Oh, the places you'll go (on the internet)

Just so we’re all on the same page

airellia:

‘Queer’ is a slur.

Taking on ‘queer’ as an identity means recognizing that it is a slur and trying to reclaim that. Just… be careful how you use it :-/

It’s not a neutral apolitical word.

I’m really frustrated that this is something that keeps having to be said. When people take the word “queer” and say “okay so this actually just means ‘Other’ or ‘non-normative’ or even ‘experiences some kind of marginalization due to their relationships’” it erases the very specific violence that “queer” represents.

Like yes, there are so so so many ways to be oppressed and marginalized and hurt BUT if you don’t experience the violence that people mean when they call someone a queer then what are you doing “re-claiming” that word? Re-claiming from who? The whole point is that we are taking back something used against us by them (even when “they” have their own, different disprivileges going on), so when “they” start using that word? That’s part of an oppressive, hateful legacy. As a kinky, poly, ~~mostly-ace-identified~~ technically-counting-as-asexual person, I don’t want you in my “community” at all if you can’t respect that I face additional, unique, identifiable violence as a queer person and that straight and cis people are *still* privileged over me in that respect.