Queer is beautiful - why I won't let homophobia steal my identity

I identify as queer. I like it because it's so hard to define, because it encompasses both gender and sexuality, because it has so much potential to unite without constraint, and because it refuses to assimilate into an oppressive society. Bisexual felt weird because I never felt like I liked girls and I liked boys, but that I liked people regardless of gender. I also feel like neither “girl” nor “boy” adequately describe me; and once I worked out that the gender binary sucked, queer gave me a small way of rejecting it on all fronts, and a way of understanding it in a political context as well. But the word queer is a big problem for some people – for some, it has connotations of homophobia and violence. I even heard one person say that he deletes any email with queer in the title without looking at it because he is so offended by it.

Being pretty young in the grand scheme of things, I have never experienced the word being used as an insult – I think it's pretty outdated as a pejorative, at least amongst my peers. “Lesbo” was much more likely, or “gay” for my male-looking friends. Particularly “gay”, and often so casually - how often do I get really pissy with people for saying “oh, that new film was so gay”, or “I can't come out tonight, I have a deadline. GAAAAY.” One of my friends said that she uses it because it means something different now - “think of it like a whole different word, like, it could be spelt differently, g-h-a-y or something.” Obviously, I told her that while people use it to mean homosexual, it means homosexual, and that I'd thank her not to use it as a pejorative in my hearing.

And yet, people still identify as gay. Perhaps it's because queer was more common when things were more violent that it evokes stronger feelings, but if they are going to hate us, they will hate us whatever word we use, and they will use whatever word we claim. No-one is asking anyone to stop using the word gay because homophobes use it. And my use of the word queer, which means so much to me, has to be more important than the homophobe's taunt. We can't keep running from them – if we take the word back and create something beautiful with it, some of their power will be taken away.

I do appreciate that our forebears had to deal with things that we are lucky not to be able to imagine, and I have huge respect and gratitude for them. I understand, at least a little, how evocative a word might be – I maybe feel a little similar about the word lesbian. But I feel like my identity is being belittled when it is dismissed for the ways in which it has been used by others. It upsets me to be lumped in with them, and of course I don't want to evoke awful things that have happened. So I would like to ask that those who have difficulty with the word try to see past that, to the way that we are using it, right now. Talk to us. We are your siblings, and we don't want to hurt you – we just want to find a way to be ourselves, just like you.

(photo credit: Alva. Scribble credit: me)