ace-azaelia:
Okay, entirely putting aside my own personal opinion on asexuality and whether it’s a queer identity and how big the queer umbrella is/should be and whether passing privilege has as much effect as certain people are arguing it does…
I’m seeing logic circles in this argument, going like such:
-Asexuals are not queer
-Therefore the ostracism and marginalisation they face is not queer
-This ostracism and marginalisation they face isn’t queer because they’re not queer
-They are not queer because the issues they face aren’t queer issues
-The issues they face aren’t queer issues because they’re not queer
-They’re not queer because…
(ad nauseum)
At least, I haven’t seen an argument as to why asexuals aren’t queer that doesn’t either start playing oppression olympics or say it’s because the issues they face aren’t queer (and starting the loop). Maybe passing privilege is brought up, but that argument discredits the fact that a lot of the time, the passing privilege is due to invisibility and erasure, and does a lot of damage internally for the damage it supposedly spares externally.
And as long as the one side is stuck in a logic loop, nothing the other side says is going to get through. And as long as both sides are speaking from a place of pain, neither side will be able to step back and say “oh, this is a better way to get the point across.”
And I don’t know how to fix these problems outside of a miraculous epiphany.
(This is why I’ve kind of been staying out of the argument these past few rounds, because I don’t have anything to say that I haven’t already said and from what I’ve seen what I have to say won’t be accepted anyway)
listen, you deliberately obtuse, disingenuous brat. I’m going to explain this once more for you in the simplest terms I can imagine.
queer as a pejorative term has historically been used against people who experience romantic or sexual attraction to the same gender. it still is today. it is the verbal essence of the hate, disgust, and derision that straight people and homophobic society feels about us.
in recent history, those it has been used against have begun the hard work of reclaiming that word. reclamation of “queer” is the empowering process through which we take control of a word that has been used to hurt us and to turn us into queers rather than human beings. this process is not complete. people still use these words against us. in the mildest cases, angry men scream QUEERS out their car doors as we walk from parking to the gay club that is celebrating pride that very night, all because two women were holding hands. in the most severe cases, the psychological violence of that word is backed up by physical violence. there are still many people who wince when they hear “queer” and would rather not make it part of their identity. and even those of us who do use that word to describe ourselves do it gingerly, conscious of the ways in which that single syllable can suddenly turn poisonous in the mouths of even the most “progressive” straights.
and then suddenly, a group of people who does not share this history and this present with us come clamoring in, demanding that they count as queer because a few academics who were horribly disconnected from the “real world” decided to change the definition to “not normal.” these people - hetero- or aromantic asexuals, in this case - have never and will never experience the oppression that is inextricably linked to this word. in fact, they carry with them the privilege of being able to choose ”queer” - to want ”queer,” even - while those of us who actually are queer had it shoved on us by a society that refuses to see us as anything more than queers and hates us for it.
the logic isn’t circular. it’s simple. “queer” has always been a slur aimed at us, people who are somehow attracted to the same gender. and so it is our word and no one else’s, just as it is our pain and no one else’s.
saltmarshhag:
cinnamonwheel:
I know I’m not the only one who is really uncomfortable with ‘queer’ as a label, on account of it being a homophobic slur. So I have a suggestion:
What if people who are LGB* or trans* (or both) call themselves ‘aces’? According to the dictionary, ‘ace’ means ‘be a champion’, and as such it’s a…
I was thinking a while back that we should start using “queerplatonic” for anything to do with queer sex that is awesomely nasty.
I’m cool with both of these.
girlsarestrong:
[Trigger Warning for discussion of homophobia, nazism, torture, murder and genocide]
I’m still seeing people who are arguing that the appropriation of the triangle by AVEN isn’t a big deal.
So, a quick history lesson is in order.
[Image may be triggering as it shows concentration camp prisoners imprisoned for homosexuality]
“The real story behind the pink triangle begins prior to World War II. Paragraph 175, a clause in German law, prohibited homosexual relations (much like many states in the U.S. today have laws against “crimes of nature”). In 1935, during Hitler’s rise to power, he extended this law to include homosexual kissing, embracing, and even having homosexual fantasies. An estimated 25,000 people were convicted under this law between 1937 and 1939 alone. They were sent to prisons and later concentration camps. Their sentence also included sterilization, most commonly in the form of castration. In 1942, Hitler extended the punishment for homosexuality to death.
Prisoners in Nazi concentration camps were labeled according to their crimes by inverted colored triangles. “Regular” criminals were denoted by a green triangle, political prisoners by red triangles and Jews by two overlapping yellow triangles (to form the Star of David, the most common Jewish symbol). Homosexual prisoners were labels with pink triangles. Gay Jews- the lowest form of prisoner- had overlapping yellow and pink triangles. This system also created a social hierarchy among the prisoners, and it has been reported that the pink triangle prisoners often received the worst workloads and were continually harassed and beaten by both guards and other prisoners.
Although homosexual prisoners were not shipped en mass to the Aushwitz death camps like so many of the Jewish prisoners, there were still large numbers of gay men executed there along with other non-Jewish prisoners. The real tragedy though occurred after the war. When the Allies defeated the Germany and the Nazi Regime, the political and remaining Jewish prisoners were released from the camps (the regular criminals- murderers, rapists, etc.- were not released for obvious reasons). The homosexual prisoners were never released though because Paragraph 175 remained West German law until 1969. So these innocent men watched as their fellow prisoners were set free, but remained prisoners for 24 more years.
In the 1970s, the pink triangle started to be used in conjunction with the gay liberation movement. When people, especially public figures such as law makers, were confronted with such a symbol, they risked being associated with the Nazis if he or she were to attempt to openly limit or prosecute gays. In the 1980s, when the triangle’s popularity truly began to take off, ACT-UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power) adopted the it as their symbol, but turned it upright to suggest an active fight rather than passive resignation. I’ve also been told that some people wear their triangles pointing up if they personally know somebody who has tied of AIDS. In any case, the pink triangle is definitely a symbol very closely connected to oppression and the fight against it, and stands as a vow never to let another Holocaust happen again. Like the word “queer,” it is a symbol of hate which has been reclaimed and now stands for pride.”
Queer people aren’t jumping all over aces on tumblr for no reason, or because of ‘acephobia’ as some seem to believe. It’s because so many people in the community are doing things that are appropriative, homophobic and fucked up - brushing off the appropriation of symbols without even realising the violent and bloody history behind them, or dismissing it as irrelevant as the holocaust ~happened before their time~. Stop it.
(Source: lambda.org, via saltmarshhag)
saltmarshhag:
homoviper:
practicemakespermanent:
Boston marriage as a term is said to have been in use in New England in the decades spanning the late 19th and early 20th centuries to describe two women living together, independent of financial support from a man. The term was little known until the debut in 2000 of the David Mamet play of the same name. Since then, a trend has arisen to make mention of the term. Since 2000, many mentions of “Boston marriage” cite as examples the same few literary figures, in particular the Maine local color novelist Sarah Orne Jewett and her late life companion, the widow of the editor of The Atlantic Monthly. There is often an assumption that in the era when the term was in use, it denoted a lesbian relationship. However, there is no documentary proof that any particular “Boston marriage” included sexual relations. In general, the amount of historical and social scientific knowledge of this phenomenon, and even of the currency of the term at the turn of the 20th century, is scant.
(Courtesy of Wikipedia)
there’s little (not “no”) documentation of sex because homophobia has always been a thing
hope
that
helps
oh my fucking god they are not doing this now
what
what
are they really?
I can’t fucking deal with this homophobic shit while I’m trapped here, someone just ban them all from the internet for me, ok
