It's a Big Queer World After All.

[TX-Beau]

My niece, who is queer – and insists I use that term – has been discussing queer issues with me since she told me at 14. She will be a senior in High school next year; so three years or thereabouts. It always surprises me that she doesn’t understand the caution I try to instill about coming out to whom and when, and all the rest of the general advice I try to provide. She doesn’t get it; even knowing that her parents will have several litters of kittens when they find out doesn’t faze her.

We had a disagreement over the term “queer.” She describes herself as a queer girl who is bi. She describes me as a queer man who is gay. Which kind of offended me in the beginning. I objected to the term “queer” I thought all those subdivisions she uses – all those silly letters that keep getting added on to LGBTQ – were unnecessary. I insisted I was a gay man, period.

I swear I’m not a crotchety old man just yet. In the course of these discussions, I realized that I was clinging to “gay” because that term means something to me that it never will to her. It represents the fight we had forced on us. Calling myself a gay man represents overcoming the hate, the scorn, the stigma. To me, that’s quite important; to her, it’s just an anachronism. Echoes of a past she never saw and hopefully never will. To her, “gay” will only ever mean a queer man who isn’t interested in women. I admit I was somewhat dismayed by that realization. My first instinct was to explain to her exactly why she was wrong and what that fight meant for me and for her, but in the end, I didn’t lecture. So why?

Because she convinced me.

These kids, they've taken gay, lesbian, bi, trans, and all the rest and made them just individual possibilities under the term "queer." They took "queer,” stripped it of its power to hurt, and made a big, diverse, and inclusive family that never knew the trauma that was foundational to that possibility. They keep adding new possibilities to that family; the only requirement is being who you are. She tells me even straight people can be queer.

So, I surrender; I am a queer man who is gay, aging, and, I suppose, a little crotchety after all. I embrace my letters.

She made me realize that was what we were fighting for all along. Maybe she’ll understand what my cleaving to the word “gay” meant someday, or maybe the best option of all is that she never will.

 

[KaraBulut]

The sad thing is that Facebook will change their list of sexual orientations in a few years and this generation will expect all of us to jump on board with yet another list of "identities" that we didn't need or ask for.

What they don't realize is that those of us of a certain generation were only successful in our efforts because we found a group of terms that bound us all together in a common cause.

There's two opposing arguments for the constantly-growing list of sexual orientations and constantly growing number of "flags" that we're all supposed to support:

• One side points to how identity politics is destroying any collective voice that we might have once had. We have a Supreme Court that is just itching to get rid of Obergefell. If they should, will there be anyone who marches on Washington to send the message that "We're pissed and we're going to throw you out of office"? Or will we be too busy scolding each other for not using the correct orientations and pronouns?
• The other side points to a large expansion of the LGBTQIA+ umbrella which has increased the number of people who identify as something other than heterosexual. Recent polls that show that only 75% of young people identify as heterosexual with only 3% identifying as "gay or lesbian". The same survey had 12% identifying as "bisexual" and 9% identifying as "other". That's a big change from the 5-10% that we were told were lesbian or gay back in the 20th century.

That said... where the fuck are the 25% when the basic rights that we fought for are under threat by white evangelicals and State Legislatures?

 

[TX-Beau]

It's disconcerting to look into the mirror and see, well, if not a dinosaur, at least a wooly mammoth. That post was inspired by a conversation I had with her and a couple of her queer friends. They are about to embark on the joy of the college application process, and they wanted to ask what I knew about schools in California. A little background, my niece is a kinda steampunk girl who cuts her hair severely short every summer and dyes it with increasingly exciting and vibrant colors. This drives her Mom (my sister in law) straight up the nearest wall. Her parents are trying to push her to Baylor University in Waco, a Southern Baptist school that is not quite as horrible as Oral Roberts but still horrible enough that you can probably hear me vomiting from wherever you are, with a backup of North Texas even further into the hinterland. So, I, of course, vociferously stated that none of them should even consider a university that was going to try and force them to conform. I am pushing UC Berkeley where she'll fit in just fine, even with purple hair.

All of her friends are like that, young, of course, what we'd call "alternative" way back in 1990, but their social world is so foreign. I thought initially that these ideas were an Austin thing, which would not surprise me since Austin can be crunchy and is actually far more politically Liberal than L.A., but it's not. These ideas are in the Media they watch, the Manga and Anime they consume, their gaming and online social interactions. There is a whole movement of them out there using these terms and pushing these ideas.

When asked, and I'm paraphrasing, they appear to think that gay, bi, and straight (they don't seem to use Lesbian) are limiting terms that define someone strictly by sexual attraction. No one said it that way, but that's what I got. Queer, on the other hand, is a broader category of people that's amorphous enough to allow an individual to define themselves however they choose, not limited to just sexual preference. The only qualification for inclusion seems to be allowing and accepting that everyone else gets that privilege. Once again, not verbatim.

I mean, on one level, it's hopelessly idealistic and impossibly optimistic that they think they are going to change the world, and it makes you long to be 17 again. I don't know where this will end up, but it's enlightening to see queer people completely undefined by the struggle just to exist without strife. We were all defined in our formative years by the opposition, except for the very fortunate few. These kids, they don't even know what that looks like; there are queer people everywhere in their lives - and even if my niece's parents are religious nutcases, she has a bunch of out peer support and the support of their families. I don't know what it would have been like to be a gay kid in that reality, but I'm glad she does, purple hair and all.

 

[KaraBulut]

...I mean, on one level, it's hopelessly idealistic and impossibly optimistic that they think they are going to change the world, and it makes you long to be 17 again. I don't know where this will end up, but it's enlightening to see queer people completely undefined by the struggle just to exist without strife. We were all defined in our formative years by the opposition, except for the very fortunate few. These kids, they don't even know what that looks like; there are queer people everywhere in their lives - and even if my niece's parents are religious nutcases, she has a bunch of out peer support and the support of their families. I don't know what it would have been like to be a gay kid in that reality, but I'm glad she does, purple hair and all.

A few years ago, I was an interview with George Will where he said that the fight against LGBT was over. They won and he knew that LGBT people had won because his children and grandchildren knew openly gay people starting in junior high and high school, they accepted gay people without much thought and they didn't really care whether someone was gay.

That is a big jump- from our generation in the 1970s thru the 1990s who were happy to see any gay person portrayed in the media, even if they were a drug addict, a sissy clown or whether they invariably ended up alone or dead by the end of the show. These days, when I have friends over to watch a movie or streaming series, we play a game trying to figure out which character is gay or trans because there's always at least one major character who is on the LGBT spectrum somewhere and these days, they're usually still alive by the end of the show.

... That post was inspired by a conversation I had with her and a couple of her queer friends. They are about to embark on the joy of the college application process, and they wanted to ask what I knew about schools in California.

As someone who spent a significant portion of his life on college campuses, I'm going to give you the advice that I wish someone had given me: your niece should pick her university based upon two factors:

1. Pick the school that has the best education for your major and the best alumni group in the market. The job market is good for new grads but it is still important to have that well-respected school name on your diploma and equally important to be interviewing for a job where the hiring manager is an alumnus.
2. Pick the school that gives you the most money to go to school there. Her goal should be to graduate with as little debt as possible.

It doesn't matter where you go to university because you will find your people there. Sure, there will be more kids with purple hair, liberal values and queer at a place like Berkley than at a place like Oral Roberts. But they will be there. That said, the beauty of attending a good university is that you meet people who aren't like you and that's also part of the university experience.

 

[TX-Beau]

I stand by my opinion of Baylor; they will expel you if they find out you are queer and won't go to the conversion therapy boot camp. Their only allowed LGBT student "organization" tells people marriage is between a man and a woman and that gay sex will send you straight to hell. They like to show this off to convince people they are very kind and progressive. They can expel you for dancing or drinking, not getting blasted drunk and doing a lurid striptease in a fountain, no dancing the Fox Trot with Grandpa at his 50'th or having a sip of wine with your filet, kind of dancing or drinking. I believe you are also forced to go to church.

I don't see any benefit to a college that forces you into the closet under threat of sanction.

Other than that, where would you look for that kind of information? She likes visual arts and communication, but she also likes chemistry and building killer robots. I don't think she's decided with any specificity what she might pursue.

 

[TX-Beau]

A few years ago, I was an interview with George Will where he said that the fight against LGBT was over. They won and he knew that LGBT people had won because his children and grandchildren knew openly gay people starting in junior high and high school, they accepted gay people without much thought and they didn't really care whether someone was gay.

That is a big jump- from our generation in the 1970s thru the 1990s who were happy to see any gay person portrayed in the media, even if they were a drug addict, a sissy clown or whether they invariably ended up alone or dead by the end of the show. These days, when I have friends over to watch a movie or streaming series, we play a game trying to figure out which character is gay or trans because there's always at least one major character who is on the LGBT spectrum somewhere and these days, they're usually still alive by the end of the show...

I'm surprised he didn't auto-combust at the news. I stopped watching gay stuff primarily because it always ends badly. She keeps telling me to watch Y/A stuff, but I'm not sure angsty shows about teenage woes would have much appeal.

 

[KaraBulut]

I stand by my opinion of Baylor; they will expel you if they find out you are queer and won't go to the conversion therapy boot camp. Their only allowed LGBT student "organization" tells people marriage is between a man and a woman and that gay sex will send you straight to hell.

I wouldn't recommend any religiously-affiliated university to anyone who is not planning to enter the clergy.

There's a reason Baylor is best known for sexual assaults and meth. Those rules are there for the parents who make their kids go to Baylor. It just gives the kids something to rebel against.

New Baylor lawsuit alleges culture in which drugs, alcohol and sex were encouraged

A former student filed a lawsuit Friday against Baylor alleging that the football program fostered a culture in which coaches encouraged female students to have sex with recruits and players.

www.espn.com

I've always said that, "I can disagree with George Will because at least he can coherently state his case so that I can disagree". I think he's wrong and I think he cherry picks facts to support his conservative opinions, but at least he's attempted to seek out facts.

I couldn't find a video of the George Will statement but it was quoted in other outlets with a particular sentence, "Being gay is like being left-handed. It's not really that interesting anymore.”

That is also prophetic to the multi-hyphenated adjective descriptors of sexual orientation (e.g. hetero-romantic asexual queer) that today's young people now use. Now that being gay is "not really that interesting anymore", young people have to make it interesting again. MGIA: Make Gay Interesting Again.

While searching, I did find this interesting 2012 George Will statement about gay marriage:

On a related note, 41 year old, twice married actress Sophia Bush (no relation to the Texas Bushes) just confessed to being involved with a woman. She's also describing herself as "queer" for whatever reason. Perhaps to make her interesting and distract us from the fact that Sophia Bush is 41 years old?

Sophia Bush pens open letter to address homewrecker rumors, Ashlyn Harris relationship

Sophia Bush opened up about her sexuality amid dating soccer star Ashlyn Harris and cheating rumors during both of their divorces.

www.usatoday.com

 

[MSG_Otter.w/Ardour]

My niece, who is queer – and insists I use that term – has been discussing queer issues with me since she told me at 14. She will be a senior in High school next year; so three years or thereabouts. It always surprises me that she doesn’t understand the caution I try to instill about coming out to whom and when, and all the rest of the general advice I try to provide. She doesn’t get it; even knowing that her parents will have several litters of kittens when they find out doesn’t faze her.

We had a disagreement over the term “queer.” She describes herself as a queer girl who is bi. She describes me as a queer man who is gay. Which kind of offended me in the beginning. I objected to the term “queer” I thought all those subdivisions she uses – all those silly letters that keep getting added on to LGBTQ – were unnecessary. I insisted I was a gay man, period.

I swear I’m not a crotchety old man just yet. In the course of these discussions, I realized that I was clinging to “gay” because that term means something to me that it never will to her. It represents the fight we had forced on us. Calling myself a gay man represents overcoming the hate, the scorn, the stigma. To me, that’s quite important; to her, it’s just an anachronism. Echoes of a past she never saw and hopefully never will. To her, “gay” will only ever mean a queer man who isn’t interested in women. I admit I was somewhat dismayed by that realization. My first instinct was to explain to her exactly why she was wrong and what that fight meant for me and for her, but in the end, I didn’t lecture. So why?

Because she convinced me.

These kids, they've taken gay, lesbian, bi, trans, and all the rest and made them just individual possibilities under the term "queer." They took "queer,” stripped it of its power to hurt, and made a big, diverse, and inclusive family that never knew the trauma that was foundational to that possibility. They keep adding new possibilities to that family; the only requirement is being who you are. She tells me even straight people can be queer.

So, I surrender; I am a queer man who is gay, aging, and, I suppose, a little crotchety after all. I embrace my letters.

She made me realize that was what we were fighting for all along. Maybe she’ll understand what my cleaving to the word “gay” meant someday, or maybe the best option of all is that she never will.

It will be mentioned in a Queer documentary... aired on OutTV (or another 'queer-centric' streaming service) and later picked-up by Netflix or Prime as the film "trans"-forms society through our historical awareness, lol. Stranger things have happened.

 

[TX-Beau]

I wouldn't recommend any religiously-affiliated university to anyone who is not planning to enter the clergy.

There's a reason Baylor is best known for sexual assaults and meth. Those rules are there for the parents who make their kids go to Baylor. It just gives the kids something to rebel against.

New Baylor lawsuit alleges culture in which drugs, alcohol and sex were encouraged

A former student filed a lawsuit Friday against Baylor alleging that the football program fostered a culture in which coaches encouraged female students to have sex with recruits and players.

www.espn.com

I've always said that, "I can disagree with George Will because at least he can coherently state his case so that I can disagree". I think he's wrong and I think he cherry picks facts to support his conservative opinions, but at least he's attempted to seek out facts.

I couldn't find a video of the George Will statement but it was quoted in other outlets with a particular sentence, "Being gay is like being left-handed. It's not really that interesting anymore.”

That is also prophetic to the multi-hyphenated adjective descriptors of sexual orientation (e.g. hetero-romantic asexual queer) that today's young people now use. Now that being gay is "not really that interesting anymore", young people have to make it interesting again. MGIA: Make Gay Interesting Again.

While searching, I did find this interesting 2012 George Will statement about gay marriage:

On a related note, 41 year old, twice married actress Sophia Bush (no relation to the Texas Bushes) just confessed to being involved with a woman. She's also describing herself as "queer" for whatever reason. Perhaps to make her interesting and distract us from the fact that Sophia Bush is 41 years old?

Sophia Bush pens open letter to address homewrecker rumors, Ashlyn Harris relationship

Sophia Bush opened up about her sexuality amid dating soccer star Ashlyn Harris and cheating rumors during both of their divorces.

www.usatoday.com

Hey! Are you calling me a tired old fart?

 

[TX-Beau]

It will be mentioned in a Queer documentary... aired on OutTV (or another 'queer-centric' streaming service) and later picked-up by Netflix or Prime as the film "trans"-forms society through our historical awareness, lol. Stranger things have happened.

Welcome to the Thread!

 

[KaraBulut]

Hey! Are you calling me a tired old fart?

I can't render an opinion as to whether you're tired or not.

 

[unloadonme]

... even knowing that her parents will have several litters of kittens when they find out doesn’t faze her.

... my niece is a kinda steampunk girl who cuts her hair severely short every summer and dyes it with increasingly exciting and vibrant colors.

Are you sure the girl's parents haven't guessed? To me, that kind of hairstyle shouts "lesbian".

We don't have any of those crazy religious universities over here, but my advice would be to aim as high as possible and go to the best university that will have you. It's still the case that a degree from Oxbridge, or failing that the Russell Group, opens more doors than say the University of Neasden.

 

[TX-Beau]

Are you sure the girl's parents haven't guessed? To me, that kind of hairstyle shouts "lesbian".

We don't have any of those crazy religious universities over here, but my advice would be to aim as high as possible and go to the best university that will have you. It's still the case that a degree from Oxbridge, or failing that the Russell Group, opens more doors than say the University of Neasden.

I've wondered that myself, but since they haven't brought it up, I'm certainly not going to be asking any questions. I also wonder if this is influencing the college they are pushing.

That's good advice, thanks.

 

[luckynumbah7]

It's disconcerting to look into the mirror and see, well, if not a dinosaur, at least a wooly mammoth. That post was inspired by a conversation I had with her and a couple of her queer friends. They are about to embark on the joy of the college application process, and they wanted to ask what I knew about schools in California. A little background, my niece is a kinda steampunk girl who cuts her hair severely short every summer and dyes it with increasingly exciting and vibrant colors. This drives her Mom (my sister in law) straight up the nearest wall. Her parents are trying to push her to Baylor University in Waco, a Southern Baptist school that is not quite as horrible as Oral Roberts but still horrible enough that you can probably hear me vomiting from wherever you are, with a backup of North Texas even further into the hinterland. So, I, of course, vociferously stated that none of them should even consider a university that was going to try and force them to conform. I am pushing UC Berkeley where she'll fit in just fine, even with purple hair.

All of her friends are like that, young, of course, what we'd call "alternative" way back in 1990, but their social world is so foreign. I thought initially that these ideas were an Austin thing, which would not surprise me since Austin can be crunchy and is actually far more politically Liberal than L.A., but it's not. These ideas are in the Media they watch, the Manga and Anime they consume, their gaming and online social interactions. There is a whole movement of them out there using these terms and pushing these ideas.

When asked, and I'm paraphrasing, they appear to think that gay, bi, and straight (they don't seem to use Lesbian) are limiting terms that define someone strictly by sexual attraction. No one said it that way, but that's what I got. Queer, on the other hand, is a broader category of people that's amorphous enough to allow an individual to define themselves however they choose, not limited to just sexual preference. The only qualification for inclusion seems to be allowing and accepting that everyone else gets that privilege. Once again, not verbatim.

I mean, on one level, it's hopelessly idealistic and impossibly optimistic that they think they are going to change the world, and it makes you long to be 17 again. I don't know where this will end up, but it's enlightening to see queer people completely undefined by the struggle just to exist without strife. We were all defined in our formative years by the opposition, except for the very fortunate few. These kids, they don't even know what that looks like; there are queer people everywhere in their lives - and even if my niece's parents are religious nutcases, she has a bunch of out peer support and the support of their families. I don't know what it would have been like to be a gay kid in that reality, but I'm glad she does, purple hair and all.

I've never, not once, longed to be seventeen again and I refuse to start now! Youth is overrated.

I'm not a fan of the term queer, despite using it myself. I also dislike the schism between gay/bi men's safer spaces and the queer community's (you may be unawares, I dunno, but they tend to dislike masculinity (not men, but masculinity) as a whole, the usage of queer as an overarching term, it's ....often very much a Flinta thing), as one mammoth said to another.

-edited to add for clarity's sake - if you're wonderin' about the T in flinta being all-encompassing, it isn't; they dislike masculinity in trans people as well. There's a whole transandrophobia issue the queer community has, along with its general demonization of masculinity.

 

[luckynumbah7]

That said... where the fuck are the 25% when the basic rights that we fought for are under threat by white evangelicals and State Legislatures?

The excess who've been grandfathered in under queer tend to be marginally on the queer spectrum; I've found most title themselves flexible in some manner and so I suspect they sit out with their thumbs up their collective ass. Much like a percentage of the gay/bi population did way-back-when the original rights were being fought for.