you can pry the word queer as a self-descriptor and term for an LGBT+ community i’m a part of from not only my cold, dead hands, but those of our ancestors we lost to AIDS who valiantly reclaimed and reweaponized the term, this time pointing it at those who would let us die
the members of queer nation, made up of people from the AIDS activism organization ACT UP, fought back against anti-LGBT+ street violence. and they did it in part by forcing people to confront the ways in which we are different. in which we are queer. this will not be in vain.
queer community is not synonymous with LGBT+ community, and if you’re LGBT+ but don’t want to be queer, fine
but i am. loudly. just like those who came before us and fought for our rights. and i will not stop being queer or being loud about it.
but i am. loudly. just like those who came before us and fought for our rights. and i will not stop being queer or being loud about it.
our disconnection from our history is hurting us so badly is so many ways
someone QT’d this thread angrily, and then i found out they also have tweets mad about bisexual women using “lesbo” or “dyke”. i was literally just tweeting about this. it’s all related.
part of the pushback against “queer” was by TERFs who didn’t want to group trans people with lesbians and gay people. the same movement that started with pushing bisexual people out of lesbian. and because we don’t learn our history, we fall victim as a community to this.
it’s not that everyone who does this is a TERF, but rather that TERFs are able to take advantage of the way our community doesn’t know it’s history, to erase or push their own narratives about words like “queer” or “lesbian”, and then we do their work for them
and for the “queer is fine as a self-ID but don’t call others queer”: that’s fine! like i said above, queer is a distinct community you choose to be a part of. i don’t assume that any individual identifies with queer.
which is part of why queer community is my community
which is part of why queer community is my community
i will fight tooth and nail for queer spaces, queer resources, and i will speak of the queer community, because it is us queers, us who stand in the political shadows of our ancestors and demand better treatment without assimilation, that i am looking arms and fighting with
it’s so easy for us to lose our history. so many LGBT+ children are raised in cishet homes. and we lost nearly an entire generation to AIDS. but we *must* not let it slip away. we must understand what ground has already been tread, and who tread it, and how.
queer as a term has been intentionally provocative and intentionally political since queer nation used it! that’s the point! that’s why it’s so important! and we owe health and safety to these people! we owe blood!
this blew up more overnight, and i hear ppl talking about “it’s fine if you ID as this, but too many academic structures use it as a blanket term” and again, please learn and embrace our history. it was explicitly chosen for academia by our previous generations, and for a reason.
it was chosen explicitly to be more broadly inclusive of those left out by other terms, and it was chosen because it had explicitly political ties. this is a different argument than i was making before, but we are so much better off for embracing the legacy of our ancestors.
it’s honestly downright insulting for people to claim that academics shouldn’t call it “queer theory” when it’s the LGBT+ people who helped secure the place we have today who named it that. it’s a disgrace to their work and effort.
and honestly, in the end, if you don’t want to be a part of it, fine. you don’t have to be a part of queerness as a movement. but those of you who don’t want to, don’t complain when the work built off queer predecessors isn’t available to you. you chose to forsake their work.
this sounds angrier than i did last night in many ways, and it’s because i am. it’s because i had to wake up to so many people willing to discard our history and the hard and intentional work of those who cleared a path for us.
i got called “gay” as a derogative hundreds of times more often than “queer”. but i refuse to have that word, and a word of our ancestors, taken from me. and if you don’t feel the same, don’t embrace it, but when you forsake them & there work, don’t complain it’s not accessible.
when i was 17, someone tried to use “queer” as a term for a community of LGBT+ people, and i was shocked and horrified! that’s insulting! i had literally never heard it in a positive context.
because it was *intentinally not taught to me*! because Queer Nation was erased!
because it was *intentinally not taught to me*! because Queer Nation was erased!
queer is a word that was intentionally used by our ancestors, with a specific political purpose, and then intentionally taken from us by TERFs + cis people. i had that initial reaction to purge it, but as i learned our history, i embraced those who led us here.
in my frustration i have walked farther away from empathy than i would like to so let me try to back up for a second:
i am so sorry for everyone who has had pain with that word. i have had pain with that word. and understanding it is part of why i don’t want to force this
i am so sorry for everyone who has had pain with that word. i have had pain with that word. and understanding it is part of why i don’t want to force this
word on anyone who doesn’t want it. but even in that understanding, i have to hold it together with the fact that those who fought for our rights used it, and the pain and othering it held, intentionally. that the pain is part of the power of the word and the movement.
i am sorry this word causes you pain & i hope you’re able to find what you need without it. but i refuse to stop using it, or stop building resources and activism around it, when i have so much of where i am today b/c of the work of queer ancestors, and b/c that still has power.
and i do genuinely believe that rejecting and pushing away that word is harmful to LGBT+ movements in general, for the ways it rejects that history, but if you believe differently, i don’t begrudge your right to organize outside of it. just don’t ask us to push it away too.
if you haven’t read the Queer Manifesto that was written by ACT UP members, i highly recommend it. it has rough edges (and i specifically don’t agree with the “queer are most hated for” sentence) but overall i find it brilliant and inspirational historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/queern… 
