So “queer” isn’t just an identity that’s broadly inclusive because, I don’t know, we like big parties. There’s actually an underlying ethic, a queer theory, that has political implications.
Its name reclaims a slur because the point is to say, “I am different, but that’s not a bad thing.” The queer movement is about upholding the right of all people to deviate from an oppressive cisgender, heterosexual, patriarchal norm. Broadening the spectrum of acceptable diversity; questioning and dismantling the social pressures that police and punish deviance. Changing not just our own lives, but how our entire society thinks about sex and gender.
That’s why “queer” embraces so many different groups. It’s not trying to erase their differences, but to try to coherently understand the complex overlapping pressures that affect each of them, and to extend our reach beyond the LGBT+ community. It’s about the right of lesbians to live without men and the right of trans and nonbinary people to be who they are, the right of asexuals to define for themselves what’s significant in their lives, the right of straight men to be vulnerable and emotional and nonviolent. When the great queering project is done, you will see the changes everywhere, not just in small LGBT+ enclaves.
It’s recognizing that something that harms or oppresses one of us is pretty likely to harm all of us, so we all benefit from taking it down together.
Did you just say emotional straight men are qu*er? Did you deadass just say that cishet men are part of the lgbt community? And y’all wonder why so many people hate it?
(sigh) I’ll repeat myself:
For everyone who’s like “Whoa, I was with you until you threw straight men in there”:
Homophobia is a huge part of how all men are policed. If a man isn’t strong, tough, aggressive, and dominant? He gets called gay. So this isn’t “Soft straight men are totally LGBT+ and belong in your gay support group!” but it is “Part of the work of disassembling homophobia is changing how it affects straight men.”
It’s the same way that men aren’t the primary intended beneficiaries of feminism, but part of the work of feminism is addressing and changing toxic masculinity. If you’re effective enough at changing the system, you change it for everyone.
To reiterate: One way that toxic masculinity is kept as the default pattern of behavior for straight men is that they are punished, quickly and efficiently, for any show of vulnerability. Dismantling the structures that enforce traditional gender roles is one way to ensure that LGBT people are welcomed in society.
The world would be much more accepting if Joe Cishet didn’t feel the need to correct every single deviation from the toxic behaviors he believes are required.
The curb cut effect is good y’all. Not bad.
I’m stuck on “the great queering project”
Queer theory uses “to queer” to mean “to interpret in a way that causes something to depart from cisheteronormative societal standards” or “to interpret as queer”. It originated in literary and cultural criticism, but it can be used to describe the tangible social inroads LGBTQ+ people have made in dismantling cisheteronormativity itself.
Once again:
Queer is a coalition, not a demographic.
The purpose of the queer coalition is to end the practice of, “you must have [X list of traits] to participate in these parts of society.”
Can cishet men be queer?
Why does it matter?
Being queer isn’t about what specific identity or traits you have. It’s about saying, “HEY! Average isn’t the pinnacle of human existence! We didn’t build this world so everyone could strive to be just like their neighbors! People can be different and we can celebrate that difference, not shun it!”
Can a cishet man “be queer?” I dunno. I don’t think that’s important.
Can a cishet man “live a queer life?” Hell yes he can.
Can a cishet woman “be queer?” Wrong question.
Can a cishet woman “live a queer life?” Hell yes.
These aren’t “straight people appropriating queer culture.” They’re not taking it away from us, not picking and choosing bits of it to share with their cis het friends. These are people joining queer culture.
They’re not part of the LGBT community. They ARE part of the queer community.
this is a long-ish, text-heavy post but please read it, especially the last addition ^
Queer is a coalition, not a demographic.
^ This is why allies are part of the broader queer community while lesbian TERFs, exclusionists, etc. aren’t.
My mom’s friend who corrects anyone who gets my sibling’s pronouns wrong, who actively supports queer kids in her classroom, who welcomed her daughter’s trans girlfriend into her family? She is part of the queer community regardless of her sexuality, and anyone who says she can’t be needs to think about their definition of community. And by the same definition, TERFs aren’t part of the community because they choose not to be, because trying to control other people and justify their own bitterness and bigotry is more important to them.
“Can cishet people be queer?”
Listen. Listen. In 2007, I went to see a gay performance artist named Tim Miller. At that time he did pieces talking about the two major issues that had affected him as a queer man: surviving the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s as his friends dropped dead around him, and the fact that he wanted to marry his partner, who was Australian, and every time said partner came to the US there was a concern he’d be deported because his relationship made him “a risk for overstaying his visa.” Marriage would have given him a green card, but guess what you couldn’t do in 2007! Even if you got married in Maryland, it didn’t count for immigration purposes because it wasn’t federally recognized.
So one of the stories he told that night was about his high school German teacher, who was a butch lesbian. He ended the story with a line I have never forgotten:
“The queer kids, whether they’re gay or straight, have to stick together.”
This was a performance piece he’d first written IN 1994.
So: a man who survived a queer genocide says yes, you fucking well CAN be cishet and queer. I think he’d know.
(If you’re wondering: yes, he and the partner did finally get to get married. Assuming they’re both alive and well, they’ll celebrate 30 years in 2024.)
Ten years ago this October, I came out as Queer.
At the time, I identified as a cishet man, although I usually added some witty disclaimer like “but I’m not very good at it” or “but I don’t have a fucking complex about it” or something like that. Queer was my way of a) showing support to the community that had been there for me my entire life, and b) ditching the vague qualifiers.
It would be another eight months before the implications of this really kicked in. I had gone to see my mother on her deathbed, and taken all of the needful stuff out of my purse and put it into my pockets. When I got back to the car, I started putting everything back in my purse, and I was grouchy about it, because I hate having lots of stuff in my pockets. And I said to myself I should have said screw it and just taken the purse in with me, because the only surprise would have been that I had the audacity to bring it with me, not that I had one.
And that’s when it hit me that I was, in fact, Queer.
Since then it’s been… a journey. I now identify as trans/non-binary, and there are times I suspect I may just be a woman, but I have such a poor grasp on gender that I really don’t know. I’d never really thought about it before. I’ve come to realize that I’ve always had some level of body dysphoria, but I honestly don’t know if it’s connected to gender. (It… doesn’t feel like it, but again, still not clear on the concept.) I did one of those face-app gender swap things and there was a weird ache looking at it.
And I wouldn’t have gotten this far if I hadn’t started with Queer. I wouldn’t have gotten this far if the Queer community hadn’t bumped into the little sissy nerd and gone “Oh, hey, you can hang with us.” I wouldn’t have gotten this far if a huge chunk of the It Gets Better Project videos didn’t explicitly go out of their way to say “And all of this is for the nerds, too, and the weirdos, and the folks who are always told they don’t belong.”
You can have my Queer when you reincarnate as a quicker shot.
Oh shit that last line.
Yeah, a lot to think about here.
