I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have been in the queer movement for 20+ years, to have studied queer theory, to have contributed to you potentially enjoying the rights you have today because I was part of a groundswell of lobbying and direct action in the 1990s….
…to have a 15 year old who’s spent maybe 8 months being political and has never inquired about queer history anonymously message me, “EXCUSE ME QU**R IS A SLUR LMAO OMG EMBARRASSSING AN aCTUAL ADULT WHO THINKS IT’S OKAY TO USE QU**R!~!!!!”
Dude, we are a slur. Queer folks are a slur to conservative straight people. Everything we are will be used as a slur by everyone who hates us. Gay is a slur. Lesbian is a slur. People will try to use all of our words against us. Don’t fucking let them get into your head to the point at which you’re telling actual queer people not to use the words we’ve used to unite ourselves and empower ourselves for decades.
yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees
The notes on this post since I first reblogged it from @asynca are a wild fucking ride.
“It was never our word, do some research.” Child do your own damn research, it’s been our word.
“If you’ve been part of the community for 20 years get off of Tumblr and go take care of your grandkids.” Man I would not want to be you in 20 years, realizing that shit, you don’t stop existing when you become a grown-up and you keep having interests. How do you think your life’s going to be between age 20 and age 80? Is it gonna be that boring to be you? And holy shit my grandkids? If Asy is anything like me, who came out at 13, how you expect me to have grandkids at 33ish? 35? Y’all. Really. And these are the same people who wail ‘respect your elders, don’t call them queer, they don’t like it,’ but out the other side of their mouth say ‘you’re not relevant, grandma, go away.’
Mmkay. Just show your hypocrisy a bit more, I guess.
“Just don’t call people things they don’t wanna be called.”
Aight, so, yeah. First off, ain’t nobody calling anybody part of the queer community who ain’t identifying as queer. Queer is, and has been, a radical political and mostly blue-collar portion of the LGBTQIPA+ community. It is defined by its rejection of Corporate Gay (white, upper-middle-class, cis gay exclusionary ‘palatable for TV’ gayness) and inclusion of the entire community, and its political activism.
Guess what, if you ain’t queer, you ain’t part of the queer community. Believe me, we don’t want you if you ain’t queer, because queers ain’t afraid to get their hands dirty and actually fight. And I am so so so tired of people thinking that we’re trying to coerce people into calling themselves queer. If you wanna be part of this community, great. Otherwise, you ain’t part of it and no one is trying to force you.
That said, it’s important to recognize that attempting to censor people’s self-identity is and has been a tactic of TERFs, “purity” culture advocates, and people who have tried to shut out bi, trans, pan, questioning, ace, non-binary, genderfluid and other ‘non-conforming’ identities. It’s not a new problem. I grew up listening to Ani DiFranco (I know she has issues, that’s another post) and the song “In or Out,” which expressly, in part, is about belonging and standards in the community was released on Imperfectly in 1992. Like, really. Little Plastic Castle addresses it, too, and that came out exactly 20 years ago in 1998.
The kids on this site are not the first group to think that they can determine who is ‘In or Out.’ This site’s would-be censors are not the first ones thinking, ‘I can just demand that you not be who you are when it makes me uncomfortable.’
Demanding that we not use our identity words to describe ourselves because it makes you uncomfortable is not acceptable. No one is accepting of the idea that ‘gay’ is a word which should simply not be used. And yet, we are meant to simply write off queer and stop using that word, instead of helping people work through their issues and/or working further on reclaiming and/or simply be left alone to our identities without having to justify them. This thought process that we should just drop the word because it’s ‘bad’ is the perfect intersection of Tumblr’s TERF-sponsored exclusionists and Tumblr’s anti-recovery culture, and it needs to stop.
Kids need to stop hiding behind the idea that ‘older people in the community don’t like queer and have trauma with it,’ because we are the older people in the community, and I’m here to tell you, my trauma was around gay and dyke. Queer is the word that gave me back my life. Stop trying to use us as your Shields Against Being Called On Your Bigotry, because we’re not interested.
People need to stop saying ‘don’t call others that,’ because we’re not talking to you if you don’t identify as queer. The community who identifies as queer is who we are addressing.
People need to stop attempting to suppress the word queer. It’s not going away. We are not going away. Or, to bring back what I grew up saying:
If you don’t believe being asexual has any negative affect on people I was told by a psychiatrist that none of my relationships count because we didn’t have sex, and
I can’t say I’m gay since I don’t want to have sex with girls.
and I was taken off my antidepressants because they may be lowering the libido I never had in the first place (plus various other reasons, but still immediately, cold turkey, which should NEVER happen unless they’re switching you to something else)
But aphobia doesn’t exist and asexuals are privileged, right?
Sorry to add to this but I wanted to say since I’ve had bad experiences with mental health professionals and biphobia, I usually get asked “but are you sure you are sexually attracted to both sexes, are you sure it’s not just an emotional attraction?!” Like my dude don’t you think I can tell the difference between wanting to date someone and wanting to be friends? Also, due to be gray ace 90% of the time I am not even attracted to anyone but like sure, make me feel guilty that I can’t “prove” my bisexuality.
Sorry too but to add on, being aro isn’t much different. I told my therapist and she was immediately concerned that my meds were repressing “all my emotions” and wanted to take me off them. My insurance ran out and I went off them bc of no money before that happened. She also suggested dating someone anyway to “fix” the “issue” and expressed concern that my emotions (romantic feelings) weren’t present because “I’m suspicious and untrusting of everyone and don’t want to try hard enough.”
Having your orientation medicalized and invalidated is bad enough, but its fucking dangerous to have your meds taken away because you’re not performing relationships the way some doctor thinks you’re required to.
Aaaand this is why we need the bi/pan/ace/aro alliance.
this is why we need to recognize more queer experiences and identities than gay and lesbian, through increased awareness, information and representation.
Out of
curiosity, I recently googled “Am I lesbian quiz”. Half the “Are You a Lesbian” quizzes just asked outright, “Are you attracted to women?” as though that isn’t the
very answer a questioning lesbian is trying to figure out. The other
half marked me as heterosexual for things like owning more nail varnish than
dogs. I hope this list will give you more nuanced ideas to think about
as you explore your identity.
These experiences are all really common among – but not universal or exclusive to – people who later realize they’re lesbians and find a comfortable home in the lesbian label and community.
It’s mostly stuff that I and
other lesbians I know have wished we knew when we were first coming to
grips with our lesbian identities, because the fact is it takes a long
time to discover how common a lot of these experiences are among
lesbians, and not knowing what to look for when trying to figure out if
you’re a lesbian can be hard.
‘Attraction’ to men
Deciding which guys to be attracted to – not to date, but to be attracted to – based on how well they match a mental list of attractive qualities
Only developing attraction to a guy after a female friend expresses attraction to him
Getting
jealous of a specific female friend’s relationships with guys and
assuming you must be attracted to the guys she’s with (even if you never
really noticed them before she was interested in them)
Picking a guy at random to be attracted to
Choosing
to be attracted to a guy at all, not just choosing to act on it but
flipping your attraction on like a switch – that’s a common lesbian
thing
Having such high standards that literally no guy meets
them – and feeling no spark of attraction to any guy who doesn’t meet
them
Only/mostly being into guys who are gnc in some way
Only/mostly being attracted to unattainable, disinterested, or fictional guys or guys you never or rarely interact with
Being deeply uncomfortable and losing all interest in these unattainable guys if they ever indicate they might reciprocate
Reading your anxiety/discomfort/nervousness/combativeness around men as attraction to them
Reading a desire to be attractive to men as attraction to them
Having a lot of your ‘guy’ crushes later turn out to be trans women
Relationships with men
Dreading what feels like an inevitable domestic future with a man
Or looking forward to an idealized version of it that resembles literally no m/f relationship you’ve ever seen in your life, never being able to picture any man you’ve actually met in that image
Being
repulsed by the dynamics of most/all real life m/f relationships you’ve seen
and/or regularly feeling like “maybe it works for them but I never want my
relationship to be like that”
Thinking you’re commitmentphobic
because no relationship, no matter how great the guy, feels quite right
and you drag your feet when it comes time to escalate it
Going
along with escalation because it seems like the ‘appropriate time’ or bc
the guy wants it so bad, even if you personally aren’t quite ready to
say I love you or have labels or move in together etc.
Or jumping ahead and trying to rush to the ‘comfortably settled’ part of relationships with guys, trying to make a relationship a done deal without investing time into emotional closeness
Feeling
like you have to have relationships with guys and/or let them get
serious in order to prove something, maybe something nebulous you can’t
identify
Only having online relationships with guys; preferring not to look at
the guys you’re interacting with online; choosing not to meet up with a
guy even if you seem very into him and he reciprocates and meeting up is
totally realistic
Getting
a boyfriend mostly so other people know you have a boyfriend and not
really being interested in him romantically/sexually
Wishing your boyfriend was more like your female friends
Wishing your boyfriend was less interested in romance and/or sex with you and that you could just hang out as pals
Thinking you’re really in love with a guy but being
able to get over him in such record time that you pretend to be more
affected than you are so your friends don’t think you’re heartless
After a breakup, missing having a boyfriend more than you miss the specific guy you were with
Worrying that you’re broken inside and unable to really love anyone
Sex with men
Having sex not out of desire for the physical pleasure or emotional closeness but because you like feeling wanted
OR: preferring to ‘be a tease’ to feel wanted but feeling like following through is a chore
Only being comfortable with sex with men if there’s an extreme power imbalance and your desires aren’t centred
Using sex with men as a form of self-harm
Feeling
numb or dissociating or crying during/after sex with men (even if you
don’t understand that reaction and think you’re fine and crying etc for
no reason)
Being bored with sex with men/not understanding what the big deal is that makes other women want it
Doing it anyway out of obligation or a desire to be a good sport/do something nice for him
Never/rarely
having sexual fantasies about specific men, preferring to leave them as
undetailed as possible or not thinking about men at all while
fantasizing
Having to make a concerted effort to fantasize about the guy you’re “attracted” to
Early interest in women
Not recognizing past/current crushes on women until you’ve come to grips with your attraction to women
Being unusually competitive, shy, or eager to impress specific women when you’re not that way with anyone else
Wanting to kiss your female best friend on the mouth for literally any reason (”to practice for boys” included)
Getting butterflies or feeling like you can’t get close enough when cuddling with a close female friend
Looking at a close female friend and feeling something in your chest clench up and being overwhelmed with love for her – love you may read as platonic
Having
had strong and abiding feelings of admiration for a specific female
teacher, actor, etc., growing up that were deep and reverent
Having had an unusually close relationship with a female friend growing up that was different and special in a way you couldn’t articulate
Thinking
relationships would be simpler “if only I were attracted to women/my
best friend who would be perfect for me if she/I weren’t a girl”
When
a female friend is treated badly by a man, having your protective
thoughts turn in the direction of “if I was him/a man I’d never do that to her/my girlfriend”
Being utterly fascinated by any lesbians you know/see in media and thinking they’re all ultra cool people
Having
your favourite character in every show be that one gay-coded or butch-looking woman
(like Shego from Kim Possible or Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica)
Feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable in locker rooms etc., when your
female friends are less clothed than they normally would be around men
and being more careful not to look than they are
The ‘straight’ version of you
Thinking that all straight girls feel at least some attraction to women
Thinking
that your interest in seeing attractive women/scantily clad women/boobs
is an artificial reaction caused by the objectification of women in
media
Being really into how women look “aesthetically”/“just as artistic interest”
Thinking it’s objective and uncontested that almost all women are way more attractive than most men
Being a really intense LGBT+ “ally” and getting weirdly
emotional about homophobia but assuming you’re just a Really Good Ally
and v empathetic
Having like half your friend group from school turn out to be LGBT+
Getting emotional or having a strong reaction you don’t understand to f/f love stories etc.
Having had people think you were gay when you had no suspicion you were gay
Exploring attraction to women
Feeling like you could live with a woman in a romantic way, even if you can’t imagine doing anything sexual with a woman
Feeling like you could enjoy sexual interaction with a woman, even if you can’t imagine having romantic feelings for a woman
Thinking
you couldn’t be a lesbian because you’re not attractive enough, cool
enough, or otherwise in the same league as most of the women you know
Interacting
with het sex/romance in media by imagining yourself in the man’s
position or just never/rarely imagining yourself in the woman’s position
Really focusing on the women in het porn
Being really into the idea of kissing/being sexual with a woman ‘to turn guys on’
Being really annoyed when guys actually do express interest in watching or joining in when you do that
Only feeling/expressing attraction to or sexual interest in women when you’re inebriated or otherwise impaired
Gender Feelings
Having a lot of conflicting gender feelings that are only possible to resolve once you understand you are/can be a lesbian
Thinking
that being gnc and feeling a disconnect from traditional womanhood mean
that you can’t be a woman even if that’s what feels closest to right –
many lesbians are gnc and many lesbians feel disconnected from
traditional womanhood since it’s so bound up in heteropatriarchy
Knowing
you’re attracted to women and not being able to parse that (esp + any
gender nonconformance) as gay, taking a long time to figure out if
you’re a straight man or a lesbian
Being dysphoric about the
parts of you that make straight men think your body is owed to them,
having to figure out what that dysphoria means for/to you
Knowing
you’re attracted to women, but feeling weirdly guilty and uncomfortable
trying to interact with them as a straight man, and only later
realizing you’re actually a trans lesbian
Knowing you’re gay, but experiencing a lot of the symptoms of comp het
when you try to interact with men romantically/sexually, and only later
realizing you’re a trans lesbian and not a gay man
Being
nonbinary and taking a long time to sort through being able to
respect/understand your nonbinary identity and your lesbianness at the
same time
Considering lesbianism
Wanting to be a lesbian but feeling like if you don’t already know you are one you can’t be
Feeling
guilty about wanting to be a lesbian, feeling like you’re just
attention-seeking or trying to be trendy
Suppressing your lesbian
dreams because you think exploring that desire would mean you’re a
bad/homophobic person using lesbianness selfishly
Wishing you were a lesbian to escape the discomfort of dating men
Fantasizing
about how much fun it would be to be a lesbian and just be with women/a
specific woman, but thinking that can’t be for you
Worrying that some of your past attraction to men was actually real so you can’t be a lesbian
Worrying that bc you can’t be 100% sure you’re not attracted to men and can’t be 100% sure you won’t change your mind, you can’t be a lesbian
Worrying that you only want to be a lesbian because of trauma and that means your lesbianness would be Fake
Worrying that trauma-induced complications in how you experience sex (e.g., a habit of self-harming via sex w men or a fear of any sex at all) mean you’re not a Real Lesbian
Every item on this list is common among Real Lesbians. It’s all Normal Lesbian Stuff. If you’re worried that you can’t be a lesbian even though it’s the life you really want for yourself, I hope this gives you permission to explore that. You are allowed to be a lesbian.
And if you’re not sure yet – if you took the time to read this entire thing because you’re curious about your identity, if you identified with a bunch of items on this list – you may or may not be a lesbian, but friend, you almost certainly aren’t cishet. Welcome.
(I’d love to hear other things lesbians wish you’d known were A Thing when you were first exploring your identity!)
Several weeks ago, I became frustrated with the failure of words like ‘straight’ or ‘gay’ to encompass relationships of non-binary people. I coined the term dionysian to describe non-binary relationships and attraction, which are neither ‘opposite gender’ nor necessarily ‘same gender’. You can read the original post and the elaboration in the provided links.
The term itself, referring to a hellenic deity of trans and intersex people, was met with justified criticism. In response to ensuing debate, a channel was started on Discord and promoted on tumblr for NB people to come and help decide on a new word to fill this lexical gap. After a solid week of hard debate, the dozens present narrowed our work down to two terms and then held a poll on tumblr.
The results of the poll favored diamoric as the replacement term for dionysian.
The best place to read about the definition of diamoric is in the two links in the first paragraph. Simply substitute the old term for the new. The definition provided for dionysian still accurately describes the spirit of this term.
The Definition
Diamoric is an intentionally flexible, loose term.
It came out of recognizing the failure of binary terms like “straight” and “gay” to be useful or accurate for many NB people. NB genders vary so vastly that even two non-binary people in a relationship may not feel that their relationship is accurately described as “same-gender” or “gay”, and can even feel misgendered by the implications. For example, my own relationship as an androgyne with an nb trans boy can only be construed as a gay relationship if you reduce us both to our genitals. A non-binary person in a relationship with a binary man or woman is at an even further loss. Their relationship is far from “straight”, but it’s not technically “gay” or “same-gender” either. So what is it?
It’s diamoric.
The Etymology
From the greek prefix “dia-”, meaning “passing through”, “going apart”, and “thoroughly/completely” and the latin “amor” for love, diamoric literally refers to love, attraction, or partnerships that pass through, go apart from, or completely encompass the gender spectrum.
The use of this word includes all types of love, romantic or not.
The preferred pronunciation is [ ,daɪə’mɔɹɪk ], or “dye – uh – MOR – ik”.
A diamoric relationship or attraction is one that involves at least one non-binary person.
A genderfluid person’s attraction to a woman is diamoric.
An enby’s hook-up with an androgyne is diamoric.
A man’s queerplatonic partnership with a demiboy is diamoric (and could also be achillean if they chose to use both).
A genderfluid woman’s romance with a genderfluid man is diamoric (and could also be gay, sapphic, or achillean depending on how their genders line up in time.)
A bigender person’s marriage to an agender person is diamoric.
A triad between a woman, a demigirl, and an agender person is diamoric.
A man’s attraction to an enby is diamoric.
A lesbian dating an agender person is a lesbian in a diamoric relationship.
A diamoric person is a person who centers NB people and NB partnerships in their life.
Only non-binary people may use diamoric as an identity. Only NB people can call themselvesdiamoric. Technically, any NB person who seeks partnerships of any kind with any gender could call themselves diamoric, but it’s most useful and meaningful for NBs who wish to proclaim their prioritization of other NBs.
An NB person who is most interested in, happiest, and most comfortable with other NB people may find it a useful self-identifier; they are diamoric. Even if they would be content dating men or women, but they don’t want to define themselves by that, and would rather define themselves by their love for NB people and for being NB – they are diamoric.
Diamoric is not meant to replace existing words.
It is meant to give language to people who feel they have none.
If you’re an NB lesbian and your sapphic attraction is your priority, you may never feel inclined to use diamoric, and that’s fine. But if you’re an NB lesbian who wishes to emphasize your NB identity in addition to your love for women, “diamoric lesbian” might be a label that you like.
If you’re a demiboy who loves men and ‘achillean’ is all you need, more power to you. You don’t have to use this word if it says nothing about you that achillean doesn’t.
This word is a supplement to existing language that is free to use by NBs who want or need it. It is not a word to be imposed on NBs who don’t need it.
Fun things:
I’m so gay? More like I’m so dia 😉
Calling your NB partner your diamour!
Want to include diamoric in your sexual orientation? How about dia-bisexual! Dia-pansexual! Dia-gay!
Romance: unknown, seems to be “best friends with sex”. I’m clearly missing something. (People treat it as separate from sex, a bigger deal than friendship) So: what is romance.
I don’t really entirely know. I would have pretty much agreed with that definition at one point, but there are people who have romance without much friendship, and now I just don’t even know. It doesn’t appear to be inherently sexual, although there’s a ton of correlation. I have no idea.
Romance, IMO, is when you don’t just Have Feelings about someone, you also Have Feelings about Having Feelings about them. Barring that, just watch the Addams Family movies.
wow, it is really hard to explain how romance is different from friendship. i feel both toward seebs, and they’re not the same. and it’s not remotely just sex. but any attempt i could make to explain it would just turn into poetry. i can’t be concrete about it.
i think romantic love is one of those things that can’t be explained directly, like enlightenment.
Honestly, I actually kinda figured it out by dating!
I was only a teenager and a pretty naïve one as teenagers go, and when a boy first asked me out at age 14, I said yes because I’d never done that before and thought it was flattering that a boy liked me. We didn’t actually do anything much. We played video games and liked the same music. I thought he was boring because he would call me and then watch TV at me. We kissed five times. Because we were supposed to. Same reason he bought me jewelry; he was supposed to. He broke up with me—in a note, and we never spoke again—when he found out I was moving to another city and realized he didn’t care. Nice, huh?
I hadn’t gotten anything I wanted out of the experience, but I knew I was pretty young. Despite that, I figured I would think twice before going out with the first person who asked just because they asked, and when I found myself in the same situation the next year at my new school, I said no to the boy. And he begged for almost two years, and (tw: suicide) threatened to kill himself if I would not date him, so eventually I did. (I know, I know. Though it doesn’t help that he actually attempted suicide while we were dating, too, and my mom had to save his life. Long story that I will not tell here.)
Obviously it was an extremely dysfunctional relationship, but what’s really striking about it is that even though I cared about this guy, I did not want to date him and I KNEW I did not want to date him, and yet the pressure from all around (not just from him) indicated that I was supposed to try in order to find out if I liked it. And many of the—I’ll just say physical things we tried while we were dating were things I felt similarly about: Did not believe I would like them, did not like the idea of trying them, tried them anyway because people kept saying I literally could not know without trying, and found myself disliking the experience as expected. (Which of course didn’t help the extremely insecure boy. He would cry and demand to know what he’d done wrong and why I wouldn’t let him touch my boobies after I didn’t like it the first time. Anyway.)
What I came to understand through that experience is that knowing you want to date someone, knowing you want to kiss someone, and knowing you want to do other more sexually intimate things with someone isn’t like simply trying a new food, which you CAN’T experience without putting it in your mouth and making it part of you.
It’s more like trying a new food that has a smell.
You know it stinks. You know as it gets closer to you that you do not want that in your mouth and don’t want any part of it. But everyone keeps telling you oh no, it’s different once it’s in your face, once it’s been swallowed and is becoming part of your body. That makes it different! You can’t possibly smell it ahead of time!
But yeah, I can.
It doesn’t always stink on its own. Sometimes I actually would have to get close to eating it before I could smell it. And sometimes I could tell from a mile away that I wouldn’t want that thing near me. But for me, I feel like I would be able to smell the appetizing foods, and they would smell good to me, like they do for everyone else who gets a crush and knows they want to date that person before they actually say the words and start dating them. I don’t see why people are so reluctant to allow me to claim agency over my own inclinations. If what I want doesn’t make sense to them, I must’ve just not given what they want a chance! But what they want is what they want. They feel something I don’t feel. It’s described as pretty compelling, right? I think I’d know it if I felt it. (And even if I didn’t, it’s VERY clear to me once that nasty food is in my mouth that I do not like the taste of it.)
I tried dating. I tried it even though I didn’t want to because everyone kept telling me I should want to and that I was obviously too close-minded if I refused to pursue and put work into and tie up someone else’s feelings into something I did not desire in the slightest.
I learned, through dating, that I actually can know without trying to date someone whether I’d like to date them. Because actually dating people I didn’t want felt exactly the same after I said yes (with added, unnecessary drama). I imagine if that changes for me one day, I’ll be just as sure that I’m doing the right thing by saying yes, even though at my age (35) I’m sure it would probably be very confusing. But I AM open to new things. It’s not close-mindedness that’s stopping me from pursuing those relationships. It’s my own inclinations.
just moving along like everyone else 