Thread by @megelison

Ok I saw this video again the other night at a party and it's been bothering me ever since. So, a thread about queerness and aesthetics.

Let's set aside the part where TS is maybe queerbaiting folks, maybe making herself the center of a would-be Pride anthem. I'm not arguing with that. It's valid. Let's talk about this:

Natalie Wynn, the best philosopher on the internet, wrote a really good explanation of the difference between an age of reason and one of aesthetics. She argues that we're living in the latter, and her evidence is convincing.

For #LGBTQ folks, aesthetics have always been important. From the subtle signaling that made cruising culture under oppressive policing possible, to the jailing of trans folks based on specific articles of clothing, the way we dress has always been very important.

Dress as a means of both transgression and identification has always been a part of our culture. However, this has given support to some shitty ideas. Like the one that goes "hateful people have bad complexions" or "KAC is aging like that because she's a racist."

The argument goes: pretty people have good hearts, clear consciences, and health. Ugly people and fat people are therefore inherently bad, through the medieval magical idea of sins showing in flesh. See @KivaBay for extensive work on this subject in many threads.

And I've noticed that in queer circles, which have always been biased toward thinness and beauty and youth at any cost, this idea is particularly persistent. We expect people to prove goodness AND queerness with skin care. Sequins. The Right haircut.

The cost of this is astronomical. It makes people worry that they aren't gay enough because they don't know how to dress like JVN. That they won't ever pass because they're just poor. That they look like the enemy.

I looked at this frame of this video and didn't see the enemy. I saw some rural queers who (like myself) are fat and can't afford dental care. TS and her video producers wanted some visual shorthand for bigotry, and they made a lazy choice.

The complicated truth is difficult to talk about in an age of aesthetics. The enemy looks like this:

And an ally looks like this. Confusing, right?

And when people look like this, we send a team of queers to Fix Them. Not their hearts or their non-union jobs, but their aesthetics.

I love queer aesthetics, but we can't use them as a cudgel or a way to bar the door. We have to remember that we won't know the enemy on sight, even if we do know our own folks that way sometimes. We will overlook a lot of our own if we believe this is the face of the enemy.

The enemy has a tailor. The enemy has big magazines calling them "dapper" and "polite." The enemy has a good haircut. Fascism trades on aesthetics.

There will be queers you will meet who are poor, fat, and dressed in what they can make work. Find a way to let them know you see them.

Don't make them over. Make them welcome.