The Scholar's Ruminations

Chivalry, but in an explicitly queer way

Duty, divorced from militaristic connotations, doing the right thing because it is the right thing and because it needs to be done even if nobody will thank you for it

Tradition, as connection and humanity and the knowledge that there are some things we have done for thousands of years because we love each other

Actually I want to reclaim a lot of words from right-wingers/conservatives

So what I’ve learned from the past couple months of being really loud about being a bi woman on Tumblr is: A lot of young/new LGBT+ people on this site do not understand that some of the stuff they’re saying comes across to other LGBT+ people as offensive, aggressive, or threatening. And when they actually find out the history and context, a lot of them go, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I never meant to say that.”

Like, “queer is a slur”: I get the impression that people saying this are like… oh, how I might react if I heard someone refer to all gay men as “f*gs”. Like, “Oh wow, that’s a super loaded word with a bunch of negative freight behind it, are you really sure you want to put that word on people who are still very raw and would be alarmed, upset, or offended if they heard you call them it, no matter what you intended?”

So they’re really surprised when self-described queers respond with a LOT of hostility to what feels like a well-intentioned reminder that some people might not like it. 

That’s because there’s a history of “political lesbians”, like Sheila Jeffreys, who believe that no matter their sexual orientation, women should cut off all social contact with men, who are fundamentally evil, and only date the “correct” sex, which is other women. Political lesbians claim that relationships between women, especially ones that don’t contain lust, are fundamentally pure, good, and  unproblematic. They therefore regard most of the LGBT community with deep suspicion, because its members are either way too into sex, into the wrong kind of sex, into sex with men, are men themselves, or somehow challenge the very definitions of sex and gender. 

When “queer theory” arrived in the 1980s and 1990s as an organized attempt by many diverse LGBT+ people in academia to sit down and talk about the social oppressions they face, political lesbians like Jeffreys attacked it harshly, publishing articles like “The Queer Disappearance of Lesbians”, arguing that because queer theory said it was okay to be a man or stop being a man or want to have sex with a man, it was fundamentally evil and destructive. And this attitude has echoed through the years; many LGBT+ people have experience being harshly criticized by radical feminists because being anything but a cis “gold star lesbian” (another phrase that gives me war flashbacks) was considered patriarchal, oppressive, and basically evil.

And when those arguments happened, “queer” was a good umbrella to shelter under, even when people didn’t know the intricacies of academic queer theory; people who identified as “queer” were more likely to be accepting and understanding, and “queer” was often the only label or community bisexual and nonbinary people didn’t get chased out of. If someone didn’t disagree that people got to call themselves queer, but didn’t want to be called queer themselves, they could just say “I don’t like being called queer” and that was that. Being “queer” was to being LGBT as being a “feminist” was to being a woman; it was opt-in.

But this history isn’t evident when these interactions happen. We don’t sit down and say, “Okay, so forty years ago there was this woman named Sheila, and…” Instead we queers go POP! like pufferfish, instantly on the defensive, a red haze descending over our vision, and bellow, “DO NOT TELL ME WHAT WORDS I CANNOT USE,” because we cannot find a way to say, “This word is so vital and precious to me, I wouldn’t be alive in the same way if I lost it.” And then the people who just pointed out that this word has a history, JEEZ, way to overreact, go away very confused and off-put, because they were just trying to say.

But I’ve found that once this is explained, a lot of people go, “Oh wow, okay, I did NOT mean to insinuate that, I didn’t realize that I was also saying something with a lot of painful freight to it.”

And that? That gives me hope for the future.

Similarily: “Dyke/butch/femme are lesbian words, bisexual/pansexual women shouldn’t use them.”

When I speak to them, lesbians who say this seem to be under the impression that bisexuals must have our own history and culture and words that are all perfectly nice, so why can’t we just use those without poaching someone else’s?

And often, they’re really shocked when I tell them: We don’t. We can’t. I’d love to; it’s not possible.

“Lesbian” used to be a word that simply meant a woman who loved other women. And until feminism, very, very few women had the economic freedom to choose to live entirely away from men. Lesbian bars that began in the 1930s didn’t interrogate you about your history at the door; many of the women who went there seeking romantic or sexual relationships with other women were married to men at the time. When The Daughters of Bilitis formed in 1955 to work for the civil and political wellbeing of lesbians, the majority of its members were closeted, married women, and for those women, leaving their husbands and committing to lesbian partners was a risky and arduous process the organization helped them with. Women were admitted whether or not they’d at one point truly loved or desired their husbands or other men–the important thing was that they loved women and wanted to explore that desire.

Lesbian groups turned against bisexual and pansexual women as a class in the 1970s and 80s, when radical feminists began to teach that to escape the Patriarchy’s evil influence, women needed to cut themselves off from men entirely. Having relationships with men was “sleeping with the enemy” and colluding with oppression. Many lesbian radical feminists viewed, and still view, bisexuality as a fundamentally disordered condition that makes bisexuals unstable, abusive, anti-feminist, and untrustworthy.

(This despite the fact that radical feminists and political lesbians are actually a small fraction of lesbians and wlw, and lesbians do tend, overall, to have positive attitudes towards bisexuals.)

That process of expelling bi women from lesbian groups with immense prejudice continues to this day and leaves scars on a lot of bi/pan people. A lot of bisexuals, myself included, have an experience of “double discrimination”; we are made to feel unwelcome or invisible both in straight society, and in LGBT spaces. And part of this is because attempts to build a bisexual/pansexual community identity have met with strong resistance from gays and lesbians, so we have far fewer books, resources, histories, icons, organizations, events, and resources than gays and lesbians do, despite numerically outnumbering them..

So every time I hear that phrase, it’s another painful reminder for me of all the experiences I’ve had being rejected by the lesbian community. But bisexual experiences don’t get talked about or signalboosted much,so a lot of young/new lesbians literally haven’t learned this aspect of LGBT+ history.

And once I’ve explained it, I’ve had a heartening number of lesbians go, “That’s not what I wanted to happen, so I’m going to stop saying that.”

This is good information for people who carry on with the “queer is a slur” rhetoric and don’t comprehend the push back.

ive been saying for years that around 10 years ago on tumblr, it was only radfems who were pushing the queer as slur rhetoric, and everyone who was trans or bi or allies to them would push back - radfems openly admitted that the reason they disliked the term “queer” was because it lumped them in with trans people and bi women. over the years, the queer is a slur rhetoric spread in large part due to that influence, but radfems were more covert about their reasons - and now it’s a much more prevalent belief on tumblr - more so than on any queer space i’ve been in online or offline - memory online is very short-term unfortunately bc now i see a lot of ppl, some of them bi or trans themselves, who make this argument and vehemently deny this history but…yep

Or asexuality, which has been a concept in discussions on sexuality since 1869. Initially grouped slightly to the left, as in the categories were ‘heterosexual’, ‘homosexual’, and ‘monosexual’ (which is used differently now, but then described what we would call asexuality). Later was quite happily folded in as a category of queerness by Magnus Hirschfeld and Emma Trosse in the 1890s, as an orientation that was not heterosexuality and thus part of the community.

Another good source here, also talking about aromanticism as well. Aspec people have been included in queer studies as long as queer studies have existed.

Also, just in my own experiences, the backlash against ‘queer’ is still really recent. When I was first working out my orientation at thirteen in 2000, there was absolutely zero issue with the term. I hung out on queer sites, looked for queer media, and was intrigued by queer studies. There were literally sections of bookstores in Glebe and Newtown labelled ‘Queer’. It was just… there, and so were we!

So it blows my mind when there are these fifteen-year-olds earnestly telling me - someone who’s called themself queer longer than they’ve been alive - that “que*r is a slur.” Unfortunately, I have got reactive/defensive for the same reasons OP has mentioned. I will absolutely work on biting down my initial defensiveness and trying to explain - in good faith - the history of the word, and how it’s been misappropriated and tarnished by exclusionists.

Worth noting here is a sneaky new front I’ve seen radfems start using:

Yeah, okay, maybe older LGBTs use queer and fag and dyke…but they’re cringey, and you don’t want to be cringe, do you?

I’m not even joking. They strip the loud-and-proud aspects of our history out of all context, remove every bit of blood, sweat, and tears the queer community poured into things like anti-discrimination laws and AIDS research funding, and use those screams of rebellion to say we’re weird, and you wouldn’t want to be WEIRD.

Stop and think about that for a minute.

Yeah. They are not the arbiters of our community and they never were, and it’s important to not give them the time of day.

Pick up your sword and shield, fellow knight. You got this! You can do this! Stay proud! ⚔️ 🌈

— Unknown

I see it a lot in my students that the ONLY mode they can engage with literature on is one in which they either say it's good because it's "relatable" or it's bad because they "can't relate to it" as well, and I feel like this is a symptom of the same problem. An unwillingness to engage with fiction outside of its ability to be a mirror to your specific worldview and set of morals. But art doesn't exist to give you moral purity badges--it's a mode of expression that produces conversations between artists and readers. And to engage in those converesations on an adult level you need to learn to process the discomfort of flawed human realities productively.

tactics

anyway q*eer is a slur and privileged liberals made everyone believe its OK to call everyone that cause they watched a Ted talk in 2017. and if you don't know why at this point that's a you problem. look it up. or better yet, go the fuck out and talk to a LGBT person older than 30. unacceptable.

Hi, I'm a queer person over 30. Queer was fully reclaimed before I even hit puberty. Most non-radfem folks in the community will tell you the exact same thing. Making queer back into a slur is a radfem psyop and completely ahistorical.

Litterally every older queer i know is fine with the word or at least has no issue with it being used just not aimed at them. The only people I ever met complaining are kids and radfems

oh is that fucking so.

cause I live in Central Manchester. one of the gayest cities in the UK.

you know how many times I've been called a queer out of a moving car.

call me a q*eer and I'll show you kids and radfems, fucking entitled shits, the lot of u

Being called queer out of a moving care does nothing to negate anything ive said, sorry ❤

if you think me being attacked by violent homophobes with a slur, which is a slur, used today as a slur, while perpetuating violence, doesn't negate anything you said you genuinely are a fucked up person, needless to say stupid, and part of the problem I'm talking about. ty for being an example. now never speak to me again u disgusting waste of air.

Hi. As a 30+ year old queer woman...you asked for anecdotes and personal responses. You specifically said to talk to US. And now you seem...upset that a lot of 30+ queer folks have come in here and shared their stories with you.

Yes, some bigots still use queer as a slur. You know what the bigots at my high school called me when they threw rocks at my and my friends at the bus loop? Gay. Lesbian. I grew up with the chorus of "that's so gay" and "ugh is she some hairy man hating lesbian?" And "I don't want that predatory lesbian hanging around here." (That last one came from my closeted high school girlfriends dad..... yay)

All our words can and have been used as insults at some time. To pathologize us or mock us or criminalize us. And all of us deal with that in different ways.

Queer is interesting because it's the word that got moved into activist and academic spaces - WITHOUT it coming into broad mainstream use. Aside from Queer Eye and Queer as Folk, you really don't see it showing up in mainstream use. But Queer Nation and Queer Studies have been around longer than me!

The thing with labels is that only you can chose which ones fit. So if queer doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. That doesn't make the people who DO use those words wrong or evil or ignorant or privileged or whatever you want to try to say.

But mostly? Don't tell people to go talk to 30+ year Olds, and then throw a FIT when 30+ year Olds talk back.

30+ queer here. The things I got yelled at me as slurs the most were "gay", "lesbo", "dyke", and "tranny"; the first time it happened, I was 9 years old. We had a block of "Queer Studies" in my high school health & sex ed class in the mid 90s.

If "queer" is upsetting to you, fine; don't use it for yourself. Nobody's saying you have to. But words only possess the power you give to them. Do not tell the rest of us we don't have the right to take weapons from the hands of our enemies and reshape them into armour for ourselves, if we choose.

I'm in my late 30s and I don't remember any TED talks I watched in 2017, but I do remember 2017 being the year SESTA/FOSTA went into effect in the US and the Apple Store started really cracking down on adult content, particularly queer adult content, which eventually led to Tumblr's pornban in late 2018.

I remember that white radfems started spreading “queer is a slur” rhetoric on tumblr in 2013/14. It coincided with a flood of “think of the children” anti-kink political rhetoric and a general push to desexualize and “purify” queer internet spaces, paving the way for SESTA/FOSTA.

Gay was deemed the more “family friendly” umbrella term.

Everyone conveniently chose to forget that the word "gay" was a slur meaning prostitute back in the 1800s, when "having a gay time" meant visiting a brothel, and then later came to refer to male prostitutes specifically, long before it became a synonym for "happy" in the 1950's.

It again became synonymous with homosexuality and sexual deviance in the 1980s, leading to its re-transformation into a slur in the 1990s and 2000s, before it was eventually re-re-re-claimed in the late 2000s.

.

It wasn't until the early 2010s that radfems decided to scrub the term gay of its unsavory history and rebrand it as the "clean, pure, baggage-free, umbrella term."

Similar to how yahoo tried to scrub tumblr of its unsavory history as the former Queer IndiePorn Capital of the Internet, and the Epicenter of the Sex Positivity Movement, and re-brand it as a "family friendly" website.

also like, bud? anything is a slur when yelled at you angrily or mockingly from a moving car of bigots. Someone post the "derogatory pepperoni" comic

I'm still just hurt and appalled that I'm considered An Old Gay, honestly.

Every single queer has been called queer from a moving car multiple times sweetie. I've been called every word from a moving car. That's the queer experience.

We’re here…we’re queer, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us! 😈

me: don't call me slurs it's homophobic

permanently logged in freaks: you can't stop me 😜

Try not invalidating our lived experience you petulant child…sheesh, talk about chronically online…go touch grass.

anyway q*eer is a slur and privileged liberals made everyone believe its OK to call everyone that cause they watched a Ted talk in 2017. and if you don't know why at this point that's a you problem. look it up. or better yet, go the fuck out and talk to a LGBT person older than 30. unacceptable.

Hi, I'm a queer person over 30. Queer was fully reclaimed before I even hit puberty. Most non-radfem folks in the community will tell you the exact same thing. Making queer back into a slur is a radfem psyop and completely ahistorical.

Litterally every older queer i know is fine with the word or at least has no issue with it being used just not aimed at them. The only people I ever met complaining are kids and radfems

oh is that fucking so.

cause I live in Central Manchester. one of the gayest cities in the UK.

you know how many times I've been called a queer out of a moving car.

call me a q*eer and I'll show you kids and radfems, fucking entitled shits, the lot of u

Being called queer out of a moving care does nothing to negate anything ive said, sorry ❤

if you think me being attacked by violent homophobes with a slur, which is a slur, used today as a slur, while perpetuating violence, doesn't negate anything you said you genuinely are a fucked up person, needless to say stupid, and part of the problem I'm talking about. ty for being an example. now never speak to me again u disgusting waste of air.

Hi. As a 30+ year old queer woman...you asked for anecdotes and personal responses. You specifically said to talk to US. And now you seem...upset that a lot of 30+ queer folks have come in here and shared their stories with you.

Yes, some bigots still use queer as a slur. You know what the bigots at my high school called me when they threw rocks at my and my friends at the bus loop? Gay. Lesbian. I grew up with the chorus of "that's so gay" and "ugh is she some hairy man hating lesbian?" And "I don't want that predatory lesbian hanging around here." (That last one came from my closeted high school girlfriends dad..... yay)

All our words can and have been used as insults at some time. To pathologize us or mock us or criminalize us. And all of us deal with that in different ways.

Queer is interesting because it's the word that got moved into activist and academic spaces - WITHOUT it coming into broad mainstream use. Aside from Queer Eye and Queer as Folk, you really don't see it showing up in mainstream use. But Queer Nation and Queer Studies have been around longer than me!

The thing with labels is that only you can chose which ones fit. So if queer doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. That doesn't make the people who DO use those words wrong or evil or ignorant or privileged or whatever you want to try to say.

But mostly? Don't tell people to go talk to 30+ year Olds, and then throw a FIT when 30+ year Olds talk back.

30+ queer here. The things I got yelled at me as slurs the most were "gay", "lesbo", "dyke", and "tranny"; the first time it happened, I was 9 years old. We had a block of "Queer Studies" in my high school health & sex ed class in the mid 90s.

If "queer" is upsetting to you, fine; don't use it for yourself. Nobody's saying you have to. But words only possess the power you give to them. Do not tell the rest of us we don't have the right to take weapons from the hands of our enemies and reshape them into armour for ourselves, if we choose.

I'm in my late 30s and I don't remember any TED talks I watched in 2017, but I do remember 2017 being the year SESTA/FOSTA went into effect in the US and the Apple Store started really cracking down on adult content, particularly queer adult content, which eventually led to Tumblr's pornban in late 2018.

I remember that white radfems started spreading “queer is a slur” rhetoric on tumblr in 2013/14. It coincided with a flood of “think of the children” anti-kink political rhetoric and a general push to desexualize and “purify” queer internet spaces, paving the way for SESTA/FOSTA.

Gay was deemed the more “family friendly” umbrella term.

Everyone conveniently chose to forget that the word "gay" was a slur meaning prostitute back in the 1800s, when "having a gay time" meant visiting a brothel, and then later came to refer to male prostitutes specifically, long before it became a synonym for "happy" in the 1950's.

It again became synonymous with homosexuality and sexual deviance in the 1980s, leading to its re-transformation into a slur in the 1990s and 2000s, before it was eventually re-re-re-claimed in the late 2000s.

.

It wasn't until the early 2010s that radfems decided to scrub the term gay of its unsavory history and rebrand it as the "clean, pure, baggage-free, umbrella term."

Similar to how yahoo tried to scrub tumblr of its unsavory history as the former Queer IndiePorn Capital of the Internet, and the Epicenter of the Sex Positivity Movement, and re-brand it as a "family friendly" website.

also like, bud? anything is a slur when yelled at you angrily or mockingly from a moving car of bigots. Someone post the "derogatory pepperoni" comic

I'm still just hurt and appalled that I'm considered An Old Gay, honestly.

Every single queer has been called queer from a moving car multiple times sweetie. I've been called every word from a moving car. That's the queer experience.

We’re here…we’re queer, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us! 😈