#but will still continue to treat all of your opinions and inclusion under their umbrella as a polite afterthought the existence of which

[here-there-were-dragons]

and god help you if you're not binary trans and then god DOUBLE help you if you're not nb "the right way" aka "so basically i'm a third binary gender that looks exactly half way between girl and boy also i'm completely 100% human and 100% desire to be human and only human and just as invested in picking Gender Team to be on as everyone else because we all know the only thing that exists or matters in the universe is baseball and exactly what baseball team role you define your existence by permanently without ever even considering anything else right?"

the Trans Experience in our society is being treated like schrodinger's gender. you're a woman when they wanna deny you agency and a man when they wanna deny you support. this is an experience that unites nearly all of us, whether transmasc, transfem, or something else.

[gingerswagfreckles]

Queer is my fave word, thanks for posting about that book, I'm gonna try to get a copy! It's just awesome to have an umbrella term for not feeling cis-hetero but not entirely certain where you fit under the umbrella yet.

Ahh yes!! You mean Gay New York by George Chauncey? That book is THE book on queer history in the US (it's really not just about NYC, but it is focused there). Not only is it the most meticulously well researched book I have EVER read, it is just. So brilliant in how it analyses the construction of and intersection of gender, sexuality, biological sex, class, race, and society. Like I read it for a class in freshman year of college and trust me I was already EXTREMELY liberal and well versed in queer discourse. Yet it completely I mean COMPLETELY changed my understanding of not only sex and gender but just like. What identity is, how much of what we see as static and natural are actually very contextual social constructs. And it really showed in a very concrete and reality based way how every identity exists and is defined through the context of its environment, and that while our experiences are very inherently real, the lines we draw around these experiences to define them are not. Like. The existence of a queer identity the way we generally think of it now did NOT exist in the same way throughout history. The intersection of so many facets of life have been interpreted so completely differently throughout history and in different places and social contexts. The queer community has never been some static and well defined club that one is or is not a member of. It is and always has been a nebulous and highly changeable social network of people with common experiences and interests who have defined their own communities in wildly different ways depending on where you look. Trying to strictly define who does or does not belong in or who has or hasn't existed in the queer community throughout history is completely pointless, because in reality we are talking about an absolutely enormous group of people who have been variously connected to and socially isolated from others, who have seen their own identities and their own communities in completely different ways.

It really highlighted for me how pointless 99% of the discourse on this website is, and how much almost all of it boils down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what identity is. NONE of the identities we think of as inherently real are inherently real, and arguing about who should be included in a community or who's identities are "valid" just shows that you think the framework through which you understand sex and gender is universal rather than cultural, contextual, and highly individual. Like, identities overlap! Identities step on each others toes!!! Words and labels change, and people do not universally agree on what they mean at any point in time!!! You would not believe how many people who you would think of as being part of the queer community didn't think of themselves as part of the queer community, and you would not believe how many people who you do NOT think of as part of the queer community DID see themselves as part of it, and were accepted!!

Like, for example, the interpretation of what it even meant to be "homosexual" was SO different depending on what period on time you look at, what location, what social and financial class these people were part of, what racial identity they saw themselves as (and that's a whole 'nother can of worms!) Sexuality was often seen as MUCH more connected to gender performance and sexual roles one took than it is today, and a lot, I mean a LOT of men who always topped did not see themselves as homosexual/gay/part of the queer community at all, especially in working class communities. And!! Guess what!! This is the part that will really blow your mind!!!

T H E Y W E R E N ' T W R O N G!!!!!!!!!!!

They were not WRONG about how they defined their identities or how they saw themselves in relation to a certain social community!! Because they were using their OWN social and sexual framework to interpret their identities and their actions!!! And saying they were WRONG in their interpretation fundamentally misunderstands that the criteria YOU use to measure whether someone is part of an identity or social group is not any more correct or real than the criteria THEY used! Saying these people were "wrong" is to impose one's own modern and highly contextual social framework on people from the past-- and TBH it's fine to see people from the past through modern lenses, and to recognize that they would be seen as gay/a certain identity by modern standards. That's fine! But the way they saw themselves then wasn't wrong, it was just different, and your criteria for what you see as gay or straight or part of a community is just as arbitrary and based on the context of your environment as theirs was.

People like to argue with this all the time, saying things like that these individuals were just suffering from internalized homophobia, gender bias, ignorance of what this or that identity "really" means, and these people are really really really misunderstanding the point. These are usually the same people who say things like "words mean things!!" when points like the one I'm making are brought up, because they continue to misunderstand how much these words yes, mean things, but mean things within historical and cultural contexts that are NOT shared by the entire world. Like, ok, you may say our example man from the 1910s is gay whether he recognized that or not, because he engaged in homosexual acts. But what does it mean to have homosexual sex? To have sex with someone of the same biological sex? Well what is biological sex, and how do we define what makes ones biological sex the "same" or "different" from your own? Is it someone with the same type of genitals as you? That's not a universally shared opinion, and the way you define the "types" of genitals are not universally shared either. What if I told you that there have been cultures throughout history who have categorized biological sex through the length of the penis, with people with shorter penises being seen as a separate sex than those who have longer penises? So two people with penises could have sex with each other and not be understood as having sex with someone of the same sex, in that culture!

Oh, that's not what you meant? That's wrong? Why? Why? Because your personal understanding and your culture's general perception of what biological sex is is more valid and real than that culture's? Why? WHY? Could you really explain why, or is it just that the difference is making you uncomfortable, because it threatens your perception of a LOT of the ideas you see as inherently real?

And we could do the same thing with the ACT of sex! I mean, what is sex? What physical acts are sexual, and what aren't? Is it just someone putting a body part inside of another person's body in some way? Well what about handjobs and other kinds of outercourse? Is sex then some physical thing we do in pursuit of an orgasm? What if you don't orgasm? Is it not sex then? Is sex the use of our bodies to derive general physical pleasure? Well what about a massage? Is a massage sex? In some times and places, many people would have said yes!

These aren't just theoretical questions- Chauncey outlines how these differing definitions of what sex is and what makes it queer not only allowed for a lot of people we would unquestioningly think of as part of the queer community to exclude themselves, but also resulted in the inclusion of people we would never consider to be queer now. Like, most female prostitutes who served only male cliental absolutely hands down refused to give blow jobs in the early 1900s, because blowjobs were seen as an extremely deviant expression of sexuality and were understood to be part of "homosexual" activity, regardless of the sex or genders of the people involved, because it was sexual activity that explicitly was not seeking to create a baby. This was a widely understood concept at the time, and persisted despite the fact that many of these women were using contraception and therefore obviously not seeking to get pregnant. Blowjobs were still seen as perverse and "homosexual," and thus not something most regular female prostitutes were willing to engage in.

Therefore! Female prostitutes who only ever had sex with male cliental but DID provide oral sex (and many other not-penis-in-vagina-activities) were often lumped in with lesbians!!! And treated as such in arrest records and propaganda! And guess what?? As a result, guess who these women usually hung around with, and where they usually could be found? Within the queer community and queer spaces!! These women were seen by the broader society as well as by much of the queer community as QUEER, and many of them likely understood themselves this way as well!

And for the record, these questions of what sex is and what gender is and what makes it gay or straight or whatever are not questions that belong strictly to the past. Survey the general population about what act they consider to have been the one where they "lost their virginity," and you will get wildly different answers. Survey self identified gay or straight people on what kind of sex acts they engage with and with who, and you will similarly find an enormous variation in reports.

And these questions MATTER! These questions matter, not in that we have to find some way to answer them, but in order to understand that we can't, definitively, and that thinking our own perceptions of any of these things are more valid than others' perceptions is incredibly harmful and dismissive to the lived experiences of other people. You can't define other people's identities out of existence just because they threaten or overlap or contradict with your own understanding of some concept, because your definitions of literally any of the criteria you are using to try to build your boxes are ALSO up for interpretation!

Like, I'm sorry I know I am rambling soooo much but you opened the same floodgates that this book opened back when I read it. If the people on this stupid website had any understanding of the history they claim to know so much about, they would see how their attitudes of "this identity is more valid than that identity" and "you can't sit with us because you're not actually part of this or that identity because my definition is better than your definition" is nothing new or woke or progressive, but is the exact same shit that has always been done and has been used to marginalize people who's existence or behaviors threaten the status quo. Like yelling at asexual or pansexual or nonbinary or aromantic people or whatever other group that they don't belong, or that their identity isn't real because it threatens the perceived integrity of another identity...it's all so stupid!! Your identity is also just a way for you to define yourself within your cultural context! Like I've literally seen people be like "asexality isn't a real identity bc if we didn't live in a society that was so sex obsessed then you wouldn't feel the need to define yourself this way." And it's like....what?? Yeah, ok??? But we do live in this society???????? And you can say that about LITERALLY ANY identity??! Not even ones related to sex and gender! Like "you aren't really deaf and deafness isn't real, because if we lived in a world without sound then you wouldn't notice you couldn't hear." Like yeah?? But we do live in a world with sound?? So...people find this term useful to articulate their experiences? And they might even dare to form an identity around it, and maybe a community, and might even become proud of it, even though it is a social construct, just like pretty much everything else??

It just drives me nuts. We go around and around in circles without ever understanding that so much of the bigotry we face is the same thing we are perpetuating with each other, because we don't understand that it is natural and normal for people's definitions of certain identities to conflict, and for their interpretations of the world to run up against each other sometimes. And that there is no strictly defined queer community, and who does or doesn't "belong" is not a decision that any one person or even any one culture gets to make, ever.

To try to finally actually wrap back around to what your actual comment was to begin with, I think queer is a wonderful word, and that GENERALLY SPEAKING in our current cultural context, it is used to encapsulate so much of the messiness and overlap that makes people so uncomfortable, but is what makes the queer community so great!!!!! That being said, it of course has had different definitions in different time periods and cultural contexts just like everything else, and some people may still have negative connotations associated with it and therefore not feel comfortable using it to self-identify. And that's fine too, as long as you don't try to force other people to stop using the term to describe their own identities on the basis that your definition is more real than theirs, which is the opposite of what queer history is all about.

If anyone is interested in the book I am talking about, you can buy it as an ebook, audiobook, or paper copy here: https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/george-chauncey/gay-new-york/9780786723355/

It goes into way way way more depth about everything I'm rambling about here, and backs it up with the most research and evidence I've ever seen in one single book. The physical copy is about as thick as two bricks stacked on top of each other, so if you can't get an exclusionist to read it, you can always just whack them over the head.

[ts1989fanatic]

At this point, thinking sober thoughts about a new Taylor Swift song is painfully predictable. It's a here we go again exercise that think-piece writers and social media pundits have come to dread and celebrate in equal measure. Yet, no matter how formulaic the Swift responses are, the internet must be fed. Luckily for all involved, her latest single, "You Need to Calm Down," is irresistible hot-take fodder: It's been hailed as revolutionary, slammed as queerbait, praised as inclusive, and condemned as intolerant. The lyrics and music video nod to Swift's many celebrity feuds, but also include a GLAAD endorsement and a petition to ratify the Equality Act. There is homophobia, and also a food fight. It's a Tayfecta of Swiftian contradiction, and if there's one thing no one is feeling about it, it's calm.

Now, genuine reasons to celebrate or scorn "You Need to Calm Down" do exist. Many are celebrating the video because it approaches something like allyship, especially for a pop song. It's packed with queer celebrities of many racial, sexual, and gender identities; it highlights real activism and the Equality Act, and, because of Swift's platform, makes news stories of them both. (Donations to GLAAD have spiked since the song's release.) Swift and erstwhile nemesis Katy Perry buck tradition and do not literally kiss to make up. Some of its lines—like "shade never made anybody less gay"—are already being printed on T-shirts, and will be belted all Pride month long, as they are clearly meant to be.

The candy-colored bits of progress are not without tonal issues, though. Critics point out that homophobia isn't shade. That putting Swift's struggles with online haters and the LGBTQ+ community’s struggles with systemic bigotry under the same lyrical umbrella is reductive. That the video's homophobic protesters are unkempt, cowboy-hatted, blue-collar stereotypes, which is both classist and ignores prejudice's pervasiveness at every level of American society. Some read Swift's blue-purple-pink wig as a nod to the bisexual flag and hence as queerbait. Other people think it's unfair that Swift is only telling the protesters, and not the LGBTQ+ community, to calm down. (Those people are wrong. My patience for folks who think a glittery parade is tantamount to hate speech can't come to the phone right now. It's dead.)

The song has spawned more opinions than it has words. A still of Swift, dressed in a french fry costume, embracing Perry, who is dressed as a hamburger, is on its way to becoming a submeme of its own. Depending on who you are, it could be a cutesy symbol of happiness and buried hatchets, of Swift and Perry's vapidity, of straight white women centering themselves in a social movement that isn't theirs, or the bizarro world of performative celebrity relationships calibrated for maximum engagement. Just like the song as a whole. That's a lot of weight for a three-and-a-half minute pop song to carry, and putting that kind of burden on it does a, well, queer thing: It proves Swift right.

If there's anything to say about "You Need to Calm Down," it's that the song is more evidence that Taylor Swift is extremely good at her job: being the pop star people deserve, if not the one they say they want. People claimed to despise Swift's lack of politics, and now she is overtly political and they still hate it. People claimed to dislike her petty feuding, but then spent thousands of hours treating her lyrics, tweets, and Instagram photos like a scandal scavenger hunt. "You Need to Calm Down" continues to sate internet sleuths with its references to snakes (an obvious allusion to her beef with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian) and gowns (allegedly a nod to a dustup with Aretha Franklin). She even managed to iterate on a strategy that proved successful with "Look What You Made Me Do" and even "Shake It Off": blaming the listener, placing the controversy at the feet of the "haters," and accepting little culpability. No matter what you're feeling about "You Need to Calm Down," your hot take is still playing directly into Swift's hands.

Given the circumstances, there is only one solution: Stop meme-ing Taylor Swift. Not because she's scarily capable of manipulating the internet, not because her spotty feminism and allyship means she should be canceled, and certainly not because talking about her is boring. Do it because everyone's energy can be better spent. Sometimes a pop song is just a pop song. If you disagree, maybe you need to calm down.

[gyrlversion]

Stop Meme-ing Taylor Swift

At this point, thinking sober thoughts about a new Taylor Swift song is painfully predictable. It’s a here we go again exercise that think-piece writers and social media pundits have come to dread and celebrate in equal measure. Yet, no matter how formulaic the Swift responses are, the internet must be fed. Luckily for all involved, her latest single, “You Need to Calm Down,” is irresistible hot-take fodder: It’s been hailed as revolutionary, slammed as queerbait, praised as inclusive, and condemned as intolerant. The lyrics and music video nod to Swift’s many celebrity feuds, but also include a GLAAD endorsement and a petition to ratify the Equality Act. There is homophobia, and also a food fight. It’s a Tayfecta of Swiftian contradiction, and if there’s one thing no one is feeling about it, it’s calm.

Now, genuine reasons to celebrate or scorn “You Need to Calm Down” do exist. Many are celebrating the video because it approaches something like allyship, especially for a pop song. It’s packed with queer celebrities of many racial, sexual, and gender identities; it highlights real activism and the Equality Act, and, because of Swift’s platform, makes news stories of them both (donations to GLAAD have spiked since the song’s release); Swift and erstwhile nemesis Katy Perry buck tradition and do not literally kiss to make up. Some of its lines—like “shade never made anybody less gay”—are already being printed on T-shirts, and will be belted all Pride month long, as they are clearly meant to be.

The candy-colored bits of progress are not without tonal issues, though. Critics point out that homophobia isn’t shade. That putting Swift’s struggles with online haters and the LGBTQ+ community’s struggles with systemic bigotry under the same lyrical umbrella is reductive. That the video’s homophobic protesters are unkempt, cowboy-hatted blue-collar stereotypes, which is both classist and ignores prejudice’s pervasiveness at every level of American society. Some read Swift’s blue-purple-pink wig as a nod to the bisexual flag and hence as queerbait. Other people think it’s unfair that Swift is only telling the protesters, and not the LGBTQ+ community, to calm down. (Those people are wrong. My patience for folks who think a glittery parade is tantamount to hate speech can’t come to the phone right now. It’s dead.)

The song has spawned more opinions than it has words. A still of Swift, dressed in a french fry costume, embracing Perry, who is dressed as a hamburger, is on its way to becoming a sub-meme of its own. Depending on who you are, it could be a cutesy symbol of happiness and buried hatchets, of Swift and Perry’s vapidity, of straight white women centering themselves in a social movement that isn’t theirs, or the bizarro world of performative celebrity relationships calibrated for maximum engagement. Just like the song as a whole. That’s a lot of weight for a three-and-a-half minute pop song to carry, and putting that kind of burden on it does a, well, queer thing: It proves Swift right.

If there’s anything to say about “You Need to Calm Down,” it’s that the song is more evidence that Taylor Swift is extremely good at her job: being the pop star people deserve, if not the one they say they want. People claimed to despise Swift’s lack of politics, and now she is overtly political and they still hate it. People claimed to dislike her petty feuding, but then spent thousands of hours treating her lyrics, tweets, and Instagram photos like a scandal scavenger hunt. “You Need to Calm Down” continues to sate internet sleuths with its references to snakes (an obvious allusion to her beef with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian) and gowns (allegedly a nod to a dust-up with Aretha Franklin). She even managed to iterate on a strategy that proved successful with “Look What You Made Me Do” and even “Shake It Off”: blame the listener, place the controversy at the feet of the “haters” and accept little culpability. No matter what you’re feeling about “You Need to Calm Down,” your hot take is still playing directly into Swift’s hands.

Given the circumstances, there is only one solution: stop meme-ing Taylor Swift. Not because she’s scarily capable of manipulating the internet, not because her spotty feminism and allyship means she should be canceled, and certainly not because talking about her is boring. Do it because everyone’s energy can be better spent. Sometimes a pop song is just a pop song. If you disagree, maybe you need to calm down.

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