pull-the-tooth:

johniaurens:

chaoticbard:

“Wow how privileged do you have to be to believe queer isn’t a slur” idk man maybe they just aren’t….American….

actually i’m reblogging this again to agree with a bunch of people in the notes saying they’ve never personally witnessed it being used as a slur

i grew up in finland and what was flung at me was either “homo” which is literally just the politically neutral finnish word for gay, or sometimes “lesbo,” again just the finnish word for lesbian considered the most appropriate, with the odd “lepakko” (lit means bat but when used as a slang term means lesbian, close to d*ke but less offensive) or “hintti” (offensive but kinda childish way to call someone gay)

and then lived in raleigh, north carolina – people used and still use afaik gay as the choice insult – went to durham pride two times and both years the only slurs i heard from homophobes were the f slur, the t slur and the d slur. i just haven’t seen it. i fail to see how this is a privilege as much as it’s a regional experience… it’s not a privilege to be called a f*g instead of queer by homophobes like wtf

I grew up in the America South and let me tell you, queer wasn’t even near the top of the list of slurs to be thrown. I heard one queer for every 100 gay/homo/f*gg*t. You were more likely to get called a racial slur that didn’t apply to you than be called queer. We successfully reclaimed the word in the 80s/90s. It’s a word that carries so much less power as a slur because of it’s use within varied communities across the globe. It is a unifier and a call for rebellion.

300% of the backlash against the word comes from people who see who typically uses the word as a self-descriptor (e.g. trans women, nonbinary folx, bi/pan/mga people, multiplely queer folk, aro/ace peeps, queer polycules) and wish to silence them for that act of self description. They are threatened by our autonomy. For a lot of white cis gays, it’s a repetition of repression and exclusion that has existed as long as there have been groups focused on sexual/gender liberation: another marginalized group mentions a similarity between the oppression the “in” group faces and that which the “out” group faces, the “in” group uses it’s “authority on the subject” to deny entry into the larger group, usually by citing some form of oppression Olympics. It’s happened for every letter that’s gone into LGBT+. Gay men refused to let lesbians enter into their groups though homophobic violence is/was hurled at both groups. Bi/pan and trans people are still largely ignored/demonized with the LGBT community today despite being part of the alphabet soup for almost 25 years now (and having the highest rates of suicide, sexual assault, and poverty).

It’s because queer is intersectional and ambiguous that it threatens these people so much that they set up sock puppet accounts and try to attach pedophilia/rape appologia/incest to so many of the new ideas regarding sexuality and gender expression. The people most threatened by my and other’s choices to self-identity as queer are those with the largest stake in perpetuating capitalist cishetetopatriarchy.

People often mistakenly say “these people just want to be able to act like our oppressors” and that’s only partially true. They don’t want to act like our oppressors: They think they deserve to hold a position of violent authority over others after suffering through such authority their whole lives. Queer is the antithesis of this idea. Queer says “I have been deemed subhuman and unlovable my entire life for the inability to perform as a “ideal” individual based upon society’s standards of gender and sexuality and I wish for a world where no one will ever live with that fear again”.

Queer is a cry to end the societal cycle of acceptance (often only for profit) and exclusion/violence. Queer is radical and that makes it uncomfortable for the people who have newly granted privilege under law. They have theirs and even though I fought to help them, I must now help myself to get those same rights. Sure, cis gays and lesbians can now get married/not get fired for their sexuality/ have visitation rights in hospitals/et. al., But the rest of us still face legal abuse at the hands of our bosses and the government. It’s still legal in many states to use the trans panic defense. People have a legal route to get away with murdering trans women, and y’all are worried that I call myself queer?