This post is a comment to Anna Conda's post Yerba Buena Soap Box. Here is a portion of the original post:
The biggest problem for me in Queer culture today is two fold; first is the lack of knowledge of our history and second the fact that we feel that we need to include any gender variance into our numbers to make us have a broader platform. The truth of the matter is that not all gender variance is queer and mainstream society shunning something as abnormal does not make it part of Queer culture either. Most people; both gay and straight; believe that sex and whom we choose to have it with is the only thing that makes us queer identified and they have no idea what a rich and glorious past we have. In the 20th century things move so fast that we often find it hard to keep up with our past and the history that we are sharing today. This leads us to ghettoization and self loathing creating the need for everyone to accept us. This need to fit is and have as many people join our ranks is detrimental to the Queer or Gay agenda and serves only to make us look pathetic and needy. Everybody will not like us no matter what we do or how ever many people join our ranks. Bigotry does not work on a numbers game. It is a fear based reaction of people who are filled with fear and cling to that fear as if it was the very oxoygen that keeps them alive. My parents are born again christians who will never accept me and even after 42 years of knowing me and seeing what a hard working caring individual I am would turn me over to the Nazis if they asked them to. They believe that I am an abomination and nothing I do will ever cure them of that. However that shame is not MINE to take on. It is my duty to believe in my path and move on and work on educating people on my queer history and the fact that we have been around forever, with glorious results in arts, leadership, scholars, and spiritual abundance.
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Dearest Anna Conda:
Thank you for writing this and asking hard questions about our queer community. As someone who came out as gay at 18, fell in love with a woman at 22/23, and ended up marrying a man at 31, I, too, have grappled with the queer identity and what makes it such.
When I first came out, I believed that gay was the only way. However, this conflicted significantly with my actual orientation. I had numerous girlfriends in middle high school and not just the standard "I need to hide something so I'll date a girl" variety. They were women I loved (and still do). From 18 to 22/23, I had sex with and found myself sexually attracted to women, and I still identified as gay because the majority of my relationships and sexual partners were men.
Then, I fell in love with a woman. It wasn't something I was expecting. It was something that happened. We had an open relationship and I continued to have sex (a lot of it) with men (most of the time) and other genders (sometimes). I didn't and don't believe in a binary gender construct, and so I was at a loss for how to capture the totality of my sexual orientation, as identity politics is, and always will be, a huge part of who I am.
I came to embrace queer precisely because it opened the door beyond gay. To me, it wasn't about a watering down of identity. Rather, it was a broadening. It was a term that I could take on and be.
Now, as a man who is married and monogamous to another man, I still call myself queer. Yes, for all intents and purposes, I am gay, too. But gay is not the totality of who I am. It is too narrow and restricting especially when used in the LGBTQQIP moniker. In that instance, gay really only refers to men who have sex with men (almost exclusively).
Queer has become, and is, a HUGE part of me, one that I believe, as you mention in your post, is beyond just who you have sex with. It is about a broadening of identity. And that broadening comes into conflict with more narrow (and necessary) identity politics.
For my day job, I work organizing and training the professionals who work with or for youth (sometimes including youth in and of themselves). In this arena, I use both gay and queer. Initially, I use gay because it is just easier for people to understand. It matches their perception of me. As I get to know them or as the situation calls for it, I start talking about my queer identity. It confuses the hell out of people. They totally don't understand.
Similarly, when I say I am queer among gay men, they look at me funny thinking the two words are interchangeable. And to them, they may be. But to me, they are worlds apart. One speaks to a side (albeit a more predominant side especially since my marriage to John) of me that is narrow, focused, and steeped in oppression (not the same as shame, as I, too, see absolutely NO use in it). The other one speaks to a side of me that is uniting and liberating. And in this world, I need both to survive and thrive.
Thanks again for writing this. It has made me think deeply and intentionally about why I use the word queer. I appreciate the inspiration and challenge.
Much love,
Jason Wyman
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