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neverenoughgay · 7 years

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Ok that last post got me fired up so we’re gonna have a quick chat about queer history and respecting your elders.

Nothing makes me more angry then when I see some 14 or 15 year old kids try to talk over queer elders and tell them what they can and cannot say about themselves and about their community.

The queer community has a long, painful, and constantly evolving history. From things like early lesbian couples and Boston Marriages to Stonewall to the AIDS crisis, a lot of shit has happened, a lot of identities have existed and a lot of words have been used.

Remember that if you’re young right now, you grew up in a time completely different than that of queer elders. You didn’t live through this stuff but you’re coming into it and you’re expecting to bend it to your own thoughts and needs. And that’s ok, you’re allowed to want to better your community and you’re allowed to change things where you see problems.

The problem arises when you haven’t done your research. When you come into the community with no background in it and try to change things. When you don’t know what happened in the past, but you think it should change or you think you know how to change it.

So story time.

I live in a very liberal dorm. A very queer liberal dorm. And each semester we have guests come speak to us about whatever they do. A couple semesters ago we had Kate Bornstein come speak to us. For anyone who doesn’t know, ze is a trans author. A much older trans author. And the entire trans club at my school decided to attend hir talk. An email was sent out by the LGBTQ resource center beforehand explaining that if people chose to attend the event, they should be aware that ze was older and probably had differing views and to take it with a grain of salt.

So I attended the talk and first of all Kate is the loveliest human. Just very sweet and ze really wants to help queer youth. But, yes, ze is a little different than say a trans 15 year old. Ze explained how ze likes to use the word tr*nny. Why? Because when ze was figuring hirself out ze found a group of other trans people who referred to themselves that way and it felt like a family. Tr*nny became a family word. However, people in the audience immediately started questioning her on this. And being rude about it.

So my takeaways from this are essentially that this was carried out horribly. First of all, I find it cringe worthy that the trans club felt the need to tell us to “take it with a grain of salt” and I found it cringe worthy that these kids fought a trans elder on zir own life story.

Why? because this wasn’t a lesson in being queer now. This was a lesson in queer history. This was a person talking about what it meant to be queer in the past and educating us on where our community came from. And that’s important.

You don’t get to tell queer elders who they are. They know who they are and what they’ve been through far more than you do. You need to sit down and learn your history before you try to tell a queer elder what it means to be queer and what words they can and cannot use. Because you know damn well that if anyone tried to take your words away from you it would hurt.

TL;DR: the queer community has a history, please learn it before you try to shit on it

If you need educating, please read And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts and Odd Girls and Twlight Lovers by Lillian Faderman. They’re a good start, but there’s always more to learn, please don’t stop.

#queer history #kate bornstein #idek #just don't yell at me because this is real shit #and if you wanna tell me it's not #i don't plan on listening

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