#if this were 2015 I'd get some angry anons demanding i detail my sexual/romantic history to justify why i belong here

[wadebae]

I hate “discourse” but I have something to say. There are still ppl in the year 2020 who think asexuals are “trying to invade” lgbt spaces or some shit and hate us in extremely radicalized and concerning ways, and it’s disgusting. You might not be asexual and you might not care, but there’s a reason why there’s a huge overlap with people who hate aces and people who hate trans women. There’s a reason why people who buy into this can often also spew such radicalized hate speech that they sounds indistinguishable from TERFs, despite perhaps literally being the polar opposite of a TERF.

There’s a reason why there’s been a push to have young lgbt people swallow the propaganda of “queer is a slur” and “don’t trust anyone who calls themselves queer” despite the fact that the same people will often reclaim dyke, fag, or gay as their own proud identities. And there’s nothing wrong with that. My issue lies with the hypocrisy of policing the labels of others.

So why are those slurs ok to reclaim and not queer? Because queer is “too inclusive” and “will allow undesirables into the community.” But Queer was the rallying cry of your own history. It was a reclamation of yes, a slur, used to spit back into the face of heteronormativity and those who violently wanted us dead. It’s been used in popular media - Queer as Folk, Queer Eye - for decades. It’s used in college courses. Queer History. Queer Studies.

Queer is perhaps the one most all-encompassing word, if you don’t want to use an “alphabet soup” of letters for fear of diminishing any one community’s validity to stand alongside one another. But those who hate the word, think that the community should be boiled down to just LGBT as if that’s all we are and all we ever were, when history points to the contrary.

It honestly breaks my heart -- not that one might be offended by the word, because we all have our own experiences of what slurs were used against us personally and which ones we’ll never reclaim. But rather it breaks my heart because there are many, many LGBTQ+ folks who feel that queer is the only one word that can actually describe them without misrepresenting part of their identity. People are complex. We cannot all fit into one or two boxes, nice and neat, no matter how often I’ve wished I could myself because it would be less confusing.

Queer as an identity meant to be all-encompassing, like a verbal blanket that says, yes you do belong even if you don’t have the words yet to describe yourself or never will.

When you tell a stranger, *I* do not identify as queer, therefore *you* are not allowed to use it, you’re not only spitting in their face but also in the faces of people who came before us and paved the way so Pride can be a celebration today instead of a funeral march or a riot. There are people who want Pride to be a riot again but don’t even remember what that means or who started it.

When you push down others who don’t fit nice and neat into just L, G, B, or T, (people who often do identify with one or more of these communities, but who also can only find comfort in additional labels, or god forbid, one nebulous label like ‘queer’ because it’s the only place they truly feel at ease) you’re standing alongside a history of oppressors who said that we are all wrong. Because to people who violently hate us, it doesn’t matter if you’re a lesbian, a gay man, bisexual, trans, pansexual, poly, genderfluid, nonbinary, asexual, aromantic, demi, agender, genderqueer, or whatever words we might have to describe ourselves, if you don’t fit the mold, to them you’re just queer and something to stamp out. They do not care what you are exactly.

I know why people get annoyed. It’s strange to have new labels crop up, especially when they don’t describe you and you’ll never fully understand what it feels like. But just because the words are new (to you) doesn’t mean that what it describes is new. Yes, there are many, many labels and micro-identities. There’s an explosion of young people who feel safe enough to test the waters and see what sticks. If it’s silly, it will fall out of use. If it makes sense, it will endure.

I know why people get scared. The world is full of horrible people, nazis, racists, rapists, pedophiles, trolls who twist our own words against us to try to invalidate our lived experiences. But by lashing out against other LGBTQ+ people, you don’t fight off “the invaders”, you just rip the community into pieces. There are young, questioning, scared kids growing up right now and seeing this shit and being actually damaged by the gatekeeping and toxic behavior aimed within the community. Young people need to know it’s okay to try different labels and it’s okay to not know yet, or to never know.

The community isn’t a castle you can protect. You either are LGBTQ+ or you are not. You cannot know someone else’s mind and feelings and whether they are what they say they are. You can only see their words and actions. Instead of worrying about policing other people’s labels and who is barred from imaginary castles, worry about how people behave towards others. Because I do not care who you are, if you are harassing people, spreading harmful misinformation, making hate speech, or sending threats, you fucking suck and you become part of the problem. No number of labels will protect you from being a shitty human being. You might be “part of the community” but you will never be welcome in my book. That’s how that works.