Catie Byrne
Features Editor

A little more than two year ago, upon entering the whirlwind of culture and confusion that comes along with understanding oneself as gay, I self-identified as queer.

The word “queer,” as I saw it, was an umbrella term for the LGBT community, and I would refer to LGBT people that I knew as queer. The word was a buzz in the LGBT mainstream, people were using it casually, and it seemed like everyone was using it.

But now, hearing the word makes me uncomfortable. I no longer identify with the term, I no longer use queer as an umbrella term and I no longer use the word to refer to other LGBT people I know, unless that is the term they self-identify as.

While queer is a slur that trans people and/or people who experience same-gender attraction can reclaim and use as a label of self-identification, my contention with the word “queer,” is that the popularization of its usage has caused a deviation from both its meaning as a slur and a body of theory, into dangerous, ahistorical territory within mainstream LGBT discourses.

Queer is and will always remain a slur. Queer cannot be separated from its history as a tool to enact homophobic and transphobic violence against trans and same-gender-attracted people. However, queer also cannot be separated from its connotation of theory regarding gender and sexuality, known as queer theory.

Linda Glaser of Medium.com, explains queer theory as, “The radical deconstruction of sexual rhetoric. It has sought to develop links between various forms of progressive activism (the lesbian and gay movement, the women’s movement, HIV/AIDS activism and movements for racial justice, among others), and the analytical rigor of poststructuralism (especially that of Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, and Paul de Man) with respect to the problematic of sexuality.”

I am, admittedly, not as read in queer theory as I would like to be.

However, I do understand that the word queer is utilized within this theoretical framework to critically examine the history and intersections of class, race and disability, with gender and sexuality.

Further, queer theory seeks to understand the connections between the oppression different marginalized groups face, and how this oppression is linked to the ways in which their performance of gender and sexuality is rendered deviant.

This is where the word “queering,” in the theoretical sense, lends to explain the ways non-white and disabled people are seen as inherently deviating from an idealized model of heteronormativity, which is steeped in white supremacy and ableism.

Within this framework, I believe the term queering has merit to critically examine how race and disability are inextricably linked to the performance of gender, sexuality and what it means to exist as subversive within these constructs.

However, within modern LGBT discussions and discourses of what it means to be “queer,” and what it means to “queer” something, I believe the terms have strayed dangerously far from their original meanings and theoretical applications.

For example, a cisgender, straight couple, cannot “queer” heterosexuality by wearing alternative clothing. To epitomize locations of normative, privileged identities, and then claim them to somehow be subversive, would be cause for many queer theorists to roll in their graves.

Queer, unfortunately, has been co-opted by the very people who have historically used the word as a slur against LGBT people in the first place. The irony pains me.

If someone is cisgender and straight – regardless of the ways in which their other marginalizations can be understood to subvert heteronormativity, they are not queer, they cannot be queer, and they are in are fact, just as complicit in the violence LGBT people face as other cisgender, straight people.

This insipid ahistoricism is particularly rampant among the asexual and aromantic communities. To be clear, gay and trans asexual and aromantic people exist, and they deserve every bit of support and access to LGBT spaces and resources as non-ace and non-aro LGBT people. However, one is not inherently LGBT on the basis of being solely asexual or aromantic.

If someone is straight and cisgender, it doesn’t matter if they are asexual and/or aromantic, they are not LGBT; they do not belong in our spaces, and we have no reason to prioritize straight, cisgender people, nor indulge their desire to call themselves “queer.”

This isn’t to say that I don’t think cisgender and straight asexual and aromantic people don’t have their own struggles, but these struggles are not analogous to those who are trans and experience same-gender-attraction.

On some level, I believe that a refusal to engage in heterosexual relationships or sex can be subversive to heteronormativity, but I do not feel as though this constitutes a justification for inclusion to LGBT spaces, as asexuality and aromanticism are not material oppressions.

Cisgender and straight asexual and aromantic people do not lose their jobs for being asexual or aromantic, they are not discriminated against when applying for schools or housing on the basis of being asexual or aromantic, they are not denied government benefits or civil rights for being asexual or aromantic, they are not institutionalized for being asexual or aromantic and they do not experience violent homophobia or transphobia for being asexual and aromantic.

The acronym LGBT was formed as a coalition between trans and same-gender-attracted people to unite for liberation from the cisgender, straight people who oppress us. Cisgender and straight asexual or aromantic people cannot be queer because they are not LGBT; they cannot reclaim queer, and do not deserve to utter a word that has never been used to materially harm them.

The vile, homophobic and transphobic, entitled rhetoric I see from these communities is painfully ironic; they want inclusion into our spaces, resources and an “A” acronym tagged on, and yet they want nothing to do with us “allo, monosexual queers.”

The presumption that, for even a moment, our communities should prioritize cisgender, straight people, regardless of whether or not they are asexual and aromantic, is laughable.

Every cisgender and straight asexual and aromantic person fighting tooth and nail to justify calling themselves “queer,” is not only embarrassing themselves, but doing a disservice to the countless gay and trans people who have died at the hands of those who generously doled out that word.

Queer is not a competition or a club, queer is not an all-encompassing group that cisgender and straight people can inhabit if they’re social outcasts for whatever reason. Queer is not a trend or a style, queer cannot be measured, as it is not a metric of worth, nor is it a metric of oppression. Queer isn’t a meaningless phrase one should throw around in conversation; to invoke the word is to invoke the long history of death, brutality and suffering LGBT people have faced for their gender and sexuality.