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layla has a place on the Web
- queer musings 1
i don't know how i haven't written about this before but — we shouldn't
be using strict definitions, but instead affirmative descriptions!
as of the time of writing i firmly believe that the cultures we live in
have some massive challenges to face. in our communities we: firstly, are
essentializing humanity and its all-encompassing existence into simply
"identity" and its fractured, structural, rigorous and unchanging, unadaptable
heirarchies. unfortunately, sometimes this goes a step further and we see
figures of all kinds boil down this identity into defintions and performances.
this will only ever leave us with a world that works well for those who are
able to study on "correct," bookly, academic performances of who "deserve"
not even their humanity, but some neutered "identity" — we deny
bisexual couples their humanity by promoting the belief that "displaying PDA
is homophobic", we say what's "real punk" and what's not, we describe our
cultures in terms of insiders and outsiders... when we do this, we remove
not just our own liberty, but also the liberties of everyone else who are
looking for love, support, identity, purpose, and it's bullshit that we allow
our communities to become dogmatic to some of the extent that we've seen.
as with any worldly community, whether that be lgbtq+, neurodivergency, black
and indigenous acceptance, and so much more, we really should never allow
ourselves to stoop to the level of strict definitions of what we are.
instead, if we championed descriptions of our humanity, our goals and efforts,
we end up growing healthy and supportive comrades who will do everything they
can to fight for us and each other. when we describe the contents of our
characters, we are affirming the humanity we all should be sharing.
affirmative descriptions are what birth and age healthy communities.
strict and performative definitions are what breed malnourished and diseased
restrictions on our humanity — and are also what breed the bloodied tools
who enable this system of violence. essentialism is not your friend.
fascists are not your friends.
to protect your transgender and nonconforming friends and family, you might
find it safer to describe their humanity to others. as just some example,
say, if you have a transmasculine friend, when you have to describe him
as such to your (homophobic) family, you could say "he has gone through his
life so far dealing with people who continue to make assumptions about
his character. people have incorrectly denied him his humanity and
masculinity by forcing him to live in a feminine culture he doesn't feel
comfortable or accepted into. regardless of how any given person might
perceive or incorrectly estimate the contents of his character, he is not
in fact "a woman due to unchangeable factors like biology" — he is doing
what he can to be human and to be loved by both others and himself, and why
would it ever be our place to say otherwise?"
you could also, of course, describe the above situation using labels
as descriptive or specific as you believe he would want you to use.
you could say outright that he is your transmasculine friend, that he faces
bigotry every day just by existing (name and describe specific events!), and
that he deserves love.
allowing our cultures the responsible ability to discern between these
two actions is a far better system and philosophy than, say, believing some of
the stupid, shitty micro-definiton-based concepts essentialists want us to
believe. as if we should ever turn and say to ourselves "well, one of my
friends is transmasculine and describes themself as a lesbian and uses
they/them pronouns. lesbianism is exclusively for feminine people, so they
are wrong for identifying as such. no, i refuse to listen to facts that
directly oppose this. why would i do that? ...god, there's so much infighting
in the lgbtq+ community, how are we going to come out of this better?"
[please note that i am using heavy sarcasm here in this prior sentence]
this is especially a terrible system when we go a step further and allow
fascists to pervert our humanity. i.e, when we let ourselves go just a bit
further into believing in homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, acephobia,
to just name a few. when we look at our transmasculine friend example and
say, "i hate you, i want you dead, you are the reason our community is dying,
and you're the very reason why we will never obtain the glory of a pure
culture" ... i ask, what's the difference between that and what some nazi
would have written? what some trans-excluding "radical" "feminist" would have
written? (personally, whenever i refer to terfs i prefer to simply call them
radfems. see here for an explanation.) i answer: there is no difference
between the authors of such a statement.
they all seek to cause violence, and we need to disarm this potential
bloodshed as soon as possible. if they cannot slaughter us themselves,
they will do what they can to ensure we will do it to each other.
don't be a nazi. don't promote strict definitions. start describing our
humanity or our identity, or even your own, and you will grow friends and
family who will not just be aware, not just accept, but affirm what it means
to be a human. we will grow comrades who will actually defend each other
because of our humanity, for our humanity.
be gay! be trans! do crime! love! i love you all! don't let bigots
take this from us!
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