queerness is a competition and everyone is losing
We’ve definitely lost the plot of being queer. Like, badly.
Adding nuance: Stop asking studs (which is exclusively a term for BLACK masc lesbians) if they listen to girl in red. Or Chapell Roan. Or Towa Bird. Or any other white queer artist that white queers listen to and also expect everyone else to (no hate to Chappell, though – I am a proud member of the Pink Pony Club).
Adding even more nuance: I think that queerness has morphed from the othering-yet-freeing label it once was for us into another subgroup to classify ourselves between “cool” and “uncool.”
I don’t have an issue with people ascribing certain aspects of pop culture to queerness; I support it! My problem is with the fact that, rather than these aspects of pop culture being PART of your queer identity, it’s becoming more common that they become your queer identity in of itself. Which sucks, for a variety of reasons.
For one, we still live in a society where whiteness is largely the default: this means that any kind of assumed “uniform queerness” we think of, consists of white queerness. In other words, shit I don’t relate to. Futch Night in NYC? Just a sea of carabiners and DIY mullets; not a whiff of shea butter in the building.
(Like, they were TURNING AWAY BLACK GIRLS AT THE DOOR. The kids are not alright.)
This is also just a symptom of a larger issue: queerness is being commodified. Repackaged, marketed as buythisoryouarealoser, and sold to twenty-something Dimes Square NYC gentrifiers who would rather keep paying for a personality than do the required self-reflection to figure out who they are, because who has the time for that nowadays? And yes, straight people are buying too.
Do you think it’s a coincidence that it’s getting harder to tell the difference between a crunchy lesbian and a granola church girl who’s just really into modesty and Birkenstock clogs? They want our rhythm, but never our rainbows.
Anyway, if you’re wondering why queerness is being reduced to (questionable) fashion sense and homogenous music taste, it’s the same reason everything else is going to sht: Capitalism. Yes, your c*nty gay friend can be a capitalist too. Yes, the one interning at Lockheed Martin.
We’ve been incentivized to forgo our individuality and idiosyncrasies for sameness because if you’re queer, you’re “in,” but if you’re too queer, you’re out. It’s also why I feel like I don’t fit in with a lot of queer people on my college campus; so many of them spend all their time policing queerness to the point where I’m not sure if they’re even enjoying it anymore. I know I wouldn’t be.
The point of being queer is to embrace what others have called repulsive; find beauty in what is seen as ugly, growing happiness like a rose out of rubble. It’s throwing away the status quo, not creating a new one.
The only person you have to impress is your younger self, who you told: “it’s gonna get better.” Let it get better, and understand your queerness goes further than your clothes, tastes, and orientation; it’s a promise to become something you’ve only dreamed of.
P.S. This extends to queer discourse as well. Ask a trans man why he’s in a lesbian bar and both he and his very queer girlfriend are going to stare at you like you’re crazy: put down the TikTok thinkpieces and go outside, I beg of you.
