Thread by @RuffleJax

I'm seeing the "queer people need to be more CAREFUL about how they express themselves" discourse beginning earlier in some spaces this year, so this is your reminder that queer people don't need to be role models to exist in public spaces.

We're allowed to be messy.

We're allowed to fuck up.

We shouldn't have to pass a vibe check, a background check, and a jury ruling of our peers to be able to go outside.

That's some fucking carceral horseshit.

Because I'm sure someone with Twitter brain will see this: I'm not saying queer people should be allowed to be abusive, bigoted, etc. without consequence.

I'm saying that queer people should be allowed to be happy and wear what they like without peers going "BUT THE CHILDREN"

This is also an unfriendly reminder that "queer is a slur" and "no kink at pride" are both TERF/SWERF 📀🐎 inroads to fetishizing and demonizing anyone who doesn't fit into neat, cis, monosexual, monogamous categories.

To me, "no kink at pride" is particularly insidious because the reason given is always "think of the children!!!"

I am a survivor of both grooming and relationship abuse, and people who use that line pretend like they want to protect me. They don't.

Moral panics always glom onto very real traumatic experiences and twist them into something totally unrecognizable.

"No kink at pride" isn't about public sex. It's about getting rid of people who don't conform to a very cis definition of not-straight.

In a very real way, "no kink at pride" is about reducing LGBTQIA+ down to LG.

Same with "queer is a slur". Ambiguity is dangerous. Atomize everyone into little boxes. Allow no room for fluidity and adaptation and exploration.

I get it. I get that it's a trauma response. I get that it's holding on to your identity, kicking and screaming, terrified that someone else will invalidate you and take it away from you.

These feelings are valid, but the reactions are absolutely harmful.

You knew I had to talk about Baedan at least once during this thread, so here's a quote I've considered getting tattooed somewhere on my body at least once:

"Queerness can never define an identity, it can only ever disrupt one."

Queerness is that part of us that screams for liberation, for change, for love and jouissance. It is never satisfied with the status quo, nor should it be. It pushes and needles and dreams.

Queerness cannot be contained, and that frightens people.

When we get closer to the late May/early June pride discourse, I'll write a longer thread about why "no kink at pride" is actually just a slippery slope argument writ large, but for now, I want y'all to understand that queer people don't need anyone's permission to exist.

I don't have a Soundcloud but it's an Itch creator day so maybe go pick up some of my perzines or games?

rufflejax.itch.io