Why making queerness your “whole identity” is good, actually.
As a teenager, I came out at 13 to my entire school. I was told by students and teachers alike that I would be bullied less if I was “less gay”. If anything, I’ve become more queer as I’ve aged, somewhat like a fine wine. I’ve evolved from a confused transmasc to a confused transmasc with 3 partners and a bad spending habit.
Even though pride month is over now, I believe this is a good send-off for it. (Can you tell this was supposed to be posted last month?)
Cishet people often complain that LGBTQ people make their entire identity around being queer-- that it’s obnoxious or otherwise unsightly to be like this. This is just repackaged homophobia. They’ll praise queers who are somewhat quiet about their identities, label them as “the good ones”. Sometimes the call can even come from inside the house, with queers themselves considering themselves “the good ones” and pandering to cishet values. They are, of course, unaware that leopards will eat your face regardless of how queer you act or look.
The homophobes you are trying to pander to will eventually turn on you. In fact, it’s already started happening in the US. I'm sure some people firmly believed that they'd go after the trans people and then stop there. Unfortunately, fascists tend to not stop unless you stop them.
To fascists, we are lumped together with the weirdest queers– the kinksters and the catgenders. Your name might be Jeremy but you're also lumped in with Arson and Bug (Hi!). We are all sexual deviants to them, regardless of what we do, how we do it or even where we do it. Hopefully you remember the case of a man being arrested for having sex in his own home, right?
Why bother being loud about being queer?
Being loud about being queer can be an amazing thing. It can let other people know they aren’t alone. Pride is a protest and always has been. By being loud about being queer, you are protesting cisheteronormativity. You are also being authentically yourself in the process and that’s just beautiful. Seeing another queer in the apartment block when I’m coming home from grocery shopping really makes my day and makes me feel less alone – despite the fact my entire life is queer.
“Yeah, but why is it some people’s entire identity?”
Spoilers, Sherlock. This is how identity works! Identity is just a bunch of labels you slap to yourself that make sense to you.
Being queer feels like home to me, it feels safe. I love being queer, it isn’t my entire identity but it is a large amount of it. A large amount of the people I interact with on a daily basis are queer, too. Does this mean that I’m making my entire life queer on purpose?
No.
I’m simply surrounding myself with those who love and support me. I live in such a wonderful bubble– where my pronouns are respected regardless of my dress style– I often get mood whiplash when interacting with strangers.
“What do you mean you think I look like a girl?” I often ask myself as I am misgendered by strangers– despite my moustache– as I wear a dress.
Cisheteronormativity is a hell of a drug
Cishetereonormativity is bizarre, and I don’t quite understand how people don’t question this stuff. Is it just convenient not to? Is this another version of the “vegetarian/vegan paradox”? (So thusly called this as meat eaters I know frequently do not know what is in their food, while vegetarians and vegans I know, including me, are often hyperaware.)
The insistence that there are only two genders, in the face of queer history, is certainly not the joker I would’ve chosen. This isn’t even going into sex– where most TERFs describe “basic biology” (evidence that they haven’t passed a higher grade of science) as the smoking gun for their transphobia. Mushrooms can have thousands of sexes and us? We can have quite a few as well! Chromosomes do more stuff than just XX and XY.
As for gender? Queer theory often throws out the idea of a stable gender identity in favour of describing gender as performative, a social construct. Somehow, in the midst of my own gender crisis, knowing queer scholars also find gender performative is comforting to me in a way.
TL;DR: being authentically yourself is good.
