bananapeppers:

PSA because this is not the first time that I’ve seen incorrect usage of internalized homophobia on tumblr.

internalized homophobia means homophobic attitudes learned by lesbians, bisexual people, and gay men.

the internalized in internalized homophobia refers to someone learning to hate and fear something that they are. when straight people learn homophobia, they are not learning to hate and fear something that they are because they are not LGB. straight people cannot internalize homophobia. when straight people learn homophobia, it is called homophobia.

the definition by University of California, Davis, Psychology Professor Gregory Herek, PhD:

Among lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, internalized sexual stigma (also called internalized homophobia) refers to the personal acceptance and endorsement of sexual stigma as part of the individual’s value system and self-concept. It is the counterpart to sexual prejudice among heterosexuals (Herek, Gillis, & Cogan, 2009). (link*)

one by LGBTQ-media and clothing company Revel & Riot:

The simple definition is that internalized homophobia refers to negative feelings that we have towards ourselves because of our homosexuality. (link)

another, by the UC Davis LGBT Resource Center:

The fear and self-hate of one’s own homosexuality or bisexuality that occurs for many individuals who have learned negative ideas about homosexuality throughout childhood. (link)

the definition at Wikipedia is adapted from three papers, one of them Herek’s:

Internalized homophobia refers to negative stereotypes and beliefs (antigay prejudice and stigma) about homosexuality and LGBT people that a person turns inward on themselves. (link)

* by the way: Herek states that results from internalized homophobia (IH) scales indicate that gay men internalize homophobia more than lesbians do. in this DOC file, Stacy M. Weibley, PhD, points to flaws in the formulation and administration of IH scales, for example, while there are multiple scales for IH in men, there is only one IH scale for women—and about 30% of the sample population used to develop it were straight. the DOC file appears to be her first draft? accompanying summary? for her doctorate dissertation about the development of a better IH scale for lesbians, the final version of which is available in full. I know, it’s a dissertation, but my God, she brings up some huge flaws.

(via desliz)

harmonioussanctity:

appropriately-inappropriate:

You said nasty words you’re a mean person okay baww!

You used a dictionary definition of the word queer?
Fantastic and bully for you. I notice you still haven’t provided the links for the ‘common parlance’ of it. People still use the word queer as a slur.

It’s been reclaimed—sort of. In the urban enclaves, yes. In the Deep or the Heartland or anywhere a 45 minute drive out of your Queer Commune of Love And Acceptance, “queer” has the alternative meaning of “t-30 seconds before you get the gay (and the blood, and the brains and the spit) beat out of you”.

But here.
You want proof?

1. smear the queer 467 up, 67 down

“Smear the Queer” is a childhood game of tag involving an object that is held by the “it” kid until he is tackled and forced to give it up.

1.

Fag Bash 94 up, 132 down

To brutally fuck up a known queer for being said queer. Not because of fear but because the queer deserves it.

Or maybe this is more to your liking

This past weekend, a lesbian couple in Arlington, Tex., was the target of a hate crime when their car was vandalized with the words “FAGGOT” and “QUEERS.”
Source

Or perhaps this would work better for you?

Ryan: According to the Salvation Army, [gay people] deserve death. How do you respond to that, as part of your doctrine?
Craibe: Well, that’s a part of our belief system.
Ryan: So we should die.
Craibe: You know, we have an alignment to the Scriptures, but that’s our belief.
Source

And you know in this quote when they say “homophobic insults”, they’re probably not saying “you goddamn heteroromantic asexuals!”.

They say they were leaving a party at LaPorte and Shields about midnight on Friday when an SUV loaded with fellow students drove past, its occupants yelling homophobic insults. When Gocha responded, the SUV screeched to a halt and several men piled out, Haley said.

“You could just tell they were looking for a fight,” Haley said. “They just started beating the back of Donny’s head in.”

Source

Maybe this one will help you figure it out

Human rights activists have asked the Bulgarian Orthodox Church to condemn these calls for violence but instead, the Church issued a statement confirming its opposition to “immoral manifestations,” and calling homosexuality “an unnatural lust which unconditionally harms both the personality of those who commit it and the society as a whole.”

Source

But who knows! Maybe you’re a visual learner.

Will this work?

I’m sure they mean that car’s such an odd colour, right?

Or this:

“I tried to get up, but I kept getting knocked back down,” said Pelofske, who described his alleged assailants as “all laughing and smiling.”

“They were trying to throw me into the fire,” he said.

Source

Is that specific enough, or would you like more? There’s no shortage.

The word ‘Queer’ is a former slur that has been reclaimed, similar to the word ‘slut’

See above

Calling someone queer as an insult now has about the same power as calling them odd.

Really? That’s nice to know! I’ll be sure to tell those girls in Texa— oh, wait, no, they’re dead. It’s okay, I can tell Matthe—- oh wait, no, Matt died on a fence post in Wyoming.
That’s okay, I can tell the Buttz fa—- oh, wait, they never got to be a family because someone with a hate-on for queers raped one and killed the other, and I can’t tell that activist in Halifax who got shot because he was ‘odd’, or that activist in Vancouver who got the shit kicked out of him for being ‘strange’ and maybe if you couldn’t tell the moral of the story with your head so far up your ass but basically

Fuck you, and fuck off with that bullshit.

And as a closer, you little pissant,

Spewing righteous indignation really helps the debate stay civil, too

I don’t have civil debates with appropriative little shits who quote the dictionary at me and say that Queer Is Totally Okay Cause. My indignation IS righteous, because not only do I have to hear the slur from the straight frat boys, I have to hear it as a “reclaimed slur” from the mouths of post-modernist queer theory heteroromantic demisexuals.

You can’t reclaim a fucking slur that was never hissed at you in the first place.

Can I just go on record as saying that I really loved this take down of yours, and that I think you are pretty fucking awesome for all of this?  The guy was purposefully being an obtuse fuck, and whether he wants to admit it or not, you blew him right out of the water and into the sun.

this is a sad/amazing post. there’s nothing “former” about queer as a slur when people are still dying because of it.

(Source: queeronqueerhatelion, via harmonioussanctity)

friendlyangryfeminist:

I’m sick of straight people thinking my sexuality is an exercise in academic rhetoric.

(via cheatthis)

seeing people reblogging Erika Moen’s “Queer” comic made me realize something. I used to have similar feelings, though I never talked about them, of insecurity while dating someone who (at the time*) identified as male.

I understand, then, the wish to be validated by your community. I understand wanting outside reassurance that you’re still queer. I understand wanting your happiness with a person to be recognized.

but I wasalreadybeing validated. I was a woman in a relationship with someone who identified as male, so our relationship was constantly being validated by the culture around me. we were in a perfectly societally acceptable relationship, regardless of the fact that we both identified as queer.

you can’t expect the LGBTQ community to also give you backpats for an opposite-gender relationship. it doesn’t mean you’re not part of the community, but you’re already getting validation from outside it, something that other people aren’tgetting. and yeah, your friends who are also queer will be happy for you, but that doesn’t mean the community as a whole is obligated to be. and that’s fine. it’s not the end of the world if every single person doesn’t reassure you that no, this doesn’t make you straight, and yes, your partner is totally cool etc.

like I said, I understand these desires. but I also understand that they’re selfish.

*my partner has since come out as trans, and she is totally cool.

galesofnovember:

fuckyeahsexeducation:

transgenderstudentlife:

thambos:

maiamorgan:

No more of the following:

• LGBT
• LGBTQ
• LGBTQIAP
• QUILTBAG
• GLBT

It is now GSM. Gender and Sexuality Minority. 

Got it? Ok. Good. Carry on.

Except that GSM is an umbrella INCLUDING LGBTQ communities.

For example, GSM includes kink, polyamory, polygamy, etc. People in those communities can still benefit huuuugely from straight privilege and be homophobic. Yeah, LGBQ people can benefit from cis privilege and be transphobic, but likewise many trans people can benefit from straight privilege (possibly not as much as a cis person due to perception and passing privilege) and be homophobic.

You can’t just replace acronyms with each other when they don’t mean the same thing. Replacements need to mean the same thing.

Bolded for emphasis on distinctions of GSM

I like using GSM just because so many orientations are left out of any of the others. I mean, Pansexual, Polysexual, Multisexual, Asexual, Demisexual, Grey-A, and Queer people can be cissexist, Genderqueer, genderneutral, or other gendervariants can be heterosexist. Also Lesbian, Gay, Asexual, Demisexual, and Grey-A people can be monosexist. There’s prejudice within the community, everyone knows that. Sure, other gender and sexual minorities might not be part of the “community” but if the “community” leaves out so many people how is it a good community?

I will seriously die, and/or be dragged off on a sled to Sibera,  screaming defiance before I will ever willingly be a part of a “community” that is “open” to asexuals or demi-sexuals or straight kinky people or straight poly people or anyone who, with a straight face, identifies as “polysexual” or unironically uses the acronym “quiltbag”

also how exactly is broadening the LGBTQ community to include literally everyone the answer to homophobia and transphobia within the community

stay with me here but I’ve got this idea, it’s kind of out there but I think it might work: we could instead address bigotry where we see it in our community.

freibiergesicht:

partysoft:

for the most part I love this post so much <333

I do have to quibble with the middle section tho, where you say:

The last big reason is - does it matter?  What’s honestly wrong with someone identifying as asexual and then later not?

bc unfortunately it does matter, not in the sense that someone has committed a grave sin against propriety, but in the sense that someone will be hurting. identifying as asexual in order to remain in denial about one’s sexuality as a woman or a queer person doesn’t ease the self-hatred a person experiences for those things. it just feeds into the denial.

now I totally agree with you that it doesn’t do anyone any good to go running at these kids on tumblr outright telling them they’re just flat-out wrong. but I do think that there is a place for critiquing the way in which tumblr asexual culture may not just be providing a place for queer kids or young women in denial about their sexualities to seek refuge, but may also be prolonging that stage of denial. this goes back to your first point about the flawed conception of human sexuality - especially women’s sexuality - that they seem to be using, but I’ve also noticed (as I’m sure you have) that a common pastime on the asexuality tag is rationalizing away sexual feelings with overthinking and compartmentalization. then all of their asexual followers reassure and encourage them - that’s right! you’re still asexual!

I think there’s a valid place for critique of their constant tying themselves in rhetorical knots to justify their asexuality and to avoid having to identify as asexual. especially because so often this kind of rhetoric is tainted by a covert (if not completely overt tbh) disdain for those sexuals.

and I also think there’s something to be said for prevention - for wanting to minimize the promotion of organizations that present flawed conceptions of human sexuality mixed with homophobia and misogyny, to spread quality information about women’s and queer people’s sexuality, to refute flawed arguments based on bizarre conceptions of human sexuality, to insist that the truth of many of our experiences as queer women in the throes of self-hatred and denial identifying with asexuality not be written off as a conspiracy theory and instead be meaningfully addressed. that kind of stuff. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Bolding mine.  This whole discussion is great but it’s long so check it out ppl when you have time.  Anyway, I just thought this little part is something that’s really especially upsetting/damaging about asexual rhetoric.  There is this bizarre constant mitosis within at least Tumblr asexual dialogue in which minutiae of sexual desires/attraction/behavior/etc are broken down into new asexual terms so nobody ever has to identify as a sexual/allosexual/whatever they’re calling us these days.

And that just seems so inherently slut-shaming and frustrating.  I make jokey passive aggressive reblogs when I see asexuals doing this but it really is upsetting.  I understand that a deeply misogynistic culture makes it really terrifying for a lot of women to acknowledge their sexuality and that plays into the choice to ID as asexual for a lot of people, but I’m still gonna get pissed off when you do that at the expense of women by buying into and uncritically spreading misogynistic tropes.

(Source: yilduza)

stitchmedown:

“Queer” as a slur is not fully reclaimed. I’ve heard it used as a slur quite a few times IRL, and I live in Canada, where out and out homophobia isn’t (generally) as bad as it is in some places it is in the states. And by “not as bad” I mean “a gay man got killed a week or two ago in a hate crime that involved homophobic slurs and that hadn’t happened in the past few years in Eastern Canada as far as I know”, not actually, you know, “good”.

Which is why using it if you’re not LGBT in some way is wrong. That’s why I keep fighting about this. Because it’s alienating to see someone use something that’s been actively thrown at me as a weapon - Someone who will never, ever be afraid that they might get their skull smashed on the sidewalk like Raymond Taavel a few weeks ago - as a way to express how not normal they are.

Like being not normal makes them the same as me. Like being not normal makes them some how magically understand exactly how shaken a person like me is going to feel when they see a news article featuring a place they lived thirty steps from about how a person exactly like them got their fucking head smashed in for being gay while getting called homophobic slurs.

I mean I keep bringing that up. Over and over again. Because it really did shake me. It’s weeks later and I’m still shaken. I thought I was safe here, and in a certain way, I am. I’m safe from my fantastically homophobic parents. I’m safe, now that I’m older, from religious schooling. If I ever dated a girl, I probably wouldn’t feel entirely TOO worried about holding hands with her… But I mean, the fact that I’d even do that risk assessment at all is something, and I’d be less likely to do it in certain areas and at certain times. And apparently, even those thoughts are wrong. In this city, it’s unlikely, but you could still get murdered for being visibly queer. Get your head bashed in. While they screamed homophobic epithets at your head.

Being not normal is hard. I get that. I get the desire to use labels to express that. I understand. And I don’t mind. I really don’t.

But using the word “queer” is literally about life and death. You’re never entirely safe, if you’re LGBT, even when you think you are. And unless you’re on that spectrum, you shouldn’t use the word. Because you’ll never wonder about all the times you walked around in your own neighbourhood, slightly drunk, with a bunch of your openly together lesbian friends. Or about that time you were at a party and were playing truth or dare and thought it wasn’t a big deal to out yourself. Or all those times you considered but never quite got up the guts to go to one of the gay bars in the city. Turns out if you’d done those things you could’ve died. Head smashed in. While someone screamed homophobic slurs.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. I don’t really intend to respond to people who still want to argue with me on this post. I actually let myself get a little raw and so fighting on this post will just upset me and I can’t really afford to make myself worse while I’m upping my prescription.

(Source: ghostferry, via cheatthis)

desliz:

missvoltairine:

abrokenfishbowl:

iamaperson:

mohawkcub:

I’ve seen a lot of confusion about this recently, so I made y’all a handy-dandy flowchart:

~*~I hope that helped~*~

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities

The range of what “queer” includes varies. In addition to referring to LGBT-identifying people, it can also encompass: pansexual, pomosexual, intersexual, genderqueer, asexual and autosexual people, and even gender normative heterosexuals whose sexual orientations or activities place them outside the heterosexual-defined mainstream, e.g., BDSM practitioners, or polyamorous persons.

hope that helps

Pssst

LOOK BACK AT THAT PICTURE

AND THEN SAY TO MY FACE THAT KINKY STRAIGHT OR STRAIGHT SWINGERS CAN CLAIM THE WORD QUEER

Wikipedia is shit because it does not encompass the history of the word queer and how LGBTQ people have fucking died to reclaim that word

lol pomosexual lololol

AUTOSEXUAL?

which I believe refers to narcissists who prefer jerking off to the exclusion of all else (and not car fucking, which sadly I think would have been more excusable in this context, somehow)

if you call yourself queer and are not actually part of the LGBT spectrum historically targeted by that slur, go drive a nail into your forehead

queer is a term for a group with a specific shared cultural history, not for anyone who feels the sex they’re having is super cool and transgressive

invite str8ies in all you want but don’t be surprised when everyone else tells them to get the fuck out

(Source: punkcubspornrepository)

ineffableshe:

oh gosh, here goes nothing! (tw: death, hiv / aids)

• my issue with contemporary applications of “queer” has always been about much more than appropriation. “queer” in it’s current usage is not “reclaimed”; rather, it is reinvented. today, “queer” tends to imply a set of “progressive”  politics (a replacement for the supposedly less inclusive “feminist”) & perpetuates hierarchies based on who and and is not is familiar with / able to access certain cultural & academic references.
  

• the vast majority of people i know who call themselves “queer” have never been targeted under that label. if anything, “queer” grants them social capital / cool points.  meanwhile, older individuals whom have been called “queer” in pejorative, threatening ways and might need “queer” resources way more than young, white kids living in major metropolitan areas are excluded from “queer” spaces.
  

• similarly, the contemporary “queer” community has more or less forgotten how the queer community initially came together because of the HIV / AIDS crisis, not over glam & group sex. i mean, in the 80’s everybody was suddenly DYING - and i mean, they were passing really fucking painful deaths. nobody knew whether they were infected  and the general public / our government did not give a shit because of their assumed sexual practices. parents were disowning their children on their death beds, hospitals were kicking positive patients out into the streets…

• today the “queer” community seems to care more way about advocating for 70’s style sexual liberation & civil liberties more so that community building and support. guys, the whole “my dick is my liberation” mentality is partially what fucked us over the first place. this type of historical ignorance is dangerous and unacceptable. 

• “dyke” also has its history, of course. but that history is not as closely and directly tied to permissible GENOCIDE (which is what I consider the HIV/ AIDS epidemic to be). when people reinvent the meaning of “dyke” for their own benefit and ~empowerment~ , they aren’t willfully overlooking death and loss and fear and destruction in the same ways. i therefore feel less of an incentive to get on people about appropriating that term.
  

• additionally, although “dyke” is term that is applied against gender / sexuality non-conforming women, you don’t have to identify as a woman to be read as such. when people on the street scream “dyke” at you, they don’t first ask you what your gender & pronouns are. that’s cissexism, homophobia, and misogyny in action for y’all.

• i think it’s fair to assume that way more young, white, class-privileged, “female-bodied” people have had “dyke” applied as a term of disempowerment against them than “queer.” and i totally get why anybody whom has experienced “dyke” as a indicator of violence would want to re-claim it. if that is a step on your path to healing, i completely support you.

• so yeah, to a certain extent i guess that non-women calling themselves “dykes” is appropriation, but it really all comes down to whether or not the value outweighs the harm (in this case, i think it does). which leads to some more food for thought:

• i think that a number of the issues surrounding “women’s only space” and exclusion / inclusion are lessened when those spaces are self-selecting. who the hell am i or anybody else to tell somebody whether or not they are “woman” enough? what does even mean, really?
  

• my only real issue with non-women using “dyke” has been when non-women make a big deal out of lesbian / “dyke” spaces centering themselves around women’s needs & concerns. it’s totally fair to request that these spaces do pronoun checks & don’t make assumptions about other people’s genders. but it’s also messed up to assume that “dyke” should always be understood by others as an entirely gender-inclusive label. and that gender & sexual minorities who tend to think of “dykes” as women should be ex-communicated entirely.

• every person who is into reclaimination can learn a lot by researching the immediate history of the labels they are clinging to. 

• cis men reclaiming that label are scum (and yes, i’ve seen this happen).

·          

oh hey something nuanced that really made me consider how I think about the label dyke.

edit: men, trans or cis, should not be claiming dyke, tho.

saltmarshhag:

it’s interesting how radikewl/ace discussion of “non-normative” relationship and family structures being “queer” never involves single motherhood. not that i think single moms are inherently “queer,” but it’s the one i think in many ways is more intensely scapegoated, institutionally marginalized, and just full-throttle hated than polyamory, BDSM, and het/arom asexuality all put together.

another way that queer masculinity is prioritized over women and femininity, within and outside of queer spaces.

also note that all the tumblr asexy role models are men.

every day my dedication to solidarity with other women (of all experiences) rather than men who share some experiences with me is cemented more and more

(via saltmarshhag-deactivated2013011)