#I completely get y someone wouldn't use queer for themselves or would be triggered by the word bc of its past and present usage

[imaginarymen]

Queer thoughts

[vergess]

The Letters from Watson situation and you bringing up that being exposed to bigotry over time normalizes it reminds me of a situation where I was hurt because someone didn't tw for bigotry. I watched the Nanny a lot as a young kid and when Matt Baume did a video essay about it and it's roots in queer culture I decided to try and re-watch it. When I actually went to watch it, I was floored by the sheer scale of fatphobia presented. It wasn't a jab here or there every other episode, it was a barrage of fatphobia in every episode, baked into the text. I tried to hold out, to see if I could ignore it, but eventually found myself in tears as a chubby child actress was berated on screen for comedic effect. But what really scared me was... The show was getting to me. I was starting to see the thin but less petite elder daughter as fat, when I wouldn't have before. The show was changing my perspective despite my best efforts to not let it get to me. Fatphobia is not comparable to anti semitism, but this taught me that, if you are going to present a piece of media, or analyze it, not mentioning or warning for bigotry is irresponsible at best, and endorsement at worst. I'm still a bit irritated that fatphobia wasn't mentioned even once in the essay. I'm really sorry this backlash is happening over a very reasonable reaction. :/

Mmm, actually I think most kinds of bigotry are very comparable.

Not universally, no. But, in general? People benefit from comparing them. Solidarity is often built on learning the things we have in common first, so that we can better help respect and protect each others' different needs, interests and abilities.

Just off the top of my head, for example, fat people and Jewish people are both characterized as greedy, and in fact, Jewish people are often specifically characterized as fat.

But that's REALLY off topic, haha.

In this case, while there were some warnings made about a month ago (apparently these warnings were repeated if you use the email reader, but I do read on the website, where the warnings are not repeated), and while I was aware of the content going in, my issue is, again, not with the existence or lack thereof of the TW list.

As I have. Repeatedly and constantly said. I think the TW list is lovely. It's great. It's very complete. Nice work everyone. No one has any problems with the TW list. No one has ever had any problems with the FUCKING. TW. LIST.

THE PROBLEM. IS WITH. THE UNHINGED. ANTISEMITISM. IN RESPONSE. TO THE MOST MILQUETOAST. IMAGINABLE. POST. EVER. MADE.

Here's the breakdown.

20 y/o Jewish woman: Gosh, even with the trigger warning a whole month ago that imo was really not enough, that sure was some antisemitism. I would prefer to see more pushback on such intense racism in the future, but it is early days. Sure hope things get better as we go!

Me, 30+ Jewish person: Haha, yeah, reminded me of how much it hurt to read when I was a kid. Glad I've got bigger problems to worry about nowadays lol.

Every gentile within earshot: OH SO YOU THINK WE SHOULD CODDLE YOU POOR LITTLE JEWBABY FEELINGS HUH? WE SHOULD CENSOR ART FOR YOUR PRECIOUS WIDDLE OWIES? YOU WANT YOUR TO PRE-DIGEST YOUR WORDS BECAUSE YOUR SUBHUMAN JEW BRAINS CAN'T READ? KILL YOURSELF!!!!!!!!

Me, again: Okay, well. That is an extreme fucking reaction so let's fucking calm our asses down with the goddamn nazi shit for ten fucking minutes, perhaps????

And then the gentiles devolved into further screaming about how I'm, I don't know...

They seem to have convinced themselves of a lot of things at this point. The ones willing to put their names on it are mostly content to call me anything from a liar to a harasser to an imbecile incapable of reading, to someone with a personal hatred of the Substack operator, etc etc.

They seem broadly convinced that I "want" something or to impose on the substack. Which is nonsense. All I "wanted" was to read some books I liked with a group of people and discuss, and that ship has thoroughly fucking sailed.

The anonymous bitches are mostly wandering into blood libel at this point. Again, I used to post all my anon threats, but I stopped doing that once bigots got smart enough to start reporting me for spam when I did that, because victims showing their harassment in public is, of course, the real harassment.

They also seem not to be aware of a very simple fact:

I can still see your comments in my notifications page if I'm the OP, even after you've blocked me, and it is very fucking obnoxious.

[ablednt]

would you say it’s wrong of me to struggle to trust queer people to be fully inclusive when they say lgbtq+ instead of queer

like yeah i know its insensitive to people who have trauma w the word queer but lgbtq+ seems to have become a marker for people who 1) think queer is a slur and cannot be used as an umbrella term/community descriptor and 2) have some form of exclusionary ideas or at least are severely uneducated

you just seemed like a good person to ask idk. it might be the autism-trauma mix of where my brain goes “[x] = [y]” about things it Shouldnt but yeah

I think that makes sense! It doesn't bother us but like it's fine to be wary of people when they do/say things that you mainly attribute (fairly rightfully so in this case) with someone harmful/malicious. There's nothing wrong being on guard with that so long as you're not making a concrete assumption based on it.

Personally it's like. We do think it's a slur because growing up our cishet parents who used the f slur regularly still wouldn't use it cause "oh god that ones a REAL bad word" cause it was in their brain mainly associated with hate crimes and shit and we've heard a lot of older gays and lesbians say it makes them uncomfortable when used on them.

But I don't think "it's a slur" is at all indicative of "it shouldn't be reclaimed or shouldn't be used academically or to refer to the community" because like... the people saying that have no problem reclaiming other slurs like dyke does not even register to me as a slur because basically every lesbian I've ever met in my life identifies with it

And I used to be super uncomfortable with the f slur cause I heard that one used as an actual slur most of my life and I still think cishets who say it should be attacked on-site but lately cause of how lightheartedly it's been used on here it now has enough positive associations for me that it doesn't bother me.

So it's like queer is a slur is an objective fact and it's really weird and gaslighty to people who have trauma with it when instead of any sensible arguments people double down like "no it's not it's never been one that's ahistorical" instead of just pointing out there is unlikely to be a queer term that hasn't also been used as a slur at some point.

And the other thing that frustrates me is tagging discourse cause i get why a "q slur" tag makes people uncomfortable however "q word" "q power" etc are all right there (and if it's truly distressing it's fine to set the boundary that people with that trigger don't interact conflicting triggers are like super common and normal lol) but also because people are once again equivalating "trigger" with "something inherently bad" and that alienates all trauma survivors who have triggers that aren't bad things like regular words and names etc.

Like it was that casual ableism that kept me stuck in exclusie circles for a long time cause so many people were so focused on winning arguments with exclusies they lost sight of the original issue and its importance (making spaces as accessible and inclusive as possible, which isn't actually very difficult when people are willing to compromise but of course internet discourse participants are no longer exercising good faith) but eventually I was able to find a good niche of people but thinking about it I'm only really friends with people who have triggers that aren't bad things so maybe I'm still pretty alienated from the queer community but the ableism there is much bigger than just this issue.

But anyway point being theres some nuance here and it's not automatically bad if someone doesn't use the word queer for themselves but it IS a dogwhistle and you're completely valid to be wary of it for that reason