Y'all are some of the most disingenuous motherfuckers. I am exhausted. And I am really done with this trauma argument.
A confession: I have been harassed and verbally abused with it/its pronouns before.
I don’t fully understand why some trans people choose to use it pronouns for themselves, and I don’t follow anyone who does anymore because seeing someone referred to as “it” upsets me.
However, I do not shame or belittle trans folks who use it/its pronouns in a reclaiming fashion because it’s none of my business and I am not a piece of obnoxious shit.
If you have trauma associated with the word queer, then you need to respect me and yourself enough to not interact with my blog.
This blog literally has QUEER in its url, name, and description. Every other post on this blog contains the word QUEER. This blog is about QUEER people, for QUEER people, by a QUEER person.
No one is forcing you to interact with this blog. No one is forcing you to interact with the QUEER community. No one is forcing you to apply the word QUEER to your own identity.
Block blogs that have queer in their url. Add the word QUEER to your Tumblr tag blacklist. Download one of the many different apps and browser extensions that exist and use it to hide posts with the word QUEER in them.
Try taking at least some responsibility for your own mental health.
You aren’t queer? You don’t like the word? That’s fine. Your feelings and your trauma are valid.
But hear this: y'all need to leave QUEER people the FUCK alone.
Stop adding “queer is a slur” to our posts.
Stop inviting yourselves onto our posts to whine about the phrase “queer community”.
Don’t reblog our posts if you’re going to tag them with “#q slur”.
Stop making discourse of our genders and sexualities.
Stop trying to create rules over who is allowed to call themselves queer when you yourself are not queer.
Stop sending us invasive messages demanding to know “how” we’re queer or if we’re “really lgbt”.
Stop trying to make the queer community responsible for your personal baggage, as if we aren’t surviving with our own.
Let QUEER people live.
god yes OP
“Stop trying to make the queer community responsible for your personal baggage, as if we aren’t surviving with our own.”
Holy shit. Exactly.
If I can’t call myself queer because of your trauma, then you can’t call yourself a lesbian, because of mine.
Sound fair?
hey, as a person who uses both queer and lesbian, please do not equate the two. lesbian isn’t a slur, while queer has been and still is. can we please stop implying lesbian is a dirty word or a slur it’s just really lesbophobic. totally agree with OP here and this isn’t super relevant sorry but like it isn’t the same thing with lesbian and please stop implying it is.
So the definition of slur is “ an insinuation or allegation about someone that is likely to insult them or damage their reputation.” And when I was in middle school, “lesbian” was absolutely the word that was used to insult and damage me more than any other. When the kids at camp slammed my face into the floor of the showers, it was because “the lesbian was staring at us (them).” When they beat me bloody, it was because I was a lesbian.
They had been told so many times that “d*ke” was a dirty word, and they thought of themselves as good girls, that they didn’t use it. “Queer” was too general to be as laser-focused and insulting as they wanted it to be.
There is no. Word. For. Us. That has not been a slur in someone’s mouth. There is no word that describes our love of each other that hasn’t been turned into a rock to throw. It’s not lesbophobic to say that the first time I thought I was going to die, girls were screaming “drown the lesbian” and throwing rocks at me from the dock so I couldn’t get out of the lake. It’s just what happened. That word was a slur in their mouths. They meant it to be a slur. They wanted me to die with it ringing in my ears.
Anything can be a slur if it’s (mis)used the right way. Unfortunately, that’s humans and language.
“Lesbian” is not a dirty word. Neither is “queer.” But both are absolutely slurs, or have been at one time or another.