rolequeer:

Anon question: 

ok so. i have a question or two. i’m fairly new to rolequeer stuff so sorry if these are crappy questions. anyway. i’ve read that it would be inappropriate for a cishet person to call themselves rolequeer. what could a cishet person call themselves to show their support for rolequeers? also, what else could they do to support rq? and that leads to my next question: what do you think could be done to support the spread of rolequeer ideas, experiences, and such?

Well, this is not something all people in the rolequeer community agree on, so I’m going to try my best to give you my opinion and my opinion only. Here goes.

Rolequeerness is a movement of queer people. So where do you fit in? First, I gotta differentiate between two things:

1. Identifying as cishet
2. Acknowledging that you have cishet privilege because of how you are perceived by the world around you

Straightness and cisness are both fake constructs that protect privilege. There are 6 billion people on this earth. If you met every last one, there’s no way you would only be attracted to members of one gender group. If you explored every aspect of your gender, there’s no way it would all be identical with what the doctor expected of you at birth.

When you take the endless complexity of your sexuality and gender and choose to identify yourself as cisgender and heterosexual, you are upholding the social construct. In reality, straightness is not a real thing. If you pretend it is, you strengthen it. And by identifying with it, you get a hell of a lot of extra cishet privilege.

The rolequeer thing to do? Be a traitor to that identity. Deconstruct your own sexuality and gender and explore your potential to be anything other than cishet. Destroy your cishet reputation. Don’t ever identify yourself as straight or cisgender in a space where that would make it easier for you. Don’t uphold the myth that anyone is really cishet.

So:

• Identifying as cishet –> strengthens the oppressive construct. Inherently anti-rolequeer.
• Exploring your queer potential, destroying the idea that anyone is cishet –> potentially rolequeer.
• Acknowledging that for as long as anyone is society still thinks of you as cishet, you will have cis het privilege –> basic decent thing to do.

I think that about sums it up. Again: just my perspective.

Oh, and finally, for the people who still don’t get it: identities like gay, bi, pan and cis, are also all fake, but they allow us to talk back to heteronormativity and cisnormativity and describe how our lives are different from

heteronormativity and cisnormativity

. Identities of the oppressor create language for oppression, identities of the oppressed create language for resistance.

The second question is huge and I don’t really have a short answer. What can be done to spread ideas? anything. everything. Books, blogs, movies, chatrooms, websites, conferences, workshops, songs, marches, unconferences, graffiti, flash mobs, guided meditation, unporn. You name it.