On queerness (45/365)

[white_hart]

I really liked this essay by Kit O'Sullivan, about growing into their non-binary identity; in particular, the sentence 'The stepping stone into myself was the moment that I realised “queer” is an umbrella term for plethora of sexual and gender identities that are simply not cis or not straight' really resonated with me. Because I understand why a generation of gay people - perhaps principally gay men - can never hear "queer" as anything other than the term of hatred and abuse that was hurled at them (I have much less sympathy for Tumblr teens who talk about "the q-slur"), but it's so much easier than "biromantic asexual, increasingly unconvinced about gender as a concept" (and also gives away a lot less personal information in the course of getting across the fundamental point of Not Straight). "Queer" allows me the space to explore, to feel different on different days. It gives me the freedom to be myself without having to commit to specific definitions. It encompasses all the parts of me instead of trying to put different bits into different boxes. It feels like me in a way other identities simply don't.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Trouble with 'queer' as a catch all is that a lot of people assume that ALL trans people are queer.

I'm boringly straight and married- a lot of us are the first and quite a few the second.

But of course 'what everybody knows' is that no one will ever love us..............

But if it works for you, go for it, I say! :o)

[white_hart]

I had been thinking of not-cisness as falling under the queer umbrella, but I can see that it may not feel that way for you. And I think some cishet poly relationships could be considered as queer, so maybe the overlap with "LGBTQIA+" isn't quite as neat as it might appear at first.

[cmcmck]

It's a bit like LGBT which everyone (the BBC included) assume is all to do with sexuality so 'T' is a form of sexuality.

Um.......no!

I've run into so many labels over the years some of which were just plain odd.