three-dollar-bill
three-dollar-bill
Queer As A $3 Bill
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I swore I would never become that older dyke telling queer youth “how much harder we had it” and yet, here we are. At least I kept my promise to not grow a mullet.
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three-dollar-bill · 3 years ago
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Joining a community for the first time*
For some reason I am just now joining Tumblr. This means I am not familiar with the culture and will probably get some things terribly wrong. The insecurity I feel about this has me thinking about how it relates to the LGBTQ+/GRSM/Queer community.
There are two things unique to GRSM as a marginalized group:
It is rarely something you are aware of from birth, so there is a mourning period that goes along with realizing you do not, in fact belong to the gender and sexual majority.
Unlike race or religion it is rarely a shared family experience, in fact our biological families are sometimes the worst perpetrators of hatred we will ever encounter.
So when you realize you aren’t straight or aren’t cis you seek out others with a shared experience, you look for community for validation and to help you understand what you are experiencing.
Plot twist: sometimes the very community you seek turns you away for not being gay enough or trans enough or experienced enough, or any other arbitrary reason that gatekeeping occurs.
We should know better than anyone not to judge people for having an experience or identity different from ours. We should know better than to turn away a lost soul.
If you’re new or still finding your way, welcome to the family. You don’t have to know your labels to be valid, it’s ok if they change, there is no right way to be queer, and no one can tell you who you are. You are valid, today, right now, however messy you might feel.
If you’ve been here a while, remember you were new once too, we all were. If you’re feeling the need to gatekeep take a look at yourself- that’s about you, you’re not as secure as you think.
*Note: I use the terms LGBTQ+, GRSM, queer and gay interchangeably to all mean the same thing.
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