out to be the natural and normal and healthy form of sexuality.

Asexuality undermines this construction. Asexuality not only shows that there are different forms of attraction, which do not need to be connected to each other in a one-on-one relation, but also shows that sexual attraction is not the only or even the most important basis for attraction. Asexuality is not explainable in our current system and forces people to consider their sexual preferences. What do I like in sex? What kind of sex? What kind of sensuality? And with whom? If I like having sex with men, but only being sensual with women, what does that mean? Asexuality asks us what we prefer, putting the focus on preference rather than something biological or innate that makes us feel desire towards one gender and not the other.

This is not to say that asexuality makes sexual identity into an arbitrary choice. Rather, it shows that you cannot divide people into identity categories based on sexual object choice shows that attempting to do so is just as silly as doing so based on if you like tea or coffee. Or ketchup or mustard. On top of that, it allows for sexuality to be seen as fluid, not that it changes, but that it is not fixed. Maybe you like ketchup for a long time, and then no anymore. Or maybe you are briefly in the mood only for this specific type of mustard but not the others. Focusing on preference allows us to undermine the whole construct on which hetero-normativity is predicated. Making identities such as heterosexual or homosexual or bisexual or pansexual almost meaningless or nonsensical. If we want to do away with hetero-normativity completely, this is a crucial step to take. It allows us to focus on sexuality as a social construct, rather than something that must be biologically explained.

TL;DR: I understand why some LGBTQ+ people are uncomfortable with the idea of bringing asexual into the community. However, I think ultimately we are fightening the same cause despite our own specific issues that we face. We have a similar stake in queer politics and queer academia. Asexuality can offer the queer or LGBTQ+ community a lot, and being inclusive to asexuality is crucial if we want to protect queer kids. As such there is a lot that both communities can offer each other.

This goes for both queer aces and hetero-romantic aces. Hetero-romantic aces also benefit and often have a stake in dismantling hetero-normativity because they are asexual. Hetero-romantic aces also face discrimination under hetero-normativity. Because of this, asexuality at large ought to be included. Excluding hetero-romantic aces from the queer community or LGBTQ+ community shows a misunderstanding of asexuality and its political issues and seems not so much inclusive of asexual issues, but rather inclusive of those issues that relate ONLY to the other part of their identity. For queer aces, however, these two are not separate issues. If you want to be inclusive to queer aces, you have to be inclusive towards asexuality in general.

Asexuality, then, should be fully within the queer community, not be treated as a separate but overlapping thing like BDSM. Asexuality, when taken seriously, will affect all spaces of the queer community for the better, while still allowing for sex-positive politics.

Reading suggestions:

Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality.

Megan Milks, “Stunted Growth: Asexual Politics and the Rhetoric of Sexual Liberation.” In Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, edited by Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks.

Erica Chu, “Radical Identity Politics: Asexuality and Contemporary Articulations of Identity.” In Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, edited by Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks.

33 notes · View notes

marinsawakening · 5 years

Note

So ive been questioning whether or not im aro. I used to ID as panro but ive been soul searching lately as well as entering the dating world a bit and i just dont know. I think i might be quiroromantic? Any advice for trying to figure this out? Thanks

Aaalright, so it’s been a while since I was questioning, so I’m a bit out of the loop on this front, but I’ll do my best to direct you to some resources.

@aromantic-official is pretty much aro central, and they have a resource page that includes resources for questioning aros and a glossary of aro terms, which should be a decent start. Their questioning tag also contains a variety of posts that are aimed at questioning aros; I haven’t gone through all of them, but it’s hard to imagine that there won’t be at least one that’s a little helpful.

@anagnori also has a very extensive resource page (although some may be out of date; I haven’t checked all of them), and also wrote this post aimed at questioning aros.

AUREA is a fairly new website/organization dedicated to aromantics, and it has a resource page (again, haven’t checked all the links, but since the site is new, they should at least be up to date)

For quoiromanticism specifically, this post is a good 101 introduction (idk how relevant that is to you, but I feel contractually obligated to include it). The coiner of the term is @epochryphal, who has a quoi tag that is likely to include relevant info. @shades-of-grayro is a good blog for everyone on with a grayro identity (’grayromantic’ is both a specific identity and an umbrella term), and while they don’t seem to have a consistent quoi tag, the quoiromantic search on their blog yields good results. I don’t follow any quoiro blogs, but a quick search turns up @quoisitively-queer, who I’ve seen around (idk how active they are though), and although it’s not especially relevant, I remember @official-quoisexual from when I was questioning whether I was quoisexual, and although the blog is dedicated towards quoisexuality rather than quoiromanticism, and since the quoi community is small, ze might still be able to help you find more specific resources.

Some other aro blogs I recommend (note: I don’t follow everyone on this list, but they’re all good blogs as far as I know):

@aro-neir-o (lots of research)

@aroworlds and the creator’s other blog @alloaroworlds; the first is a blog centering around aro creativity, and the second is an allo aro community blog.

@fandomshateaspecs (community blog, run by a variety of mods)

@biaroace (coiner of the ‘oriented aroace’ term)

@black-aros and the creator’s other aro blog @official-angledaroace; coined the term ‘angled aroace’, which the second is a community blog for, and the first is a blog centering around black aros.

@aro-soulmate-project (originally a blog for deconstructing the soulmate trope, still pretty vocal about this, but has turned into more of a general aro blog with good posts)

@aroarolibrary

@aroacepagans

and uuhh definitely a whole lot more but my brain is blanking at the moment, if you’re an aro blog feel free to like or reblog or reply to this post to make yourself known! I strongly recommend speaking to arospecs directly about your doubts/questions; often, personal conversation can help clear things up in a way that resource posts just can’t. Getting involved in the community can also help; while there’s no guarantee of this, personally, that’s what made me feel secure in my identity.

On a personal questioning note: I can only speak from personal experience as an aromantic with no romantic attraction whatsoever, as well as someone who was lucky enough to have a fairly stereotypical aro experience and get through questioning relatively easily (and with no internalized issues around the aromanticism), but the biggest issue that I found in my aro questioning journey was that the aro label felt so final and definitive, when the aro identity, by nature, is hard to figure out/’prove’ because you can’t prove a negative. I can’t prove that I will never experience romantic attraction; it’s entirely possible that I will, in the future. Hell, I can’t even really prove that I haven’t in the past; there were several instances where I very well might’ve gotten genuine crushes.

But ultimately? Being aro made me happy. The idea of being aro was appealing in a way that being romantically attracted to people/dating never was. For me, at least, being aro is honestly more about making the choice to reject society’s planned romantic path than about the certainty that I will never experience romantic attraction; I feel no desire to ever experience it, the instances in the past that might’ve been romantic attraction annoyed me immensely, and the aro community and the aro label make me happy in a way that I never was when I didn’t have those. I might experience romantic attraction in the future. I might have experienced it in the past. But, ultimately, I cannot relate to the alloromantic experience at all, so either way, I’m somewhere on the aro spectrum, and the ‘aromantic’ identity makes me feel happy, so I’m using it and you physically cannot stop me.

(Obviously, this isn’t a universal experience: many aro people still have the desire to date/marry/have a romantic relationship, many aro people still experience some form of romantic attraction, many aro people may struggle with internalized self hate due to being aromantic or mourn the loss of their pre-planned romantic lifepath, or experience being aromantic in a completely different way. This is just my personal experience, and I wish I’d heard it when I was questioning, so I try to tell it to questioning aros now that I have the chance to do so.)

So, to close, I’ll repeat the same thing I always say to questioning people: ultimately, it’s more important that you’re happy with a label than that it fits. If identifying as aromantic, quoiromantic, or any other arospec identity makes you feel right, happy, or gives you the language to talk about your experiences in a way that you currently can’t, then you shouldn’t worry too much about whether or not the label technically fits, honestly. If IDing as panromantic makes you happy and accurately gives you language to talk about your experiences/describe your feelings, then there may be no need to ID as arospec, even if you fit the definitions. But if IDing as arospec makes you happy or helps you in any way, you can always start IDing as such, even if you’re not sure, don’t entirely fit the definitions, or if you later change your label.

#aro stuff #asks #my posts #Anonymous

83 notes · View notes

s-cornelius · 5 years

Text

Defining Queer: An Ontological and Epistemological Discussion of Queerness

To start with, I’m not a philosopher and I’m not a sociologist. I’m just a linguist who likes to talk about stories and use jargon-y words. I’ve been in fandom (in some form or another) since the late 90s, and I’m a bisexual/queer ciswoman married to a man. I say all of this so you understand where I’m coming from (my positionality, if you’re nasty).

I’m writing this piece because I see a lot of people in fandom spaces using terms like “queer”, “cishet”, “queerbaiting”, and others. I find use of these terms to generally be vague, misleading, or just downright wrong. There seems to be consensus in fandom that these are Important Things to talk about, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on what they mean. So, as a queer woman who has engaged in fandom for 20 years, I want to talk about the idea of queerness and what it means to be queer.

So, in this essay, I’m going to address three major questions:

What does it mean for an individual to be queer?

What does it mean for a relationship to be queer?

What does it mean for a piece of media to be queer?

I’m going to argue that for an individual to be queer is an ontological and epistemological issue, for a relationship to be queer is just epistemology, and for a piece of media to be queer is an epistemology plus diegesis. I’ll explain what these words mean (and how I’m going to use them), and I’ll have some sources sprinkled throughout. It’s generally Bad Academic Practice to source Wikipedia, but for the sake of accessibility and ease of explanation, Wikipedia is a good source for this essay.

Ok, so let’s define some terms. I’m going to start with the most obvious, but also perhaps the hardest to pin down: queer.

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning "strange" or "peculiar", queer came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community. (x)

So there are a few major takeaways for the word queer. The first one is that queer is inclusive--it’s an umbrella term. The second one is that it describes people who are not heterosexual and/or cisgender. A definition by saying “we are not x” is actually not a great definition, so we’ll come back to this point later. The third one is that queer is political, and it always has been; crucially, queer does not equal LGBT.

Now on to the jargon: ontology and epistemology both come from the field of philosophy, and diegesis has its origins in Greek theater, but I hear it mostly used now to talk about film.

Ontology is the study of being. Ontology asks questions like what is a thing? what exists? What categories of things are there? So, for my purposes, when I talk about ontology, I’m talking about categorization and identity. What are the labels we give ourselves? What categories do we sort ourselves into? How do we identify ourselves?

Epistemology is the related study of knowing. Epistemology asks questions like how do we know something is true? how do we define truth? how do we make justifications? For my purposes, epistemology has a lot to do with how we define social truths and norms. What is true about human gender/sexuality/etc.? How does queerness affect one’s beliefs? I use worldview as a kind of short hand for epistemology in this essay, though epistemology is really only one part of a person’s worldview. But, for my purposes, worldview works just fine.

Diegesis refers to anything within a narrative text--characters, plot, setting, etc. are all diegetic (or intradiegetic). Things outside the text, like the score of a movie or the UI of a videogame, are extradiegetic.

Ok now that we have all the jargon down, let’s tackle the first question: What does it mean for an individual to be queer?

As I previewed above, I define queerness for an individual to be a matter of both ontology and epistemology. I want to come back to the definition of queer here, specifically the part that defines queerness as “not cisgender and heterosexual”. This is a bad category ontologically speaking, because the definition doesn’t point to all the things that make up this category, but rather the things that don’t. Queerness, in this definition, is a catch-all; I’m not sure that’s really an accurate way to think of queerness. At least in linguistics, the catch-all category is for the default, unmarked cases, and queerness is not that at all.

So I’m going to switch things up a little and change this part of the definition. Instead of defining queer by what it’s not, I’m going to define queer epistemologically. Queerness is not just not being heterosexual/cisgender, but a rejection of the heteronormativity (“the belief that heterosexuality, predicated on the gender binary, is the norm or default sexual orientation”). This rejection may derive from social ostracization and condemnation from same-gender attraction/behavior and/or gender non-conforming, but ultimately is not quite the same thing as LGBT.

Queerness and Queer Theory seek to deconstruct notions and norms of gender, sexuality, and all of the social baggage that comes along with them. Therefore, being asexual and/or aromantic is inherently queer as these identities are a rejection of social expectations for behavior. This deconstructionist impulse may even be at odds with people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or transgender. For example, Natalie Wynn, in her video about Pronouns, discusses that her desire to be perceived as a woman is inherently counter to someone who seeks to eradicate or seriously challenge the gender binary (as with non-binary individuals).

None of this is to say that an individual person can’t identify as both L, G, B or T and also queer, but this is where we come back to ontology. Ontology has to do with how we identify and how we make categories. For example, I use both bisexual and queer to identify myself. I use bisexual because I experience sexual and romantic attraction to more than one gender, and I use queer because it includes this idea of challenging gender and sexual norms (and also it doesn’t necessitate explanation of all the details of my gender/sexuality).

Therefore, one person’s use of queer to describe themselves is both ontological, because they are defining and categorizing themself, and epistemological, because being queer is essentially a lens through which to know the world.

So, if an individual’s queerness is a mix of identity and worldview, what about a relationship?

A relationship can’t have an identity the same way that an individual human can, i.e. a relationship can’t pick a category for it to belong to because it’s not a sentient entity. Americans can categorize relationships by the genders of the people in that relationship--heterosexual for man+woman, homosexual for man+man or woman+woman. These categorizations, of course, exclude relationships that have more than two people, and people whose genders are not “man” or “woman”. But this still isn’t really the same thing as me, an individual person, choosing to use bisexual to label myself.

Therefore, a queer relationship isn’t really the same thing as a homosexual relationship, though they may overlap. Queerness, in a relationship, is entirely epistemological. How does the relationship operate?

Traditional heterosexual relationships (at least in 20th/21st century USA) privilege the man, and the woman is subservient. Men work outside the home and women raise children/do domestic work. Men and women in a traditional heterosexual relationship are supposed to have all of their emotional, physical, etc. needs met by their partner. Traditional heterosexual relationships are monogamous, both sexually and emotionally.

But a queer relationship questions accepted social norms. A queer relationship may not be monogamous, it may reject the traditional gender dynamic, and so on. What I’m ultimately saying is that a heterosexual relationship, that is a man and a woman in a relationship, can be queer. This is because queer relationship does not equal homosexual. I’ll give two examples.

I’ll start with the easier example: a heterosexual relationship only requires one man and one woman, but makes no stipulation that the man and woman have to be cisgender. There are plenty of transmen exclusively attracted to women and transwomen exclusively attracted to men. Just because the make up of their relationship is man+woman, doesn’t mean that their relationship isn’t queer. The queerness is baked in because they themself may be queer.

The second example seems to be more emblematic of a sticking point for some people. I am married to a heterosexual man, but we are in a queer relationship. Because I am queer, and it affects how I respond to social norms, I also reject heteronormativity in my romantic relationship. My husband and I have been together for almost 13 years and married for 3; for the longest time, I did not want to get married because the idea of marriage, specifically the traditional idea of marriage, disgusted me. To me, marriage is the realm of religion and the state, neither of which I wanted to be particularly involved in my relationship. The reasons we ended up getting married were practical (I now have health insurance!), but also because my husband is a big ol’ romantic and we compromised (we get married and I keep my name). This is just one example of how my notions of gender/sexual expectations have been a part of my relationship, but there are plenty of others. Also I am visibly queer and waiters often think we need two checks when we eat out together. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(If you want to see someone else talk about this, I recommend looking into Erika Moen’s autobiographical work. This tweet thread is just one example of her discussing being queer and being married to a man.)

Therefore, queer relationships are not about identity, but rather how the epistemology of one or both or all people in a relationship affects the operation and function of that relationship. A queer relationship is one that rejects heteronormativity, not one that exclusively consists of people of the same gender. This makes it sound like if a cisgender heterosexual man and cisgender heterosexual woman are in a relationship, it could potentially be queer, which I think is the fear of anyone who pushes back on the possibility of a man and a woman being in a queer relationship together. However, if the two individuals in a relationship are both cisgender and heterosexual, neither of them has rejected heteronormativity in one way or another (even if they have non-traditional gender roles in the relationship). Therefore, if at least one person in a relationship is queer (whether they be asexual, gender non-conforming, homo/bisexual, etc.) the whole relationship is queer.

Finally, I get to stories: What makes a particular piece of media queer?

As discussed for individual identity and relationships, a piece of media is queer because it has a queer epistemology. There is a way of constructing truth in a narrative that rejects heteronormativity, but it is important to discuss whether this rejection happens in the text of the work (diegetic) or the rejection is in social context in which the work was created (extradiegetic).

One interesting example is the Imperial Radch books by Ann Leckie. In these books, the main political force in the story doesn’t distinguish gender in its pronouns. Therefore, everyone the main character encounters is “she” regardless of their biology or gender identity. Within the story (diegetically), this is not queer. This is the established norm of a very large and powerful people, and just a function of their language. Now, outside the story (extradiegetically), the use of “she” is queer af. This is a deliberate choice by the author to question our assumptions about what is “normal” and “default”.

Steven Universe does something similar by having a race of sentient space rocks who only use “she” as their pronouns. Extradiegetically, this again challenges ideas about how the gender binary is “supposed” to work, plus the space rocks demonstrate a wide range of expressions of femininity. Within the story (diegetically), we see metaphorical of rejection of heteronormativity, specifically through Garnet and her story. Therefore, Steven Universe is both epistemologically and diegetically queer.

Does this make Steven Universe more queer than the Imperial Radch books? Maybe it does.

For me, Steven Universe “feels” queer, while the Imperial Radch books don’t. I really love the Imperial Radch books and the way they make you actively think about how “she” is generally not considered the default pronoun. But this is all outside the text. I engage with the text as a person in a particular social context where women are lower on the social hierarchy than men, but the characters in the Imperial Radch books don’t share this social context. The construction of social order for the gems in Steven Universe, to contrast, is similar to my social context, so both within the text and outside the text, Steven Universe is queer. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t a certain amount of subjectivity here, but for me, a queer show is one that is both diegetically and extradiegetically queer.

This brings me to queerbaiting, a word that seems to mean almost anything in fandom. I’ve discussed what queerbaiting is and how to define it here and here, but I wanted to come back to the definition from @rainbofiction:

“Queerbaiting is clinging to the heteronormative interpretation on the surface of things, and refusing to invalidate it, but still trying to present a queer reading in the background; metaphorically selling the hetero story from the front door, and the queer story out back.”

Queerbaiting is not necessarily ship tease, though there seems to be some conflation of the two. I’ve seen it used to discuss Sherlock, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Voltron, Once Upon a Time, and other shows. I think queerbaiting as an idea can really only exist in an episodic format, since (save for streaming shows) you don’t get the story all at once. By being presented the story and characters bit by bit, you as a viewer don’t engage with the story as something full and complete, but instead the story as it’s being built. Because you don’t have the full story, your understanding and interpretation of the work can be affected by the text itself of course (diegetic material), but also all the extradiegetic and paratextual stuff that exists alongside the work.

Let’s think about books for a moment, specifically self-contained, standalone novels. Let’s pretend that Pride & Prejudice were not a complete story presented all at once, but rather released chapter by chapter with weeks or months passing between each chapter. If you started reading from the beginning of the work, you might make up your mind from the beginning that Darcy is the worst, and you and your friends talk about how Darcy is just awful and that Wickham fellow is soooo much better for Elizabeth. You might expect the work to continue to justify your position (coming back to epistemology), but it purposefully does not do that. Elizabeth and Darcy grow and change over the course of the novel, and end in a place of love and mutual respect.

But imagine Pride & Prejudice were released in the internet age, and you’ve spent a year (or two! Or five!) waiting for the end of the book to come, and then … this? After you’ve spent all this time engaging with people, creating fanworks, speculating about this idea of Elizabeth and Wickham, and in the end you are not rewarded by canon for your investment.

This is what queerbaiting feels like. But does that mean this is what queerbaiting is?

When I’ve discussed queerbaiting before, I’ve argued that queerbaiting is so difficult to identify because it requires two elements: 1) legitimate queer subtext, and 2) intent by the author(s) to mislead or swindle the audience. Queerbaiting is also tricky to talk about because if the work is incomplete (i.e. released episode by episode over time), you just cannot know if you’re being queerbaited.

I personally don’t want to conflate queerbaiting with shipping, because I do think they are two discrete issues, but this conflation seems to be the only way fandom talks about queerbaiting. To demonstrate, I’ll talk about The Magicians (the TV show).

To start with, The Magicians is a queer show. The show frequently challenges assumptions about heteronormativity--specifically the idea of soulmates/destiny in love, and that one person + another person = happiness and fulfillment. We even have an analog of queerness as a social taboo, with human/animal relationships in Fillory. Therefore, epistemologically, The Magicians is queer.

The Magicians also has multiple LGBT characters, at least three of which are main characters. No one on the show has told us the audience how they identify, but we have seen Margo, Eliot and Quentin express same gender attraction in one form or another. Diegetically, The Magicians is queer.

So, now that I’ve show that The Magicians is both epistemologically and diegetically queer, let’s talk about why the q-baiting word is used in discussions of this show.

This season had a landmark episode (4x05) that essentially sets up romantic feelings between two men (Quentin and Eliot) as a pillar of the narrative of this season. The boys didn’t get together (for lots of reasons) in that episode, but that episode made it clear that they both love each other, and that love is driving both of them the rest of the season. But in recent episodes, one of the boys, who has already been established to be bisexual, gets back together with his ex-girlfriend.

To summarize: The Magicians set up the expectation that Quentin and Eliot will be together in some capacity (though the show overall seems less concerned with ideas like “soulmates” and “endgame” but that’s another essay for another time), but at this point, it has not followed through. Like with my P&P example, I understand why this feels like queerbaiting, but is it?

I’m going to start with the ontological perspective: Quentin is bisexual regardless of the gender of his romantic and/or sexual partner. However, Quentin isn’t a real person, and as I’ve talked about already, ontology doesn’t really work for entities that aren’t living, breathing people. Quentin hasn’t told us the viewers that he’s bi, so all we have to go on is her behavior (something that should never ever ever be used to talk about a real life person’s sexual/gender identity)--his actions as a fictional character in a narrative.

So looking at his behavior, at this one time slice in an ongoing story, it can appear like the expectations for a romantic relationship between Quentin and Eliot will not be met. But this comes back to the problem of episodic storytelling. It is impossible at this point to say “well I guess Quentin and Eliot aren’t endgame, hence queerbaiting” because the story isn’t over. We have one more episode to go in this season and (at least) another season on the horizon. Who knows what will happen between now and then.

Additionally, as discussed before, The Magicians is epistemologically queer. The Magicians is not giving us a heteronormative story with queer subtext--the queerness is inherent to the text (and not just because there are LGBT characters). So taking shipping out of the equation for a moment, The Magicians is not queer by subtext or interpretation; The Magicians is queer because it overtly rejects heteronormativity.

Here’s some ways it does this:

Eliot (a mostly gay man) and Fen (a woman) come to care for each other despite having an arranged marriage. They have a romantic, sexual, and familial relationship.

Penny40 and Kady were in love, but Penny23 loves Julia. Relationships aren’t set in stone, there is not one person “meant” for another.

Whenever expectations of straightness and man-ness are mentioned in text (see Hyman and Penny’s supervisor in the Underworld branch)

This is a non-exhaustive list, but it demonstrates how heterosexuality and all the other social expectations that come with it are explicitly deconstructed by the show. Therefore, The Magicians cannot queerbait because it is diegetically and epistemologically queer.

Ok, so I’ve covered a lot of ground, but here are my major points:

Queer =/= LGBT, though the two do overlap. Queerness is a rejection of heteronormativity; it is radical, deconstructionist and political.

An individual being queer is different from a relationship being queer or a show being queer.

An individual’s queerness is a matter of identity (ontology) and worldview (epistemology).

A relationship is queer through the way it operates, the way it rejects heteronormative assumptions about how relationships should operate (epistemology).

A piece of media is queer through worldview (epistemology) but how much of that is baked into the text (diegesis) is important too

Queerbaiting is often conflated with shipping (specifically shipping on non-canon m/m and f/f pairings), but they are two separate issues.

It is impossible to know if expectations about a m/m or f/f ship will be met while the story is still in progress.

A piece of media cannot queerbait if it is epistemologically queer.

The reason I sat down and wrote this was to work through my feelings about what it means to be queer, and why I have always felt a little uncomfortable with the word “queerbaiting”. Queerness is something that is constructed in many ways, and I haven’t even really discussed much of the political or community issues. Ultimately it’s up to each of us as individuals to critically engage with both fiction as it portrays queerness, and how we police each other and reinforce categories. I think this essay can provide some framework for that engagement.

This was not written to invalidate anyone’s feelings; if you personally feel let down by a piece of media, you are entitled to those feelings. However, fandom can very quickly become an echo chamber, and rather than reinforce feelings, good or bad, I offer this framework as an alternative. It can helps us answer questions like : How does media construct queerness? Is it epistemological? Is it diegetic? Does it replicate expectations of heterosexual relationships but with people of the same gender? Does it stereotype? And by answering these questions, we can get to the heart of queerbaiting, both as a feeling and as something that exists in the world.

------

This essay comes out of many many long talks about gender and sexuality and queerness with @messier51. Her perspective helped me get my thoughts in order!!!

#gender and sexuality #the magicians #queerbaiting #tm meta #queliot #idk really what else to tag this as #philosophy #queer theory

124 notes · View notes

dylexic-words · 5 years

Text

Fictober 2019 Day 1—“It will be fun, trust me.”

“I wasn’t expecting you, Walter. Is there something wrong with your prosthetic?”

“No, ma’am. I’m here to see Ed. Is he home?”

“He’s been holed up in his room all morning. Maybe you can get him to come out.”

Edward stirred at the sound of Walter’s and Pinako’s voices echoing down the hall. He didn’t remember falling asleep. Although his goal that morning had been to get some long neglected research done, it had been incredibly hard to actually bring himself to pay attention to the words in his alchemy books. Lately his thoughts had been left to wander in every attempt he made to get anything done—and his attempts often ended in frustration, and a nagging sense of inadequacy.

His attention was drawn to the gentle knock on his door.

“Ed? Are you up?”

With a tired grunt, he pushed himself off his bed (and crumpled notes) and went to answer the door.

“What do you want, Walter?”

He hadn’t meant to come off quite so aggressively, but the frown on his friend’s face instantly made him regret even getting up to answer the door. Edward was about to apologize, but Walter spoke first.

“You look terrible. When was the last time you brushed your hair?”

Edward ran a hand through his greasy, knotted hair.

“I guess it’s been a while.”

Walter’s frown deepened.

“All right, that’s it. I know you haven’t seen sunlight in days. You’re coming with me to the Sheep Festival.”

That made Edward pause. The last time he had gone to the festival, Winry had still been alive. He had come home because Winry had called him only days before to tell him that she was pregnant. They went on a date to the Sheep Festival the same day he got back to celebrate.

It was only a year ago, but to him it felt like a whole lifetime had passed since that day. For the first time in a very long time, he had known peace and happiness.

Those two things didn’t seem to like to stay with him. He thought he would never have to feel this way after he got his brother’s body back and their long journey had finally come to an end. And even if something happened, he thought he would be more prepared. He had learned to cope with his mother's death, given everything that had happened, and when he began his travels once more, he was able to finally start healing from Nina’s tragic loss. And although he would never forget that Hoenheim abandoned them all those years ago, the anger he once felt had faded when his body was found kneeling before his mother’s grave. His death made him sad to think about, but Edward felt peace knowing that his father had died with a smile on his face.

He thought he would be prepared for the rest of his life. He never thought that he would lose Winry—not now.

The idea of going to the Sheep Festival left him feeling hollow and empty. It was a reminder of everything he had lost.

Suddenly, all Edward wanted to do was go back to bed.

“I don’t really want to go to the festival, actually,” Edward said. “I’ve been to it enough times.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun, trust me.”

“How would you know? You’re not from Risembool.”

“Fair,” Walter chuckled, “but it’s better than sitting in your room all day. Don’t you think you’ll feel better if you go out and do something?”

Edward scoffed. He took a step back, as if trying to dodge a blow.

“That’s not how it works. It’d be really nice if going outside was all it took to solve all of my problems, but that’s not how life works. Besides, why do you care? Why do you care what I do with my life?”

Walter sighed. He looked down, avoiding Edward’s gaze.

“I know it’s not that simple. I know you’ve been dealing with a lot, and I know grief isn’t something you can just get over. But I also know that it hurts a lot more than it has to when you cut yourself off from the world and everyone in it. And the thing is…” Walter hesitated. “...you helped me. Now I want to help you. We don’t have to go to the festival if you don’t want to, but let me help you. I haven’t seen you in weeks, and I’m worried about you.”

That was strange. He had thought he had done well in keeping his distance. Lately it seemed, when he distanced himself from people, he got the space that he wanted, and nobody was able to reach him again. He had convinced his brother not to worry, he helped Pinako as much as he could so she wouldn’t worry as much about the time he spent isolated or asleep, and most people in Risembool didn’t know him beyond the surface. They were all aware of Winry’s death, because she was a well-known automail engineer, and news traveled fast in the small town of Risembool. But it seemed nobody had bothered to really know how he was doing, because he was able to keep that distance, and perhaps because he was the Fullmetal Alchemist.

So, it seemed strange that someone cared enough to call him out on his bluff after all he had done to maintain it.

“All right, fine. I’m not doing this for long though. Just enough to get you off my back.”

Walter smiled.

“It’ll take more than that, Elric.”

…

This is VERY rough and possibly very ooc, but I really wanted to participate in Fictober this year, so I’m trying not to care too much about that haha.

I’ve had this idea for an AU based after the ending of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood for a while now. The concept is this—Winry dies while giving birth to her and Edward’s child, and Edward is left to grieve. This triggers lots of unresolved issues with his mental health, so he just kinda breaks, and cuts himself off from the people he cares about. He stays in Risembool and ends up helping Pinako run the automail business and helping patients with minor injuries. (Pretty sure Pinako is the only doctor, right? It’s been a few months since I rewatched FMAB.) Then one day, a man is rushed in after a freak accident, where he ends up losing his leg. (It either needs to be amputated or it was lost in the accident, honestly I have no idea at the moment. All I do know is that my character Walter is not getting automail, but he does get a prosthetic, since they make non-automail prosthetics?) Edward gets to know this man, and they develop a friendship that eventually turns into something more.

I wanted to write a fic like this for a couple reasons. First, I’ve been dealing with a lot of grief since the beginning of the year, and this is a healthy way to process it.

Another reason is because I really wanted to write about Edward dating a guy, but I don’t ship him with any male characters in canon, so logically the next step is to create a male OC so I can write a really gay slowburn FMA fic. I’m not 100% sure what Ed’s sexuality would be, since I’m personally not comfortable using labels (I label myself under the gay/queer umbrella term because nothing else seems right), but I don’t want this to be an “Ed realizes he’s actually gay” fic since I’m for the most part basing this off canon. That seems disrespectful to Winry, and I actually really like her as a character. EdWin is also a really cute ship. The truth is, I just like making my favorite characters suffer lol.

I don’t know much about Walter as an OC yet, except that he has his own mental health issues and he’s hella gay.

I really like the concept of this fic, but I’m not sure when I’ll start writing chapters. It really depends on how Fictober goes. The point of me doing this is to get me back into the habit of writing after years of depression and garbage self esteem holding me back, but hhhhh. Balancing school and work and depression/anxiety is really hard. *shrug*

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed. Don’t expect every day to have this high of a word count—I’m trying not to set myself up for failure by being grossly unrealistic in my word count. Today was just a lucky/unlucky day. (It’s very late. D:) And for my VLD followers, I am definitely planning on posting VLD content this month, so stay tuned! I’m doing a little bit of everything!

#fanfic #dylexa #dylexic-words #fictober #fma #fmab #fullmetal alchimist brotherhood #fullmetal alchemist #au #oc #edward elric #major character death #fanfiction #fictober 2019 #this is very rough #depression #grief

12 notes · View notes

firecoloredwater · 5 years

Text

Ace representation gives me weird feelings.

This was originally posted on pillowfort, and is being reposted here for the September 2019 Carnival of Aces.

To be 100% clear: I AM ACE. (And aro, and the concept of gender gives me approximately the same feelings as the concept of being covered in live spiders, which I will grudgingly/squeamishly refer to as being agender or nonbinary when a label is required.) Relevantly: ace.*

I began to identify as ace when I first heard the word, and had an "oh" moment. (Or rather, multiple simultaneous "oh" moments. "Oh that's a thing" and "oh maybe my classmates aren't all just faking relationships to mimic TV" are the two I remember most clearly.) It was July, and at the time I was fifteen; I'm currently 28, so that's a bit over 13 years. I'll skip the full journey, but the point is, this is an identity that I've had for a while and am comfortable with.

Despite that, ace characters in fiction give me weird feelings. I mostly end up metaphorically staring at fiction which I know contains ace characters, going "hrmmmm I can't parse exactly what feeling I'm having, but I'm not enjoying it," to the point where I sometimes end up avoiding them entirely. I doubt I'll be able to analyze all of why, but I'd like to at least try to start.

I'm also not referring to bad representation, or even to representation that focuses heavily on angst/suffering/prejudice. Several years ago I read a large chunk of Shades of A (which, for anyone unfamiliar and about to click that link, includes a lot of kink and general adult themes; since it's been years I can't recall exactly what's in it) which was, from what I recall, very well done, and then I hit a point where I just... couldn't make myself keep going. More recently I've heard several times about Every Heart a Doorway and thought 'that appeals to literally everything I want in fiction that I can think of' and then... not read it.

On the other hand, if a character is called asexual or characterized in a way that I can easily interpret as their being asexual, but it's not a major focus of the story or descriptions/advertisements/reviews thereof, I don't have the same reaction. So for the rest of this post I'm just going to be discussing the former category (fiction with asexual representation that does give me weird feelings), and not addressing works that have an asexual or easily-read-as-asexual characters without giving me the weird feelings about it. (The only real explanation I have for why a work falls in one category or another is the 'is it a major focus' question, so I don't think I can get anything useful out comparing them.)

Some of this, I'm sure, is that I'm just generally low on energy; I'm not reading much of anything that isn't fanfic right now. But I tend to avoid fanfic tagged or described as having an asexual character too, so it's not just that.

The most obvious source is just that ace characters are unfamiliar. There are a handful around now, even in mainstream media, but that wasn't true until I was in my 20s. (Unless, of course, you counted the monsters/aliens/serial killers, and even then it was only the monsters/aliens/serial killers that the creator wanted to emphasize were really, really inhuman, even more than your typical monster/alien/serial killer. And I was never fond of horror anyway.) So ace characters stand out to me in a way that straight characters (and gay or lesbian ones, thanks largely to the Valdemar series) don't. That extra attention-catching element can in itself make the representation feel weird and off on a level that's often subconscious and therefore difficult to dissect. Again, though, while I think this is likely to be an element, I don't think it's the only reason.

I think some of it is the expectation—mine, but absorbed from a more general one—that if an asexual character is present, that should be the character that I most strongly (or even exclusively) identify with and connect to. But that's often difficult: Anwar from Shades of A, for example, I have prettymuch nothing in common with except for being ace, our general age range, and maaaybe some of the social awkwardness and tendency toward geekiness that 98.5% of characters on the internet have. I spent a lot of the time I was trying to read the comic being frustrated at every significant decision Anwar made because, while I probably would not have made better decisions, I certainly would have made different ones, and couldn't bring myself to empathize with his reasoning or priorities in any but one minor aspect.

And again, it's not that he's a bad character, it's just that he and I have nothing in common. But I felt like I ought to empathize with him—I'm pretty sure he was the first ace character I ever encountered, so obviously I should empathize with him strongly and immediately and easily, right? Not even "I should be able to," just I should, like saying the sun should rise in the morning, it's expected to just happen. And because of that I couldn't pick another character to identify with (JD is nonbinary! Chris and I have the same hair color! From what I remember they both have a more similar personality to me than Anwar does!) and I also couldn't just let myself gradually develop an understanding of Anwar's thought processes and start empathizing with him over time, because I was supposed to identify with him yesterday. (Or rather, at least five years ago.)

(To be clear: none of this is something I was thinking consciously at the time, I was just frustrated with Anwar's decisions and didn't really analyze it further until like, two hours ago. But from my current perspective, I think this is what was going on.)

Since I haven't actually read Every Heart a Doorway I of course can't be sure the same thing would happen, but I think I've avoided it because I expect it to. From the summary it sounds like the main character is maybe fifteen or so, and the majority if not all major characters are mid-to-late teens? So I'd be reading the book more as an observer than projecting myself among them, which is fine and often a thing I enjoy in fiction (because I'm way too empathetic and that distance helps tone down my distress at every little thing ever). But with an asexual main character... well, I wouldn't quite feel guilty about not identifying with her, but I'd be conscious of it the entire time I was reading in a way that would be distracting, and wouldn't be enjoyable.

Another possible element is that I tend to avoid fiction (and fanfic) in which a romantic relationship is the primary plot. Since the majority of all fiction is romance, logically the majority of fiction with ace characters will be as well, and 'has an ace character' isn't enough to make me interested. I think there's also a chance that romance fiction is in fact more likely to have an ace character, and/or to be labeled as having one (particularly in the case of fandom/fanfic/original work in fandom-derived areas). A creator whose primary story focus is the characters' romantic and sexual relationships is more likely to consider the characters' romantic and sexual orientations, and therefore more likely to explicitly call a character asexual (whether in the story itself, a summary/description, or tags). Trying to read a story with an asexual character but being bored because it's a romance gives me about the same not-quite-guilty-but-not-comfortable feeling as being unable to identify with an asexual character does.

When I was in college I explained Asexuality 101 to various people or groups of people at various times, and one of the things I found myself explaining a lot is that "asexual" is actually just as much an umbrella term as "queer" or "trans" is. Even without including demisexuality and the gray-a spectrum in the term (which at the time as far as I knew, at least, the most common approach was to just say "asexuality and gray-asexuality" if you wanted to discuss both) "asexual" includes asexuals of every romantic orientation and aroaces and people who prefer not to use the construct of romantic orientation, asexuals who are repulsed and who enjoy sex and who don't care too much either way, asexuals who lack attraction or libido or both or who experience both but are asexual anyway, because humans are complicated and sexuality is complicated and human sexuality is, therefore, utterly bizarre, and it would be weirder if asexuality (or any sexuality) were easy to define.**

And I think that's a factor too; there are asexual people whose experience of What It's Like To Be Asexual will have not one single thing in common with my experience of being asexual, and so a character that perfectly represents them will just leave me confused. Which gets back to the thing about asexuality not really being sufficient for me to identify with a character, and the way that that fact runs into my expectation that it should be sufficient. Like walking down a sidewalk, pausing to do something, then looking up and discovering a wall half an inch from my nose. It's not painful, but it's jarring and annoying and I kind of want to look around and check if anyone saw that, because if so I'll be embarrassed about it.

(And I expect that most likely there are other factors, but I'm not coming up with them right now and this is long enough already, so I'll wind down here.)

I don't think this is a problem, or something that needs to be fixed; if "I'm not consuming the fiction that I would have expected myself to consume" is a problem at all, it's definitely the most minor one I've ever experienced. If it does need to be fixed (or prevented), I think that "have more ace representation so it's not a Rare New Extraordinary Thing all the time" is probably the solution, and I'm pretty sure that aces are already in favor of more well done ace representation in fiction.

But it's still an experience, and it's been gnawing at my brain for months, so I'm posting this and... well, we'll see if and what use people make of it. Has anyone else had the same or a similar experience? Any thoughts on other factors which I didn't think of? Some other related thing I missed?

*I'm not discussing aromantic or agender or nonbinary representation/my reactions to it because 1: asexuality is by far my "primary" identity (in the sense that it's significant to how I define and think of myself, while being aromantic and agender are just sort of... facts that forms sometimes request; probably largely because I settled on both those identities much later), and 2: frankly I haven't encountered aromantic or agender representation enough or in the right ways to experience this dynamic with them. Or any dynamic, really.

**If you want to argue with me about the definition of What Is Really Truly Actually Asexual and how something I included Doesn't Count, please make a separate post and like, send me a link or something if you really want my opinion specifically. My opinion is pretty firm but I'm willing to discuss it in good faith, but it's not the point of this post and I'd rather not go off on that tangent here. Same if you want to argue that gray-asexuality ought to by default be included with the term 'asexual;' I don't honestly care either way on that one, I'm just describing the vocabulary I was familiar with at the time.

#asexuality #asexual #asexual representation #ace #Carnival of Aces September 2019 #repost from pillowfort

5 notes · View notes

arojenniferwalters · 5 years

Text

No canon straight characters; using labels needed for canonicity? and period accuracy in fanfic

These are some random thoughts I have on couple of posts I've seen on my dash lately, so I'm just randomly writing down my thoughts:

1) most characters are not actually straight on canon because they don't specifically say 'I'm straight' or 'i'm only romantically and sexually attracted to people of the so called opposite gender'.

This is very true. In fact, most character never identify as straight unless there are non-straight or trans characters in the work as a counterpoint. Grace Adler says she's straight. Jennifer Walters is not lesbian. Peter whatever from Doubt is still straight when dating a trans woman. Kenzi from Lost Girl reciprocates Bo's coming out.

I recently wrote a long meta on another sideblog about how a character never identifies as straight and how the writing and portrayal lead to credible non-straight interpretations even though I know he's supposed to be straight.

So basically, straight characters are usually explicitly straight when it's known that not everyone is. If there exists character who are trans or not straight, other characters then might also express their straightness in response.

But mostly it's cisheteronormativity that makes us accept that unless they state otherwise, they are supposed to be cis and straight.

(Of course this gets complicated when we talk about rep bcus 'they didn't say they aren't x or y' doesn't really count as proper rep. But it's complicated, but like headcanons are fair game. Like, 'you shouldn't hc this canon straight character as not straight' isn't a good argument, because few character actually *are* canon straight. Most characters just have the potential to be or are in m/f pairings but that doesn't mean that straight is the only thing they can be.)

2) Labels are great. Labels tell people without a doubt who that character is and it is incredibly validating to see characters identify the same way you do (shoutout to Aled Last!). But does a character need to use a label to properly count as having this identity, if there is strong coding and word of god?

I'm conflicted. I really am. Because you can do a decent job of making characters gay/lesbian/m-spec without necessarily using a label (although not using it can be obnoxious, especially with m-spec characters), that's not necessarily the same with a-spec characters. Because there's not enough rep for us for people to read in and accept the subtext/coding. (Canon ace, coded aro is another issue but that's semi besides the point)

Here I'm mainly thinking of Raphael Santiago in books vs TV show, and comparing 2 word of god demi characters; Rivka of Mangoverse and Julian Blackthorn of The Dark Artifices.

So, book!Raphael for a long time was barely/maybe coded aroace and after he was killed off he became a word of god aroace through twitter. Then came 2017 and the tv show and new book appearances and suddenly he got to verbally say ace (and/or aro) things without using the label. I haven't read-read the books with that canonization yet but it seems to be very clear now that he is sex and romance repulsed aroace. Great.

The tv show canonized his aceness before the books did but they did it without using labels and basically making a mess of his romantic orientation (is he still aro? Arospec? Alloromantic who just didn't feel rom attraction much? He never did pursue a romantic relationship with Izzy after the addiction mess even though they acknowledged that they cared for each other, but was it romantic from Raph? We don't know! *throws hands in the air in frustration*).

As much as I love show!Raphael, "I'm just not interested in sex." isn't necessarily the best way to establish aceness. Mostly because if you google 'not interested in sex', you get articles on libido and how to increase it, with one article talking about aceness, but not in the title. But the fact that Raphael says he's always been like this, that he's never pressured into having sex and is at peace with his orientation does, to me, make it good rep. I still kinda wish he'd used a label though.

Then the demi rep: neither Rivka nor Julian identifies as demi in text. Shira Glassman didn't at first realize she was writing Rivka in a demi way, in fact the backcover identifies her as straight (kinda as a 'there will be no romantic tension between Rivka and Shulamit' way, similar to Bo and Kenzi in section 1). But when people mentioned that she seems like a hetro demi, Shira embraced that and while the world doesn't do labels the way we do, she is still demi. I love her and I am happy she exists and she is accepted demi rep.

Now, Julian is a different thing. In TDA, he is 17, the year is 2012 and the Internet exists. After the 2nd book, people started speculating that Julian is demi based on how he thinks about never being attracted to anyone but Emma, and how he had started to feel different from his peers when he didn't start experiencing attraction like they did. Someone asked about this from Cassandra Clare and she answered the ask privately, saying that if he was a modern, non-Shadowhunter teenager and he had access to information about the identity, that he would identify as demisexual. The issue is that considering the timeframe (2012) and everything about his situation, he doesn't have access to that label so he doesn't use it.

So. Here we have a canon demi character, based on coding and word of god who has semi realistic reason for not knowing the label and thus not identifying with it, even though he would if he could. But a lot of people don't want to accept that. And that's where my issues come from: Julian says and thinks some very demi things, and to me doesn't do anything that invalidates his deminess. Why is that not enough? Like, I absolutely want him to use that label, I want to read him say it and find comfort in it. But why is his character not demi rep enough because he doesn't use the word?

Rivka has similar reasons for not having the label (not our world and the terminology doesn't exist) and while I doubt there are that much overlap between the 2 fandoms, I am curious about the difference. Neither one is not identifying as demi because they aren't demi, they don't identify as demi because they don't know the identity exists. Yet both are still demi characters.

How much does a character have to emphasize that they've only ever been attracted to one person/very few people, with the author validating that reading, before they are acceptable demi rep?

Another point is Princeless: Raven the Pirate Princess. That one has at least one demi character and maybe two acearo characters but they don't use labels. I love them all, but I feel uncertain about talking about Cid as an aroace character because she hasn't been talked about in that way the way Jayla has been. And I love Quinn and I cried when I read that the (pirate) ship has characters who identify as demisexual in a creator letter, but again, no one is using a-spec labels. It's frustrating. But it doesn't invalidate the rep.

3) I think the level of knowledge characters have on queerness should be an in-character discussion. Like, I've written characters as demi without the character using the label; I've written characters discovering a label; I have one fic where there's little possibility of the character having knowledge of the identity (because it's possible the label hasn't been coined yet). I try to stay in character about whether the character would know or have use for label and keep in mind the timeframe. There's a demi pairing I can't really write because neither characters exist in 2006 and beyond. Someone once complained that a book published in 2003 didn't describe the character as demi when the label hadn't yet been created while asexual worked as an umbrella term which included demis, so it still makes sense that the character would identify as asexual.

I don't think it's wrong to have a character be very knowledgeable about queer things if that's what you want to write, whether or not that's in character or realistic within the timeframe. Fanfic is about self indulgeance after all.

Some of that relates to what I'm in the mood to write. My magnum opus is 'this character is demi in all 78 eps of the show, but he'll only figure it out towards the beginning of the last season, just because I want that' and then I have another that's 'screw it, he has a better idea about his queerness but realizes the full picture in s4'.

I do try to be period accurate and think about whether or not the character would have access to the term. But sometimes I just want to have my faves identifying the way I want them to.

4) These are some very random, semi connected thoughts and I'm not even quite sure what the point was. I just feel like writing more about these things.

I am interested in discussing these issues. How much coding does a character need to be accepted as proper rep if the label isn't used? Can rep be valid if a random person reading it doesn't realize that there is that specific coding? If the book has queer readers, is there more leeway (sp) to not using the label, assuming that people reading a book with bi and trans characters or an f/f might also pick up the demi/ace/aro coding? If the author unknowingly wrote a demi character, does it still count if they accept that reading of the character and keep writing them as demi?

Anyway that was a lot of randomness.

#idk how to tag this #my ramblessay

5 notes · View notes

shiroallura · 6 years

Note

I love shallura. I think shiro and allura's personalities compliment each other really well. But I wouldn't have let myself get so emotionally invested in the ship over the past two years if I knew shiro was gay from the start. I know they said they'd leave his orientation open to interpretation, but gay is going to be the go-to assumption for most people, leading to accusations of homophobia towards shallura. It just seems... irresponsible? of the writers to drop the revaluation this late.

gonna unpack this, bc there’s… a lot here.

“if I knew shiro was gay from the start” shiro can be bi or pan or gayace. and why can he be? see next point

(further more, shiro being mlm does not detract or change his conceviably romantic relationship with allura. bi and pan people exist too! queerness doesn’t change anything about shiro, especially in the shallura fandom where seeing him as mlm was very common, and shiro’s queerness is not dependent on the gender of the partner he’s with, nor if he’s by himself)

“i know they said they’d leave his orientation open to interpretation” they didn’t say they were going to. they said it, plan and simple, the fans can see what they want to see, and be represented in shiro in whatever way fits them, upon being asked about shiro and adam’s sexual orientations for the very first time. that’s canon.

“but gay is going to be the go-to assumption for most people” yeah. so? doesn’t mean you have to think that way too.

“leading to accusations of homophobia towards shallura.” other people attacking you for their ship doesn’t make them right. and if people do, it means they feel threatened by shallura, for some reason, and likely blame it as the reason the creators didn’t say shiro was solely attracted to men (which they never have, btw) and even if that turns out to be the case… who cares? queer people need to understand that a win for one of us is, at its core, a win for all of us, and if they can’t name good solely gay representation, then they need to broaden their horizons, work with creators, or make their own content. not harass other queer people in fandom over something that won’t even be a blimp on other people’s maps.

bi and pan shiro is not homophobic; or at least, if i saw him that way, people wouldn’t hate on me if i just shipped him with adam. aka implying that bi and pan people are only valid representation, or members of the lgbtq+ community when we’re in same sex relationships, which is… such utter bullshit and bi / pan-erasure. i’m panace whether i’m with a woman, a man, or a nonbinary person, and i’m fucking valid whether strangers who have nothing better do with their time like it or not. if someone tells you you’re homophobic for shipping shallura, it means they are ignoring the words of creator and the use of gay as an umbrella term because people like them have made ‘queer’ such a dirty word, and you can go tell them to fuck off, for all i care.

“It just seems… irresponsible? of the writers to drop the revaluation this late.” again: shiro can be mlm and in a relationship with allura. these things are not mutually exclusive. would i have liked shiro being m-spec to have been made known sooner, say s2? yes, because it means representation would have been more well known perhaps, and my bi shiro headcanon would have been made practically canon sooner too! Nothing else would have changed. Not my love for Shallura, and certainly not my investment in it, because it never needed to, and it still doesn’t.

Judging by your ask, it seems you’re more concerned with the state of the fandom, rather than the writers. My advice about the general VLD fandom is, like always: the fandom is dumb so just ignore them. They’re not your time, and appear to be watching such a different version of Voltron then the way you are a conversation isn’t even possible.

As someone who’s been in fandoms for seven years, I’m not kidding when I saw that the Voltron fandom, at large, is probably the stupidest fandom I’ve ever seen when it comes to how they interpret plotlines, characters, and development. (And now, in the wake of s7, it’s clear that LM and JDS aren’t much better, either.)

The sheer popularity of the Black Paladin Lance theory, which I’ve talked about here, demonstrates this almost wholly perfectly. More currently, the fandom’s rage over queerbaiting / bury your gays but not the ableism that surrounded and over shadowed it in massive ways.

As a queer writer who writes queer characters, I also know I’m going to be upfront with my main characters’ sexualities (aka characters who I know the sexualities of). It doesn’t matter if some of them are 11 when the books start, or don’t get a love interest in the end, or even at all. If someone asks me if a character is gay, or what a character’s sexuality is, I am going to answer truthfully. If someone asks me if one of my bi protagonists ends up with a boy or a girl, I am going to say a boy, because that is the version of this story I have chosen to write. If they want to write another, by all means they can! I would love for people to write all the wlw & mlm ships they want that don’t already exist in canon. I’m doing that because I want queer people to be able to connect and know that when they see themselves in these characters, that they’re seeing them as I intended, too. That they aren’t the ones doing the translating, the way they have with every other piece of media.

But even if I didn’t do all those things, having my bi-protag only have female love interests in the first two books and only mention an interest in boys doesn’t make her any less bi when she does end up with a boy. Same thing with other bi or pan women or men who end up in same or other sex relationships. Their queerness exists regardless of their relationship status, because they exist regardless of it. But the revelation that Shiro was queer, no matter how sloppily handled, perhaps, given what the writers knew would happen to Shiro (and Adam) s7, could never be irresponsible. Thoughtless and arrogant, perhaps, but never irresponsible.

I only wish the creators had actually given a single flying shit about him.

#dragons gets salty #realize this reply probs wasn't ur intention and not saying it is but yeah #here it is #anonymous #thanks for asking #bi shiro

54 notes · View notes

theletterformallyknownasq · 4 years

Text

Oluchi - September 13th, 2018

Me: How do you identify? Oluchi: So, to go down the list. I identify as a nonbinary, Ibo, Person. I use any pronouns. So with me, I understand the fluidity of gender. As it is. I actually don't care what gender pronouns people use for me. I do prefer people to switch it up just to validate all of my gender, not just an aspect that you want to see and want to gravitate towards. As far as my sexuality, I identify as Queer. Meaning, that I find love and sexual attraction to any gender or expression. I also identify romantically as a Queer romantic person. I find relationships with any type of person. My Ibo identity is obviously the culture that my parents grew up in and my ancestors are from. So I have the privilege of knowing what tribe I'm from. Which has given me a lot of validity in my identity. I like who I am as a person but [my identity] has also caused a lot of turmoil. Because of the imperialization of Africa, a lot of my ancestral religion is gone. And my parents don't even know what it is and my grandparents are now dead. Like, they wouldn't even know what it is. So that's been stripped away from me and now the only thing that I have is Christianity, which isn't what my ancestors practiced.

Me: Can you talk a little more about that feeling of 'turmoil'? I'm interested in the dynamic of how you identify with all of your identities, how they intersect, etc. Oluchi: Yeah. So are you saying when I was talking about my name or..? Me: That could fall into it, but more about your cultural identity...you know, like, no purer way of understanding that without the filtering of your family's heritage and lineage that have shaped their lives and how it's shaped you - does that make sense? Oluchi: Yeah. So, growing up, especially because I grew up in the suburbs of Minnesota, there was not a lot of diversity other than white folks. But when my parents emigrated here, they actually made a community organization, a non-profit, of all Ibo people whose specific vision and mission is to foster and uplift the Ibo culture in Minnesota. So when I was younger, I had a very very deep sense of who I was, ethnically. I knew all of our practices, I could speak the language, I was around Nigerian people and Ibo people specifically all of my life. Those are people that I would say that are "my cousins" which are not actually my cousins. But just because we grew up together in this very intentional community, I always had a sense of that piece of me. But because of the imperialization in Africa and just the widespread use of homophobia in Africa, I have had to suppress a lot of my gender and sexual identity to validate my ethnic identity as it stood in Minnesota. Also not knowing history because white people know how to erase history from different cultures. I never knew that my ancestors actually validated Queer people and Trans people and gender nonconforming folks and all I knew was just a Christian, tainted view of what my people were. How people say “African people are super homophobic" and all of these things that were brainwashed into me, made me kind of question my ethnic identity and wish I was a different ethnic identity. But then it made me question what my sexual and gender identity were because if I was Ibo, then there's no way that I could be gay or there's no way I could be gender nonconforming and nonbinary. That caused a lot of tension. Just thinking about why aren't my ethnic identities or my sexual and gender identity matching up. But through the work that I've been doing and the people that I've met, I've been really validated in knowing that this is who I was supposed to be. This is actually magic where I come from. These are special people. Me: What does 'Queer' mean to you? And do you think there is a mainstream definition for the term? Oluchi: Queer is the appreciation and ability to find beauty and attraction in any human being on this planet regardless of their identity and expression. The one thing that I've learned over the years - even throughout being in the LGBTQ+ community, whatever that means - is that expression does not equate to identity. Right? So, how you express yourself, or how you behave, does not necessarily equate to who you identify as. That works for ethnic identity, but then we get into the cultural appropriation piece that can also include gender identity. So when we talk about gender expression versus gender identity, someone that expresses super masculinely, but still identifies in a feminine way, or identifies as a woman - quote, unquote - if you want to use our current society structure of what gender is. It works for sexual identity and spheres of sexual behavior. Which means that someone's sexual behavior does not actually lead to sexual attraction. And that could be for many different reasons. As far as my definition of what Queer means, Queer is actually how I define myself in respect to my gender and my sexuality. And I think that within the LGBTQ+ and the mainstream community, Queer has a couple different connotations. To the main, straight, cis, population, I think they don't really understand what Queer means. They either believe that it's a derogatory term or think that it's what the kids use nowadays. And within the LGBT community, I think what we've done - and try to do - is kind of use Queer as an umbrella term so that someone can give their own definition of what their sexuality is. Queerness is more than just a sexual and gender identity. It's also how are we talking about consent, how are we talking about gender roles, not just gender identity. There's a specific politic that comes into play when you identify as Queer.

Me: You want to talk to that? Oluchi: Yeah. How are we interacting with folks in a way that validates or confirms their autonomy? Even when we're talking about how do we speak to women or some folks that have been conditioned to just say 'hey, I can't take up the space,’ or ‘I have to be this timid or I have to be this quiet or I have to be with people that I'm talking to.' It's really embodying what feminism is. I'm specifically talking about third-wave feminism, speaking about intersectionality and what does it mean to be this specifically intersectional because of the systems of oppression that we have to face.

Oluchi: How are we are we bringing those most at the margins inside, and how are we centering people at the margins? How are we actually being about what it looks like for someone who is a Trans Black woman or someone who is a cis white women? What are the different approaches in the systems of oppression they each sit on and actively working towards dismantling? I think that, for me, it's emotion, right? It's like being Queer is the actions that you're taking to dismantle oppression as well. Me: I'm going to come back to that, Where's your family from and what brought them to Minnesota? Oluchi: My mom was born in Lagos, Nigeria. But her family and all of her side of the family is from a town in the Abia State called Umukabia. It's part of the city of Umuahia. That’s my mom's city and village. How they do it in Nigeria: they have a city, that city has tiny villages in it. The way of the land is you're supposed to marry someone from your city. It's like a King unit. It's actually really cool. It's like a village. The epitome of Ibo culture is that you marry a village girl, you all live in a village together and then it keeps everything internal. My mom's from Umuahia Umukabia, which is a city in Umuahia, which is in the state of Abia State. My dad is from Umuahia I believe, so they're from the same city. So my dad did marry a village girl. But my parents come from and originate from the Imperial State of Nigeria. I would say more so they are from Umuahia and they are Ibo. But if you want to get into colonial, imperialistic terms, they made that country into Nigeria, and Nigeria is comprised of many many many many different tribes. The top three being Housa, Yoruba and Ibo. There's Edo, which is on the Eastern part of Nigeria that's closest to Ibo people, because Ibo people also live on the East Coast. There is Calabar. Which are also on the East Coast and have the same practices as Ibo people do, but they speak a different language. There are many people that I know that are Calabar that I grew up together with and we we're close, but we don't speak the same language. My parents emigrated here in the late [19]80s, early [19]90s. It was really for giving their family a better life. This was a little after the Biafra War. Which was really radical and awesome. And I'm sad that we lost. But they emigrated after like 10 years after the war to come to Minnesota and make a better life for their family. I was born here in the [United] States. In [19]90-something. Me: And what kept them and you here? Oluchi: It's funny because my parents always talk about how they want to win the lottery and move back to Nigeria. And I honestly believe that people don't emigrate here because they want to live in America. It’s funny because growing up, that's how it's ingrained in your body. That's how Americans talk. I used to believe that my parents wanted to live here because it was such a great country. Where actually the more that I think about it, my parents always talked about moving back to Nigeria when they got financially stable. And I think there's a couple of things that have happened here. One is that they made a community here that was very intentional and very close knit. Their closest friends are people that live here. So honestly, if Minnesota gave all of the Nigerian people here a billion dollars to leave, they probably would do it as a collective thing. But because of their deep friendships, they’ll probably never want to leave. But my parents always talk about moving back. I've been here because being a Queer Trans person in the current state of Nigeria is not the most safe. So I haven't gone back for a while because of that reason. Yeah. But I think that my parents would move back if they were financially stable enough to. Me: What do you do for a living? Oluchi: So I have like 17 different jobs. My full-time paid job is community organizing at a local LBGTQ+ organization called OutFront Minnesota. I also work part-time at the Apple store as a technician. I am also part of a national organization of Queer Black Immigrants called the Black Migrant Project, or BLMP. I'm also on a national training team of movement organizers called Momentum. And I also do work with the Movement For Black Lives (BLM) through the Action Table. And I am also part of the local chapter of the BLM Network called Black Visions Collective (BLVC) where we do local Black-led organizing. Me: And what gives you joy? Oluchi: Giving people joy gives me a lot of joy. I also think making space for folks to validate their identity makes me really happy. So the work that I'm doing with BLMP, that really makes me happy. Winning campaigns for the greater good of society gives me a lot of joy as well. Just being around friends and people that I love and care about. Me: Describe the moment you recognized your true form of self. Oluchi: Yeah. I don't think I even know my true form of self right now to be honest. I think the more that I meet people that share my identities and are at my specific intersection, the more I am more validated in who I am as a person. I never met another Black Queer person until I was about 20 years old. I never met a Black Queer African person until I was 22 years old. I never met a Black Nigerian Queer person until I was like 23. I never met a Black Ibo Queer person until like 24, 25. And I just met my third or fourth Queer Trans Ibo person in my entire. So it's so crucial that representation happens, that it's a real thing that we embody because there are people that sit at so many different intersections that never feel validated in who they are because they don't see that, right? How are we actually doing the work to bring those people in and center them so that their identities can be seen and be recognized by others?

Me: What's it like to be a Queer Trans Ibo Person while working and living in Minnesota today? Oluchi: I mean, I think that I'm the only one who I know. It's interesting because I bring a specific lens to the work that I do. But also because I bring up a specific lens, I feel like I'm tokenized a lot. I think it's hard because I'm never doing work with other people for my specific person. Like, I'm doing it in regards to my person because I think that liberation is an intrinsically intertwined thing. But I'm never doing specifically Queer Trans Ibo work. Or doing work with other Queer Trans Ibo people. So I would say that it's hard to be that [identity while] working and living here. But also it's so special when I find people that share even 5 of the 90 intersections that I have.

Me: And last question. If you could address the most influential public figures and decision-makers in the state right now, what would you say about improving the standard of living for someone like you in Minnesota? Oluchi: Whenever I think about work - I know I'm a very idealistic person being a Leo-Sun/Scorpio-Moon. So for me, it's dismantling ICE, free borders. Giving people asylum from countries that white people have fucked up and are now leaving because white people have fucked up. Granting asylum for any and all Queer and Trans people, no matter where they're from or what their background is. Providing resources for folks that live here that sit at those intersections - meaning housing, food, jobs. Right now, anyone that’s seeking asylum here, it takes them 150 days. If they come to Minnesota and even get inside our borders. Like, they have to wait 150 days to get any type of public assistance as a resident or live in the fucking state for 150 days. And then they have to figure out how they’re going to eat for the next 150 days or how they plan to survive for the next 150 days. It's sad that my parents had to assimilate so much that they've had. Because I can remember that my aunt had to do that. My mom's brother lived with us, my mom's cousin lived with us. My dad's sister lived with us. My grandparents lived with us. And I just think back on it now, my parents never talked to me about things because they didn't want us to have an ill-feeling about the state or the government and held this connotation of what the government is and how much power they have and didn't want us to have to deal with that in a very resistant way. Me: That’s real. Thank you so much!

#interviews

0 notes

spirkism · 7 years

Text

on why queer isn’t a bad word

I’ve read quite a few posts from either viewpoint and so far I’ve kept my mouth shut on how I feel about this because I didn’t want to polarize - but lately I’ve seen more and more of the “but it’s a slur!!!” arguments and couldn’t take it anymore. I went on a twitter rant but promised to make a more organized and put together post so here we go. (it got quite long, I apologize)

there are a lot of wonderful posts about this out there already but I decided to still mention the points made there because honestly the more people hear it the better. feel free to approach me and I’ll link you to some of those other posts!

as a little backstory: I’m from Germany - aka a non-English speaking country and that actually plays a part in it but more on that later. I’m in my mid-twenties and I’ve identified as queer for about 7ish years now. I used to be very well connected in the community, especially the trans community and had some older friends who were there in the beginnings of our (German) community. so I know the history.

okay so, I’m just gonna list some points now in no particular order:

1. yes. queer is used as a slur. so is gay. so are basically all the other identities we have. because some straight people are assholes and are afraid of everything that’s different. BUT. queer has been reclaimed AGES ago. our forebearers fought long and hard to take it BACK from the straight people who stole it to hurt us. freely handing it over to our opposers now would be nothing short of trampling on our community’s history and invalidating the sacrifices the generations before us have made. also. “queer history”, “queer cinema”, “queer studies” are all legitimate (academical) terms. academics don’t cuss in their descriptors (and college courses).

2. queer is so much more inclusive than lgbt(+) or any of those acronyms. sure you could go lgbtqiaapf... but honestly that’s getting a bit ridiculous and frankly confusing. so for the sake of this argument we’ll stick with the “original” acronym LGBT. it mentions all of four identities. FOUR. out of the multitudes there are. I personally happen to have one of my identities mentioned there. that’s not a lot. but still, it’s something. my aroace nonbinary friend doesn’t have any. “but there’s the plus!” you say. great. a plus. lovely. how would you feel being represented by a plus that doesn’t tell you anything about what it actually means? exactly. that’s not representation at all. who tf even knows what that plus means. no mention of nonbinary people, fluid people, pan people, ace people, aro people, and the list goes on and on. that’s why it’s an amazing umbrella term. everyone can find a place in it.

3. it’s welcoming. this point is kind of tied to my second one but it’s important in its own right so I decided to give it its own number. it’s welcoming to questioning people. you know you’re different? not straight? but are you pan? are you bi? are you ace? or maybe aro? are you trans? are you non-binary? who the fuck even knows. it’s hard. I’ve been through multiple of these and it SUCKS. so having a community who goes “hey we don’t care how exactly you identify, we don’t mind if you haven’t figured it out you, you have a place here, you’re safe here and no one is gonna police your identity or gatekeep you” is super important. trust me.

4. it’s often easier. if I want to let somebody know I’m “not straight” without going into the details of my identity, queer is just a lot simpler and the other person will immediately understand what I mean. sometimes I just don’t wanna let somebody know all of my identities. sometimes I really don’t feel like educating people on all the terms I use. but I still want to let them know I’m part of the community. and honestly sometimes saying “hi so I’m a pansexual gray-aro gender-nonconforming trans guy” is too tiresome/long. “hi I’m queer” is concise and understandable to pretty much everyone. sure, if you’re a cis gay dude, lesbian or bisexual person you can just use one of those words - good for you (no really, it is good for you and I’m happy you have these terms). but who tf (that isn’t as deep in the community as I am and/or on tumblr) is gonna know what I mean when I talk about my identity? fucking no one. you can’t really use “I’m LGBT” as a descriptor for yourself. saying “I’m gay” doesn’t work either cause then a) I might feel weird cause I don’t actually identify as gay and b) there’s gonna be shouts of “but you’re not gay, you’re not allowed to use that word!” - well what am I gonna use then? exactly. QUEER. that’s where my nationality comes in as well. here no one knows what the fuck ace / aro, nb or even pan is. but they know what queer is. it’s like that in a lot of the non-english speaking world. get out of your US sometimes, folks.

5. this one is near and dear to me. queer is so much more than just an identifier telling people you’re not straight. it’s more than a label. more than a community. especially in the beginnings of our history it was most often used to denote that you’re different. you’re not the norm. and you don’t wanna be. you’re proud of being different. you’re celebrating being different and you’re not ashamed of it. it means you don’t want to assimilate, don’t want to emulate the “normal” lifestyle, don’t want to be that “well, he has a husband but you know, he’s not really gay, he’s just like us” guy. (nothing wrong with having a house with a picket fence and two children though, okay, I never said that! I actually want that myself) the celebration of difference has always been a strong suit in our community. and personally for many of us. this is where my other “oddities” and differences interwine with my queer identity. I suffer from anxiety. I’m kinky. I’m a witch, I’m questioning my religious beliefs, I don’t give a fuck about gender roles and I’m just a general oddball. and that’s how I LIKE IT. I’m good that way. heck, I’m fucking GREAT that way.

there are quite a few more arguments to be made for the word queer but these are the ones I feel are most important.

so yes, I’ve identified as queer for a long while and I will continue to do so. as well as use it as an umbrella term for our community. if you personally come up to me and ask me not to use the word queer for you specifically of course I’ll accept that - but don’t you dare tell me how I can and cannot identify myself and my community. as cis gays and lesbians you might not need the word queer. and that’s good for you. (no really, it is). but as someone who isn’t one of these things, for so many of us, queer is a word we desperately need (for the reasons listed above and more). so PLEASE don’t take it from us. a lot of work and love went into that word and it would be devastating to lose all that love and hope and sacrifice. we must not let this divide us. we must stay strong as a community, ALL of us, especially in the current times.

so no, I have never nor will I ever tag my identity as a slur and I urge you not to either. if for personal reasons queer is a triggering word for you, there are countless ways to get around that (just like with any other trigger - use tumblr savior, xkit or any other of those options). but don’t ruin it for the rest of us.

this has obviously just been my very personal opinion - feel free to add on to this! I welcome discussion about it - with people who agree with me but also people who disagree - the only thing I ask is to please stay civil and not to become personally attacking. thank you. sorry for making such a long and personal post but I just had to after all this time.

so to end this with an all time classic: WE’RE HERE, WE’RE QUEER, DEAL WITH IT.

#queer #lgbt #lgbtq #queer slur discourse #text #misc #long post for ts #queer blogging #(yes that's my tag for queer shit)

89 notes · View notes

dreamofbecoming · 7 years

Text

ok, gonna clear some shit up and then be done i did not comment on that post looking for "is queer a slur" discourse. i could not care less what personal identifiers people use, beyond respecting their choices when asked to use or not use certain words when referring to certain people. i commented on that post because op screenshotted a reaction to an existing post, which contained lots of detailed explanations and historical context for the comment, then made a post bashing the person who reacted and complaining about the lack of context. that's a shitty thing to do, regardless of your politics. i also reblogged it specifically because i wanted the person i reblogged it from to be aware of the missing context, because they're someone i trust and whose content i enjoy, and it's easy to get caught up in manufactured outrage. i've certainly done it. i wanted to bring to their attention that the post was heavily edited and if they were looking for an explanation, there in fact was one, that had been deleted by op in an attempt to shape their argument. (again, shitty. we have enough real debates happening, you don't need to manufacture new ones.) i don't believe everyone who dislikes the term "queer" is a terf. i do believe that, if your first instinct when you see someone reclaiming a term you don't identify with is to tell them they're a bad person for using it and try to shame them out of them community, you need to examine where that impulse comes from. terfs are gatekeepers, who try and police who is and isn't allowed to be part of our community. there are other groups of lgbtq/mogaii/queer/non-cishet/whatever you call yourself people who use similar tactics to silence and police other queers. they all have common ancestors in the (white) gays and lesbians in the late 20th century who decided that trans people and bisexuals and drag queens and queers of color were dragging down the image of their community, and waged campaigns to vilify and ostracize them. queer was the identifier of choice for many of those targeted groups, and deliberately targeting those who use it as "not good enough" or "not one of us" is a tactic that's been used from the beginning- it may not be your intention, but those are the origins of the rhetoric you're using so examine that for a minute. "queer" began as a slur. no one is debating that. but there are literally no widely used terms for anyone in our community that have never been used as slurs, in addition to there being very few umbrella terms for people whose identities don't fit into neat little boxes. i, for instance, am still figuring my shit out. i've dated men, i've even been in love with men, so i don't think i'm a lesbian, but the longer i'm out the more i feel i'm only interested in women and femmes. does that make me a lesbian? maybe. does that make me pan with a preference? maybe. i don't know what that makes me except "not straight," and the only word i feel expresses that feeling is queer. i'm also just starting to explore my gender, but i really have no idea what i'm feeling about it, so queer is the only thing that works. it's ok if you don't want to use queer. i never use it for someone without asking, and i appreciate when people ask me first before using it for me. when i talk about the queer community, i literally mean "people who identify as (or at least are not uncomfortable with) queer." otherwise i say not-cishet or lgbtq or "our community." i'm not forcing the term on anyone. i don't want to force the term on anyone. but using its history as a slur to silence people and police their identities is a tactic used by terfs and other gatekeepers, and that is a fucking shitty thing to do. just because you personally don't hate trans women doesn't mean you can't use the same rhetoric as those who do to alienate innocent people. you might not be a terf, but you sure as hell quack like one, and i don't take any fucking chances. so please stop trying to make it sound like less of a shitty thing to do and leave me alone.

#terfs #slurs #queer #discourse #gatekeeping #transphobia tw #biphobia tw #racism tw #leave me the fuck alone jfc #personal

3 notes · View notes

songsforfelurian · 7 years

Text

What does “queer” mean?

I wrote this piece because an anon asked me what “queer” means. It’s quite long, and the original post contains a “keep reading” cut that made it look cleaner in the feed, but made it impossible to read on mobile. If this clogs your dash, I apologize, but I want it to be accessible, because I think this topic is really important.

WARNING: If you are triggered by slurs that are commonly used against members of the LGBTQ+ community, proceed with caution. I have done my best to use these terms in an informative way, but I know they may be triggering to some, even in this context. If you’re interested in my perspective on slurs and labels within the LGBTQ+ community, read on!

I should start by pointing out that I am by no means an expert historian when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community. I identify as a member, have done some basic research, and have degrees in linguistics and philosophy that afford me a basic working knowledge of language, logic, and literature in a historical context. I am not an authority on gender identity or sexual orientation, just a community member doing my best to be helpful and supportive.

I personally love the word ‘queer,’ though I respect and understand that it is triggering to many. The word originally meant “strange, peculiar, or eccentric.” (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=queer) I came across this word often in classic literature. “She was feeling rather queer” would have been a common phrase to describe someone who was slightly ill, or emotionally unsettled. But in the late 1800’s / early 1900’s, people started using it as an offensive term for people in same-sex relationships, or for people who deviated from accepted gender conventions of the time (for example, men who were perceived as “effeminate”). Then, around the 1980’s, members of the LGBTQ+ community “began to deliberately use the word queer in place of gay or homosexual, in an attempt, by using the word positively, to deprive it of its negative power.” (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/queer)

Despite this, the word “queer” absolutely continues to be used as a homophobic slur that many LGBTQ+ people have had to endure, which is why the term remains so controversial. I personally haven’t had a lot of exposure to the term as an offensive slur, which may be why I don’t experience it as particularly triggering, the way “fag” and “faggot” most certainly are to me. I heard those words so often in such a vicious, damaging context growing up, that they became dealbreakers for me: I wouldn’t date men or women who used them, or keep up friendships with people who found them acceptable. I won’t play online video games with a group of people if I hear those terms floating around. I still have an immediate anxiety reaction when I hear those words used, even by someone who identifies as LGBTQ+. So I do understand that slurs can be incredibly triggering to people, even if the community has made an effort to retake them and give them new meaning.

The reason I personally view the word “queer” differently from “fag” or “faggot” is because I think that “queer” performs a semantic and linguistic function that I find pleasing and necessary. In its current definition, as reclaimed by the LGBTQ+ community, it means, “Denoting or relating to a sexual or gender identity that does not correspond to established ideas of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms.” (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/queer)

If you’ve read any of my writing or seen previous posts from me, you may have deduced that I find labels to be problematic. Sexual orientation and gender identity can be fluid and difficult to define. While some people feel a sense of relief and community when they finally find a label that suits them, others feel stressed or even further isolated and frustrated, faced with another set of “norms” they still can’t quite conform to. And then there’s the pressure to define every aspect of your sexuality and gender identity to the world – again, something that is comforting and community-affirming to some, but can be stressful, invasive, or downright unsafe for others. I see discourse daily on Tumblr about who should and shouldn’t be “allowed” within the LGBTQ+ community, with many people claiming that certain identities simply aren’t “gay enough” to belong.

I don’t subscribe to this attitude. I don’t think I should have to thoroughly define or explain my gender identity or sexual orientation in order to feel accepted and supported by other LGBTQ+ individuals, and I don’t think people who are difinitively gay or lesbian deserve to be accepted moreso than people who are bixesual, pansexual, questioning, etc. I don’t conform to stereotypical norms and standards, and identifying as “queer” is a way for many people to communicate a similar, vague sense of identity without getting into specifics that make them feel uncomfortable, or confused, or frustrated, or downright unsafe. We don’t owe each other that level of intimacy.

As a teen in the early 2000’s that identified as bisexual only with my closest friends, I had faith that things would progress. I imagined that I would enter adulthood and find that times had changed- that I would feel more free to experience and express my identity, and that I would feel support from a community of people that understand how confusing, and isolating, and painful it can be to be LGBTQ+. And while I have seen glimmers of this, I’ve also seen the horde of the self-righteous, many of them painfully young, immature, and inexperienced, who find it necessary to police the borders of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the language we use to describe and define ourselves.

As an adult, this is not the kind of community I want to belong to. Yes, I understand that the word “queer” is triggering for some people, and I’ve done my best to be respectful of that in this post. But I am queer, for lack of a better word that encompasses the nebulous nonconformity many of us experience along our journey. And we should allow each other to be nebulous. We should allow each other the use of vague language, and the leeway to evolve, and to change our minds, and to change our looks and our beliefs and our preferences. It was easiest for me to identify as bisexual as a scared fourteen-year-old, because I felt pressure to identify as something.

So can we try to take that pressure off? Can we make it okay to not be sure? Can we be a community that embraces uncertainty and privacy as much as we encourage confidence and conviction? Can we support people in their twenties or thirties or fifties who are exploring their queerness for the first time, just as much as we support our gay and lesbian friends who’ve been certain since they were twelve?

If you follow this blog, these are things I believe, that I want you to know:

It’s okay to not be sure about your gender identity.

It’s okay to not be sure about your sexual orientation.

Embrace the uncertainty. You don’t need a label to be whole. You don’t need to name and categorize everything you think and feel. Give yourself room to breathe and grow. Give others the same room.

It’s okay to change your mind.

It’s okay to express yourself as vaguely or as specifically as you like. You don’t owe anyone any kind of information about your identity or preferences that you’re not comfortable sharing. You shouldn’t have to prove anything to anyone in order to belong to this community.

You can use labels, if you think they fit. You can also change them. You can also reject them. You still belong here, regardless. I still care about and support you, regardless.

You can use the word “queer” to help identify yourself.

You can be respectful of people who use the word “queer,” even if it offends you. Have a conversation before you judge or attack.

As a final note, I’ve seen a term floating around that I would love to see gain more traction: SAGA, which stands for Sexuality and Gender Acceptance. It occurs to me that it could also stand for Sexuality and Gender Alternative, which could be used as an actual identity term (“I’m SAGA”). Regardless, I can see how this could be a nonspecific umbrella term, much like the word “queer,” but without all the controversial connotations. I’m all for this- as I stated before, I think a lot of people use the word “queer” because it’s useful and meaningful to them, and because they lack a synonymous alternative. If a term like SAGA started to catch on, I would be happy to make the switch. However, I’ve found very little literature on it, and have very rarely seen it used in LGBTQ+ spaces. If you have more information, or have seen it being used more widely, please comment with your perspective! I would love to give credit where credit is due. And if this term resonates with you, use it! Spread the word!

I can’t emphasize this enough- I’m not an authority here, but I see plenty of people speaking on this subject with much more conviction than they ought to have, so I decided to give it a go. If anything, I hope some of you might read this and feel validated in your uncertainty, and encouraged to reach out, and maybe to be more flexible and accepting of the diversity in this community.

Diversity. Isn’t that supposed to be the point?

#queer #lgbtq #gay #lesbian #bisexual #pansexual #questioning #trans #gender nonconforming #saga

9 notes · View notes