DJ Music Man (06-19-2022),kittyray (06-16-2022),Lemonfox (06-16-2022)
I've found the same thing! And when conversations get heated that "yes it's a slur" argument is paired with "know your history," which like.. I do, including the part where we took it back?
God getting into microlabels would be a whole other conversation haha. I'm glad they're there to give a sense of belonging to some people I guess, but it also seems like they're overall a lot more divisive and make people feel separate from the broader community. They can be cool within relevant conversations but idk, the rainbow was always for all of us.
Also I totally agree that it feels like it's on a different level than dyke, fag, etc, which are still pretty crass. I was going to say I feel like those should be said only by people they apply to, but I honestly don't even mind other close friends using them as long as it's with love - like I'm sure more than once I've had conversations with my (straight) former roommate that go:
me: [something gay, like "woah look at this picture of Kristen Stewart"]
her: "dyyyke!" (affectionate)
me: ".....ok fair"
...but yeah that's very much a personal call, and I know everyone has different comfort levels around them. Interestingly in my own experience - which should come with a grain of salt because I've never lived in particularly conservative places - I've almost never heard those really slurry ones used by homophobes as attacks. It's always the technical ones, like homosexual or lesbian, said in a way that makes it feel like it's a different species or a contagious disease. I heard dyke (negative) ONCE and distinctly remember it because of how surprised I was.
Oh it's cool to see someone else feels the same! Even outside of thinking about the times I've heard it said scathingly, something about it just doesn't feel good? "I'm straight", "I'm gay", "I'm bi", "I'm pan", "I'm queer", but "I'm a lesbian"... idk it just feels like saying we're something ~else~
Also it's cool that "comfortable" is a recurring theme about the word queer! I feel the same - even as someone with simple/easy words for my specific gender and orientation, queer still feels right too & that feels very unifying with all my other queer friends
Oh interesting to hear you actually did experience it as a negative first! Definitely agree that in general the respectful thing to do is use people's individual identities, and in any given conversation to use language that keeps everyone as comfortable as possible, but what starts to get weird is the umbrella term element. Hearing "I'm gay but I do NOT identify with queer, don't talk about the queer community when you mean the gay community, I don't want to be included in that" - which is definitely a sentiment I've seen around - feels a little like hearing "I'm Belgian but I'm NOT European", you know?
100% agree re: bigger fish to fry! Which is maybe a little ironic as the person who made this thread, but discussion and division are different haha.
I'm interested in what name for an event or club you'd have preferred - would LGBT be better, even if you don't identify with lesbian, gay, bi, or trans? I definitely get the aversion to specific labels, but conversely I feel like that's largely the purpose of "queer" - an umbrella to use and just not get into it.
Point of identification is a good way to put what I'm trying to say! Like it's not important what exactly is going on with each of us, what's important is that we can find each other.
Ooh I hadn't even thought of getting into other languages - does your language have a non-specific word like this? If so, is it considered a slur or just a normal word?
Last edited by Druid; 06-16-2022 at 05:05 PM. Reason: grammar again I'm a monster
thank you for the gay rights peo ♥ @honeycomb ♥
DJ Music Man (06-19-2022),kittyray (06-16-2022),Lemonfox (06-16-2022)
It actually doesn't, unfortunately. My language is very poor when it comes to queer vocabulary. A lot of the terms are also foreign words to begin with, which might have gone through some minor changes to be more natural in the language. For example: "lesbian" is "lesbit" - "it" being a suffix for feminine-gendered words. The language being gendered makes everything even worse, for non-binary people for example. We don't have a parallel to the singular they, and even if we had, our plural words are gendered as well.
So yeah in general just having conversations about the topic in my language can get pretty hard. As far as slurs go, I think "homo" for example went through the same thing and got taken back. There are still other slurs ofc that haven't, but none of them are parallel to the term "queer".
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Da Plushee Boree (06-19-2022),Druid (06-16-2022),kittyray (06-16-2022)
Yeah it's tricky when people don't like it as a term for the community. I think that's why I co-opted "Alphabet Mafia". I know it was meant to be an insult originally but I've literally never felt so cool. Here I come to push my agenda in a pinstipe suit with a cigar and my hot wife that will ultimately kill me!
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Da Plushee Boree (06-19-2022),Druid (06-16-2022),kittyray (06-16-2022)
I used to really dislike the use of the word but now my stance is that I dont really care just if someone asks not to be called queer dont call them queer
Druid (06-19-2022)
I constantly hear older people use it negatively. I don't like it; it makes me super uncomfortable and no matter the positive press toward the word from younger people, I can't help but feel this way.
I also feel this way. Queer was a huge intended insult growing up, along with the F word. It makes me wonder why queer has been reclaimed, and not words like the F word?
I personally don't like identifying as queer but I totally support everyone else who wishes to reclaim the word in any case!
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Elf (07-14-2022)
I think maybe because queer has other meaning outside of lgbtqia+ context that's neutral more or less but the meaning and history behind the f slur is very dark and violent. That said I do sometimes hear people use the f slur to refer to themselves butit's always very jarring for me.
Thank you @Orbit for the Jackalope Ryu
I have the same question as above - was that not true of "gay"? And if it was also an insult, what makes it feel different (if it does)?
I feel like which words were the big insults might be partially regional? Where I was as a kid and all through HS, "gay" was THE insult, both for things literally perceived as flamboyant/gay-coded and as a general "xyz sucks" about absolutely anything. I remember at one point having an assignment for a media class to make a PSA, and the big tagline of mine was "homophobia is gay" (cringe) which at the time was really organically read as "homophobia is bad". I didn't hear queer nearly as much, which I acknowledge is probably a factor in my comfort with it, but conversely I can't really imagine not wanting to say or identify as gay.
It's also interesting you say fag hasn't been reclaimed - my impression is that it has, almost all of my male gay friends use it for themselves and their friends/partners all the time (possibly skewed by being in a big, liberal city though). I don't think it's seen the same prominence as queer because it's more of a slang term, so regardless of comfort or reclamation it doesn't really belong in the titles of stuff or in intellectual works anyway. And then dyke, which is basically a female equivalent imo, has actually seen more of the formal reclamation use with things like the Dyke March.
It's cool to hear different perspectives though! I'm definitely interested to hear your thoughts on the words that aren't controversial.
thank you for the gay rights peo ♥ @honeycomb ♥