Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just found out one of my closest childhood friends, a female married to a male, is queer. How did I learn this? Her Twitter profile, of course.

I don't really care how she is queer, or why. I just think that is absurd. We talk about once a week. I've known her for more than forty years. I have opinions I'd never share with her about how silly that seems to me.

I have also, I am fairly sure, led a much more smorgasbord of a sex life than she ever has... But I don't consider myself to be queer.

It’s identifying into a group. Human beings crave belonging to a community. In the absence of clans or religion or even bowling leagues, we’ve turned sexual identity and orientation into groups that provide a sense of belonging. And if you’re not actually gay, just call yourself queer and you can join too.

For many of us, our friends are our family. That’s why we have the term chosen family. I don’t know a single queer adult that didn’t lose people when they came out.

Coming out as a bi woman married to a cishet man on twitter is fine. I refuse to erase bi women in hetero marriages. That’s still a valid queer identity. Straight people constantly claim that bi men are just closeted gay me. And bi women are just doing it for attention. Bi people are real.

I consider myself pansexual and I’m married. My sexuality isn’t invalidated just because I’m monogamous.

Anonymous wrote:I just found out one of my closest childhood friends, a female married to a male, is queer. How did I learn this? Her Twitter profile, of course.

I don't really care how she is queer, or why. I just think that is absurd. We talk about once a week. I've known her for more than forty years. I have opinions I'd never share with her about how silly that seems to me.

I have also, I am fairly sure, led a much more smorgasbord of a sex life than she ever has... But I don't consider myself to be queer.

It’s identifying into a group. Human beings crave belonging to a community. In the absence of clans or religion or even bowling leagues, we’ve turned sexual identity and orientation into groups that provide a sense of belonging. And if you’re not actually gay, just call yourself queer and you can join too.

I just found out one of my closest childhood friends, a female married to a male, is queer. How did I learn this? Her Twitter profile, of course.

I don't really care how she is queer, or why. I just think that is absurd. We talk about once a week. I've known her for more than forty years. I have opinions I'd never share with her about how silly that seems to me.

I have also, I am fairly sure, led a much more smorgasbord of a sex life than she ever has... But I don't consider myself to be queer.

Anonymous wrote:I miss the days when people’s sex lives were considered a private matter.

That's when people had a life outside social media.

I miss the days when people’s sex lives were considered a private matter.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I'm surprised that there are so many people who unapologetically question somebody else's identity.

Ashley Ford, an author, is a bisexual woman married to a man. She says that people tell her all the time she can't be queer because of this. She just said in this bemused tone, "they don't get to tell me my sexuality. I'm the one who knows that that, not them."

I come from a conservative religious background and have lots of friends who came out as bi later in life. A lot of them said that they thought that all women were attracted to other women like they were, but they just did some mental gymnastics to convince themselves that their attraction didn't mean they were actually bisexual. Many of them have gotten divorced and are in relaitnships with women.

The intersectionalism rooted deep within in LGBTQIA+ identity politics will not allow for this supposed big open tent of acceptance.

Anonymous wrote:Wow. I'm surprised that there are so many people who unapologetically question somebody else's identity.

Ashley Ford, an author, is a bisexual woman married to a man. She says that people tell her all the time she can't be queer because of this. She just said in this bemused tone, "they don't get to tell me my sexuality. I'm the one who knows that that, not them."

I come from a conservative religious background and have lots of friends who came out as bi later in life. A lot of them said that they thought that all women were attracted to other women like they were, but they just did some mental gymnastics to convince themselves that their attraction didn't mean they were actually bisexual. Many of them have gotten divorced and are in relaitnships with women.

The intersectionalism rooted deep within in LGBTQIA+ identity politics will not allow for this supposed big open tent of acceptance.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dd age 19 calls herself queer, even though I am 99%sure she is not gay. She likes the fun colored hair and rainbows and the quirky people. She feels like she fits into a odd and welcoming community.

As the others here said, I’m open to people identifying as queer if they want. Just because her friends are queer doesn’t make her queer but a lot of queer people do have queer friends.

Ah, the rules of queerhood.

Wow. I'm surprised that there are so many people who unapologetically question somebody else's identity.

Ashley Ford, an author, is a bisexual woman married to a man. She says that people tell her all the time she can't be queer because of this. She just said in this bemused tone, "they don't get to tell me my sexuality. I'm the one who knows that that, not them."

I come from a conservative religious background and have lots of friends who came out as bi later in life. A lot of them said that they thought that all women were attracted to other women like they were, but they just did some mental gymnastics to convince themselves that their attraction didn't mean they were actually bisexual. Many of them have gotten divorced and are in relaitnships with women.

I’m a lesbian trapped in a mans body. 😁

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s “in-group” vs “out-group”. They want to belong to the “in-group” which today is made up of people who self-identify as queer. So they can’t be boring, straight, married people.

I think usually it’s one of the options others have identified (one or both are bi, one or both are non-binary, one or both are trans) but I do think this happens sometimes too. But rarely. You have to be in a community where being straight/cis is actually considered negative or “boring”. That’s incredibly rare. But I was once in a workplace/friend group where this was the attitude, and there were some straight folks in the group who started identifying as queer even though they didn’t change their orientation or gender. I don’t think it was totally disingenuous though. I honestly think being around people who think being straight/cis is less interesting can make people question the binary nature of their gender and sexuality. It makes them think “well yeah maybe if I’d explored it more before marriage I’d be less straight or less cis.”

But that’s very different than actually being gay or non-binary or trans. By that measure, most people are LGBTQ+, based on research like the Kinsey scale.

This does happen and these people are absolutely queer. Some queer people try to invalidate others, especially bisexual people in heterosexual relationships because these bisexual people aren't experiencing the same degree of suffering and loss of friends and family. Unfortunately for cis bi people, from the other side, bi women in heterosexual relationships are often told they're "going through a phase" by cishet people and bi men are told they're just "closeted gay". in many ways, bi people are invalidated from both directions and I think it's important to remember that they exist and that they're valid queer people regardless of the degree of suffering they've had to experience. I wish no queer people had to give up their families to be themselves but that's the world we live in, even today. For the lucky queer people that aren't bi that kept everyone in their lives after coming out, are they any less queer because they're gay or trans and aren't suffering as much as others? Of course not.

Thank you for this. It’s spot on. As a bisexual woman married to a man, people assume I’m straight and I don’t usually feel comfortable claiming queerness even at an event like pride, where the whole point is to celebrate all types of experiences. I’d also like to remind people that sexuality is a spectrum and being bisexual doesn’t have only mean 50/50 attraction to both genders. There are plenty of bisexual/pan sexual people who tend to have stronger attraction to one gender but it doesn’t mean they aren’t attracted to others. Like, if your type as a straight woman is brunette nerds that doesn’t mean you aren’t occaisonally going to find the blonde jock hot and have a fling. There’s also a difference between romantic and sexual preference; someone may prefer romantic relationships with women but enjoy sex with men, or vice versa.

If a couple I otherwise perceived as cisgender and straight identified as queer, I would assume one or both are not 100% heterosexual and not that they are trying to claim it attention. Circles where being queer is the “cool” thing are still incredibly limited. Yes, if your friends are all gender studies professors in a blue city maybe it’s more cool to be queer. But the vast majority of us do not live in that bubble, and our older family members, work colleagues, etc, don’t find queer to be “cool” and even if they accept it, there are implicit biases at play. I would assume people identifying as queer are doing so because it is authentic for them and not to unlock some some theoretical benefits of queerness.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sometimes get straight cis people calling themselves queer because they're poly or into kink, which makes me roll my eyes but does happen. They also might be one or both bisexual. Some people like that might call themselves queer.

Personally, I'm cis and straight but I'm married to a trans man (I'm also a man, we don't have sex anymore). I'd never call myself queer, but my family is (even when he passes we look like two guys), so my language there shifts depending on context. Obviously that doesn't sound like what's happening here, but a reminder that things can be complicated.

I think the straight cisgender people that claim they’re queer because they are poly feel like they aren’t accepted by society. To be truthful, society in general isn’t very pro open marriage but it’s not the same as being LGBT. People just think poly people are weird and don’t understand how they make it work (and to be fair many do not and there are hurt feelings). I haven’t heard of any cishet people that have been disowned by their families like gay and trans people often are.

Maybe not disowned by families but I know many poly people who’s families will only recognize one partner/refuse to acknowledge any other relationships. I’m poly but am not out to my family because it wouldn’t be worth the drama.

I don’t consider poly to be queer but lots of poly people are also queer (not cisgender heterosexual). I’m bisexual and I don’t think my marriage to a man should erase that, but for many people it does (unless I’m actively on a date with a woman, I’m just a straight lady to them.)

For sure, I know a lot of queer people that are poly and for whatever reason there seems to be a lot of poly trans people in particular.

Your marriage does not erase your queer identity. I've heard others in the queer community say things that were essentially bi-erasure and i hate that. If anyone should be accepting of other's identities, it should be us since we are so often rejected.

Anonymous wrote:Probably a straight couple where one (usually the female) identities as non-binary.

That’s not a straight couple.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You sometimes get straight cis people calling themselves queer because they're poly or into kink, which makes me roll my eyes but does happen. They also might be one or both bisexual. Some people like that might call themselves queer.

Personally, I'm cis and straight but I'm married to a trans man (I'm also a man, we don't have sex anymore). I'd never call myself queer, but my family is (even when he passes we look like two guys), so my language there shifts depending on context. Obviously that doesn't sound like what's happening here, but a reminder that things can be complicated.

I think the straight cisgender people that claim they’re queer because they are poly feel like they aren’t accepted by society. To be truthful, society in general isn’t very pro open marriage but it’s not the same as being LGBT. People just think poly people are weird and don’t understand how they make it work (and to be fair many do not and there are hurt feelings). I haven’t heard of any cishet people that have been disowned by their families like gay and trans people often are.

Maybe not disowned by families but I know many poly people who’s families will only recognize one partner/refuse to acknowledge any other relationships. I’m poly but am not out to my family because it wouldn’t be worth the drama.

I don’t consider poly to be queer but lots of poly people are also queer (not cisgender heterosexual). I’m bisexual and I don’t think my marriage to a man should erase that, but for many people it does (unless I’m actively on a date with a woman, I’m just a straight lady to them.)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Queer/lesbian. I really try not to judge-the big tent of a wide variety of people who identify as queer keeps us all safer and who am I to say who people feel themselves to be. And, I do judge a little bit-a couple of white women who got really involved in progressive politics and realized that they were queer and disabled. Cynically, I think they were uncomfortable being straight and white on that political scene and needed to find a minoritized identity or two. And male/female couples who are only queer because they hook up with women as a third, not my thing at all, but as long as it's all consensual they aren't hurting anyone.

I think this is spot-on -- I don't question people's self-identification as queer (it can be complicated -- I know plenty of people who present to the world as cis and/or straight whose private identity is genderqueer or bi/pan in a hetero relationship) but I do think being straight/cis/white in an activist space can push people for whom labels can be flexible (e.g. someone in a hetero relationship who has experienced same sex attraction in the past could embrace either straight or bi) to choose the queerer label to feel less like they are the oppressor. As long as they aren't talking loudly over people I don't mind.

So if grown adults find it uncomfortable to present to the world as cis, it stands to reason that children and teens will too. Schools have become activist environments, and this is a great reason why they should not be.

First off, do you have to bring up transgender children into a discussion about adults? Do people seriously need to make every single thread about queer people a debate on the legitimacy of trans people?

Second, what you said isn't what the quote says. It's literally the opposite of what you said. They identify as genderqueer and present as cis because it's so hard to live and present as a visibly trans person in the world. Living and presenting as a cis adult is the easiest thing in the world.