#no but really literally queer has been reclaimed everywhere. queer studies. queer history.

[wolf-skins]

online leftists are some of the dumbest motherfuckers alive

[d-rownindesigner]

the ‘q-word’

ok. so i’ve always been an advocate for ‘using slurs more strips them of their meaning and makes them less hurtful’ so you may be wondering why i agree with that whole ‘queer is a slur’ mentality. but here’s the thing: i don’t class queer as your ‘typical’ slur and i’ll explain why.

other slurs that are used to describe the lgbt community [fag, dyke, tranny, etc] are not used in modern media. everywhere in media you can find the lgbt community being called ‘the queer community’ and ‘queer people’. it’s in journals and studies. it’s in academic sources. it’s in essays, it’s in blog posts, and it’s used frequently at rallies, parades, and at pride itself. i’ve seen it claimed that this is because it’s a nice, all-inclusive way of saying lgbt that sounds better. but that is what makes it so damaging.

i don’t consider it a slur because of its history, although a lot of people do and that’s perfectly fine. not liking a word because it has bad history is fine and good and you have the right not to want to be called that. i consider it a slur [or at least, bad and not something you should just call all lgbt people as a catch-all term] purely because of how catch-all it is.

not everyone who is a part of the lgbt community wants to always be associated with that community under such a catch-all label like queer. i am a straight trans man in a heterosexual relationship. if someone was to describe my relationship with my girlfriend as ‘queer’ it would really upset me because that would imply that our relationship was not entirely straight/hetero - because i’m trans. she’s cis. implying that a trans man dating a cis woman [or a trans woman dating a cis man] is not entirely straight is transphobic and invalidates the gender of the trans person.

in the same way, i don’t want to be associated with queer because, in an ideal world, i will pass as a straight male one day. i will not be ‘queer’. to be defined as ‘queer’ makes me feel invalidated and like i’m not a real man. queer literally means ‘strange’ or ‘odd’. i don’t want to be considered a weirdo or like i’m ‘challenging the cisheteronormative society’ or whatever. i’m a masculine-presenting, straight, trans man. if you remove the ‘trans’ i’m about as non-queer as you can get.

and that brings me to my second point. queer does mean ‘strange’ or ‘odd’. consequently that’s why it used to be a slur. some people are not comfortable with being called queer because of its heritage as a slur. so saying we are ‘the queer community’ all the time makes those people feel uncomfortable and alienated. it is still used, often by older generations, to make fun of lgbt people. my grandfather calls my lesbian cousin a queer all the time and he does mean it in a homophobic way. she has reclaimed the word but some people don’t want to do that - respect them. a lot of other posts talk about this so i won’t go too far into it here.

it’s fine to reclaim queer. i throw queer around the same way i throw other words like fag, tranny, and nigger around. but, like with all slurs, if someone asks me to stop i will stop. i never generalise the whole community by calling them ‘the queer community’ or ‘queer people’. personally, i only get offended by queer because i don’t see it as applicable to me. i get offended by queer in the same way that i get offended by dyke - not because i don’t like being called slurs, but because it doesn’t apply to me. i am a straight trans man. i don’t challenge gender norms, i’m not sga. i just want to look and feel like your average straight trans man. i don’t mean i’m ashamed of my trans identity, because i’m not, but i just don’t want my masculinity and heterosexuality to be undermined by something as stupid as a word. call me a cracker, call me a tranny. hell, even call me a fag. i care less about my heterosexuality than i do my gender. but don’t call me a dyke and definitely don’t call me queer. i am not queer.