Like many people, Poppets, I have a love-hate relationship with
labels. On the one hand, life is a lot easier when we can use a word
or two and be on the same page. On the other hand, too often labels
are used to pigeonhole us, to confine us. To label us. Yes, I am a
rubenesque, Pagan, cis-sexual, non-gender binary conforming,
liberal-leaning, Southern, married, Bostonian brunette who dyes her
hair red. But I’m also just…me. See the issue? That first
paragraph tells you far more about me than the second one, but the
second one is far more complete.
Which
brings us to the issue I have with talking about “the LGBTQ
community.” What exactly do we mean when we talk about that? Sure,
we mean lesbians, gays, bi-sexuals, transgendered people, and queers.
However, anyone who knows much about sociological spectrums knows
that there are far more than five points on any scale. Thus, I have
come to appreciate the word “queer.”
Now,
I know for many people, queer is an insult. This is not to invalidate
or negate that. It was for me for a long time as well. I considered
it a word we could not reclaim, regardless of our best intentions,
akin to the n-word for black people or “girl” for women. A word
that was too derogatory for too long – still currently, even –
for us to ever be able to adopt it without the stigma hanging over
it. If you still feel that way, I get it and you have my respect
around it. However, my feelings on this have changed.
For
me, the word queer has come to include every point on the spectrum,
not just the four LGBT points. You can be a gay man, or a
non-transitioning, lesbian, transgendered woman and both be “queer.”
I have written here before about the prejudices bisexuals often face,
and the biases against bi-gendered people. Non-transitioning
transgendered people struggle for acceptance and validation. I have
friends who, while they are indeed gay men, reject the implications
of the word gay. I have lesbian friends who have been called out for
identifying themselves as gay when they “are really lesbians.”
The label we adopted in order to include us all has become something
we use to exclude each other instead. If we don’t fit neatly into
our label, our specific alphabet soup, we can be more easily outcast.
More easily judged. And really, isn’t that what we were trying to
end in the first place?
So
I have come to embrace “queer.” Queer includes the whole
non-heterostandard spectrum, regardless of sexual identity,
regardless of gender identity, regardless of comfy settling into
accepted alphabet soup. Queer says enough. It labels enough. We can
be on the same page, without pigeonholing ourselves or each other. It
works the way labels are supposed to work, by making us freer instead
of holding us back. And that’s a label I can live with.
Until
next month, Poppets, take care of you.
