Earlier today I saw someone tweet that straight people who reject heteronormativity are queer and it really set my teeth on edge but also got me thinking about this question of who “counts” as queer which I think is kind of complicated!

Like, okay, yes, we can pretty definitively say that gay, lesbian, and bi/pan/etc folks are queer.

Are straight trans people queer? I mean, I wouldn’t boot them out of the queer club, but if they ID as straight, do they even want the label queer?

Then, like, there are straight kinky people who argue that, owing to the fact that they are hardwired to be kinky and that they face negative social repercussions for this, they are queer. Likewise you’ll see this argument with straight poly people.

I’m less convinced here!

I was more on the fence about this at one point, but a leather dyke friend pointed out that she wouldn’t want straight people at a queer kinky party, and that kinda crystallized it for me: straight kinky people are still operating from a different mindset than queers.

The one I’m most on the fence about is heteroromantic aces. My gut says no, they’re straight and thus not queer, but I’ve heard arguments in favor of all aces being queer that ... I mean, I dunno. I dunno!

But really the *bigger* question here for me is: what is the purpose of the queer label and, more broadly, the queer community? If straight aces are a part of the queer community, what does that actually mean?

Is it about a community that is bonding over shared experience? A community that is about seeking out intimate relationships and sex? A community that is about uniting to dismantle heteronormativity?

I honestly don’t know!

Anyway, if you were hoping at the end of this I’d have some answers for you, joke’s on you. I mostly just feel like labels are very messy and TBH I’m fine with that, but if you have exclusively hetero attractions and engage exclusively in hetero sex you are not queer, thanks.

Also I think part of where this gets tripped up is that people get it into their heads that “straight = bad” the same way white people get convinced that “white = bad” and try to talk our way out of whiteness and like... being straight is fine! It’s just who you are!

Me saying someone is straight and not queer is not me saying they are somehow a bad person, not the least because a lot of queer people suck

Uplifting this to say that, yeah, I mean, my ultimate goal is for people to just be able to fuck and love whomever they want (even if that’s no one at all!) and go through life unbothered, but we’re not there yet, and I don’t think we get there by straight people claiming queer. https://twitter.com/giventorant/status/1299869097866399744

Part of *how* we get there is by people who upend and dismantle heteronormativity getting visibility, which, sigh, requires labels. I mean, trust me, I would love to have NO LABELS for myself, but I understand bisexual and queer as important political IDs so I suck it up.

Yes the world is complicated and we have to hold multiple conflicting ideas in our heads

Also just to be clear: I’m not policing anyone’s use of the label queer unless they’re allo cishet; my “I don’t know!” re: transhets and heteroromantic aces is a genuine “this is not an area I could even remotely claim expertise in and it is not for me to say.”

My gut saying something doesn’t mean that my gut is right, my gut has all kinds of biases I’m working to unlearn.

BTW just for full transparency the tweet that inspired all of this said:

“ive come to use ‘straight’ as meaning something like ‘someone who bases their behavior on other persons appearances and holds themselves and others to certain societal norms’
whereas queer is the opposite”

That was what irritated me

Also elevating this response to someone because I think it gets to another nut of this for me https://twitter.com/luxalptraum/status/1299889795439693824

If you have to be queer to get the support of the queer community, that feels... pretty bad to me!

Coming back to this thread because this tweet raises an interesting point. Robert Sheehan is, by all accounts, a cishet man who pushes the boundaries with his fashion and has some heteroflexibility in his past. Is he queer? https://twitter.com/alilemer/status/1300072117925539841

Again, my gut says no, but then I think about Eddie Izzard, and how before they were out as trans they IDed as a “straight transvestite.” On the one hand, I don’t quite think of cishet crossdressers as queer. But if the queer label helps a trans person find themselves...

Which, again, brings me back this larger question of “what is the purpose of the queer label/community to begin with?”

Also, again, none of this is an evaluation of anyone’s worth or a declaration of who can and can’t sit with me, because I let allo cishets sit with me all the time.

I have many beloved straight friends