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lrt & re: "queer is a slur":
i see this coming most often from young folks online who want to know what is good and what is bad and what is the right identity marker for them. often, they're working from a real fear of harming others
i see this coming most often from young folks online who want to know what is good and what is bad and what is the right identity marker for them. often, they're working from a real fear of harming others
i think there's also a fear of aligning oneself with a history of hurt. it can feel at odds with how finding your identity is meant to be celebrated!!
in response to these two avenues of thought, and i'm sure there are others, i turn to two bits of writing:
sarah schulman's "conflict is not abuse" and eve sedgwick's "queer and now".
probably also sara ahmed's paper, "happy objects," but ymmv.
sarah schulman's "conflict is not abuse" and eve sedgwick's "queer and now".
probably also sara ahmed's paper, "happy objects," but ymmv.
"conflict is not abuse" is a wildly fraught book & there's a lot i disagree with in it, but i take a lot of stock in her idea that queer folks experience trauma in their youth -- whether that's from coming out, the length of time spent in the closet, or something more painful
& this means that we spend a lot of our time mulling over that unprocessed trauma. in turn, we're both exceptionally careful with each other and exceptionally vulnerable. this is SO tough to navigate interpersonally & imo, it sucks but is also liberating
"queer and now" is a near-cliche anchor of queer-theory canon, but (imo) for a reason. read the whole thing, but sometimes i just stare into the middle distance and think about the opening line
so, i work largely from these two points when i say that, in my mind, "queer" is an umbrella term of community care. there is so much vulnerability & community in queerness, and yes, a lot of that comes form honoring a shared history of hurt.
i want every queer person younger than me to have a better time than i did, and i think every queer person who came before me wanted me to have a better time than they did.
i wrote a bit about this on my website back in 2018, and i think i mostly stand by it. ok, thank you, that's the thread. http://www.kathrynbrewster.com/blog/2018/6/6/on-queerness
