So let's talk about term-policing, because apparently I haven't been in enough Twitter fights lately. This is going to be An Thread, so buckle up. 1/

It's a perpetual Problem in the queer/LGBTQ community, one which centers (mostly) on very young members of the community -- term-policing.

Most common these days are things like "you can't say butch/dyke/femme if you're not lesbian" or "trans women can't be lesbians" or -- 2/

"How dare you try to take away a term from 'the first two letters'" or "Ace people aren't LGBTQ" or many, many variants upon these. Most, not all, of these comments come from people who meet the following criteria:

* under 20y old
* cis
* lesbian or gay (NOT bi/ace/pan etc)

3/

And there's a LOT to unpack in those statements, especially the ones that keep showing up with 'the first two letters' of the acronym, but I think it's really important that we look at WHO these statements are coming from:

They're coming from young, uninformed, isolated kids. 4/

A lot of these young lesbians are just coming out, they're still living under the power of their parents, who may or may not be supportive, and a lot of them have the very-understandable Queer Rage which most of us have when we first come out. 5/

And it has ALWAYS been a problem, this sort of 'you can't say that' groupthink -- it's the sort of thinking that led a lesbian to pop me in the mouth for not "disclosing" to her quickly enough that I'm not solely attracted to women (I'm into nb folx too) 6/

when she hit on me, but -- when most of our gathering was RL spaces from which people could be permanently ejected, and when most of our gathering happened in a place where you had to LOOK SOMEONE IN THE EYES when you talked to them, things shook out differently. 7/

Even today, you can't carry this shit into Real Queer Spaces, actual meeting-places, because it will absolutely not fly. Imagine walking up to members of @DykesonBikesPDX and saying 'you're not really dykes, you can't say dyke.' Would. Not. Fly. Not for a second. 8/

But now we have the plus of a hugely-sprawling online community -- which is amazing, these kids have built something really incredible for themselves -- where no one has to look each other in the eye when they say stupid shit like 'bi dykes aren't real' or 'aces don't belong.' 9/

Add on to that the fact that we also have a huge loss in leadership because the number of elders we have is very, very low due to an entire generation of us being wiped out by AIDS -- which is a whole other rant, so, you know, we'll come back to that -- but 9/

We're missing that guidance of people even older than me (I'm 43, and I came out to the first person I ever came out to at 13, so this is my 30th year in the community), and we're DEFINITELY missing that in the echo chambers of the internet. 10/

So lemme walk back a second and say that it's actually very understandable that a lot of young LGBTQ/queer folx want a very rigid definition of what Is or Is Not acceptable. They're transgressing boundaries and coming into their own, but a lot of them are still really young. 11/

They need security, and they need safety even as they break boundaries, and, again, most of them are still in the homes of parents who may not support them. So they look for CONTROL. They want to be able to control who is part of their community, and who isn't. 12/

Honestly, they want control over ANYTHING, because so much of their lives are currently out of control. They need to assert firm boundaries, *even if those boundaries are false, harmful, non-historical, etc.*

And if they just wanted to put boundaries around themselves, okay. 13/

But they don't. They don't want to put a fence around their own backyard so they can feel safe, they want to fence the entire world in and tell other people how those other people can act in their own backyards and community spaces.

And that's just not how things work. 14/

There's another issue at hand here where a lot of these kids have grown up in a post 9/11 world where the idea of right-think and constant monitoring and 'making the world safe from [badthink]' is just a mindset they've grown up with, but, again, that's a whole other thing. 15/

I realize this sounds like 'kids these days,' and to a certain extent it is, if only because I feel like it's necessary for people to understand the social frameworks that are leading to these kids acting like total fucking assholes.

(You are being total fucking assholes.) 16/

But this is ALSO an issue which has ALWAYS existed in the LGBTQ/queer community, one of 'young and angry queers lashing out and punching down because it gives them a feeling of control.' This has always, always existed.

And in this case, the 'control' they can get 17/

is over WHO USES THIS WORD and WHO IS PART OF MY CLUB.

It gives them a feeling of control in an uncertain world where they don't have control over their own destiny, which is only amplified by current crises. And most of us have fuck all to do but fight on the internet rn. 18/

The second piece of it is that TERFs have been pushing on the idea of WHO IS PURE ENOUGH TO BE A LESBIAN since the 1970s -- since the advent of the Political Lesbian -- and that has never, ever stopped. The 70s saw trans activists being screamed at and booed over, 19/

saw the advent of the political lesbian, the one who chose the 'most pure' relationship, being that with another woman, and the first divisions between 'bi' and 'lesbian,' the 80s and 90s saw bi activists being pushed off the stage at Pride events 20/

and being treated as though they were 'dirty' or 'less pure' than gold star lesbians (such an ugly term) and now that same TERFy underpinning, which is literally in bed with right-wing evangelicals in some sort of horrifying pickmeism sent to deepest extremes, is 21/

telling young, vulnerable lesbians that they, too, can be protected, and safe, in their safe spaces which have no bi, no pan, no ace women or enbies to 'taint' their experiences. 22/

Which, of course, is only one step from telling them that 'trans women don't belong in women's spaces.'

And that's intentional. Very, very intentional.

23/

These sorts of things are very deliberate recruitment techniques, pulling young and vulnerable people into radicalization by love-bombing and making them feel safe, protected, etc. It's textbook, and the same crap that pulls vulnerable young men into the alt-right.

24/ (more)

Which is, of course, another crossover point, because there are a LOT of white supremacists in the TERF arena.

So what's to be done? I don't know. 25/

I absolutely refuse to platform any sort of mentality that says that all of the terms that I used all of my life are suddenly not for me anymore. And I refuse to play into the sort of mentality that denies the lived reality of my fellow queers -- 26/

I was bullied, beat up, screamed at, had things thrown at me, and was called a f*ggot, dyke, queer, etc, through high school and thereafter, because I have never met the 'standard appearance' for an AFAB, because I /appeared to be/ a wlw. 27/

& it isn't like someone on the street is going to stop and inquire, "Excuse me, Spider, before I insult you, are you solely attracted to women, or have you ever been attracted to a man, ever, in your life? I wish to insult you properly along with the assault soon to follow." 28/

That is absolutely not what is going to happen. They're going to lean out of their window and yell HEY YOU FAT FUCKING DYKE, FUCK YOU and throw a bottle at my head. They're going to mutter "dykedykedykedyke" at me on public transit, and laugh when I move to sit further away. 29/

And on, and on, and on.

Whether or not the reality of my attraction is that I am not attracted to men (I am not, I am solely attracted to non-binary people and women), I am very definitely, in their eyes, a fat butch dyke. 30/

And here's the thing: it took me a REALLY LONG TIME to be PROUD of being a fat butch dyke, such that by the time I was proud of being a fat butch dyke, I had become a middle-aged fat butch dyke, entering my silverback butch phase. 31/

The company of other dykes is actively healthy, soothing, and helpful to me. It's something that I, and other people like me, NEED. I don't fit in with cishet society and never will.

And THAT is what the queer community is, and always has been. 32/

It is about the home that I made for myself in my heart when I read Stone Butch Blues and said 'oh my G-d, I'm not alone.' It is about being able to look at another dyke and say 'holy shit, can you believe this?'

33/

And it is not up to someone half my age to tell me that I can't have a space in the community that I have been helping to build for longer than they've been alive. It is not up to them to /define/ the space that I can have.

That is up to me, and the community I build. 34/

So while I feel very, very sorry for all of these kids, and I wish I had a solution rather than just 'you will really be embarrassed of yourself in a couple of years when you grow out of your angry phase,' I am absolutely not going to give up the space that I have carved out. 35/

I am going to be a fat, disabled, obstreperous, transmasculine non-binary bi lesbian butch dyke until the day I die. I am going to follow in the steps of Leslie Feinberg z''l to the best of my ability, and I'm going to keep making inclusive spaces for other queers. 36/

Because we need that.
Because we deserve that.
Because I deserve that.
Because no one -- not cishets, and not other LGBTQ folx or queers -- gets to tell us that we don't deserve those spaces.

We do. We deserve to live, to thrive, and to grow. 37/37