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I don’t identify as a radical queer because I hate the way lesbian is seen as a dirty word in the queer community, even though I as a Lesbian am a part of the queer community.

I don’t identify as a radical queer because three different radical queers have called me ‘sexist’ or ‘genderist’ for saying I would not sleep with a man or a trans woman, yet all three ‘respect the choice’ of a cis man they are friends with to belittle a trans man for not having had bottom surgery and calling him a ‘fish’.

I don’t identify as a radical queer because I have been constantly called a sellout by radical queers who sneer at my choice to study law, desire to join ‘the pigs’ (the Police) as a prosecutor, the fact that one of my three jobs is for a transnational mega gigantic greedy company (McDonald’s) and I think Centrelink should only be for the disabled, severely disadvantaged and not lazy little shitheads who think it uncool to work ‘for the man’.

I don’t identify as a radical queer because most radical queers don’t bother asking me which pronouns I prefer, even when I ask them.

Lastly (or is it?) I don’t identify as a radical queer because I am a radical lesbian feminist. I am not anti-trans*, anti-kink or anti-queer. I am reclaiming that name from Jeffreys et al. and making it my own, positioning the needs of women as being of greater personal importance to me than those of white cis men. And for that I am truly radical.

femmesandfamily:

At least not in most people’s definitions.

Not because I believe in captialism or assimillation.  But because I don’t have the privilege to be able to reject these systems and still survive.

Most of the ‘radical’ queers I know don’t work (or work for very little/radical orgs).  Most of them I know have college educations that were paid for by their parents.  Most of them I know police who is and who isn’t radical with no regard to privilege and power.

All very not radical ideas, if you ask me.

So I am very uncomfortable defining myself in that way.  Maybe it is just my experience that lends myself to not IDing this way.

Has anyone felt similarly? Or want to say what being a radical queer means to them?

I identify as radical in the tradition of of roots etymology, in that I don’t believe oppression can be legislated away and that sometimes legal reforms only make it harder to recognize the big picture. That doesn’t mean, however, that I rule out strategic political reforms that can have a major impact on people’s life chances in the here and now. That doesn’t mean I don’t think a legal precident might accomplish a lot more than a brick through a window. But overall, it’s about a major cultural shift that probably requires the eventual destruction of the whole construct of “straight.”

I identify as queer, sometimes, because it’s a single word that most people understand to mean some level of identification with same-gender-attraction and avoids me having to tack on a lot of qualifications to other commonly known words. 

I don’t identify as radical queer because in my experience it’s more of another youth-obsessed subculture like punk/goth/etc. than anything else. In my case, I feel like my own value to “radical queer” community has been based as much on overt sexual availability and expressing myself within certain subcultural parameters as what kind of person I am and what my politics are.

I don’t identify as a radical queer because I recognize that my own former polyamorous casual sex kinky radical queer badassery was an unhealthy outlet for needing to be “loved,” but I have to stay quiet about that lest I get accused of kink-shaming blah blah.

I don’t identify as a radical queer because “assimilation” and “homonormativity” are buzzwords that most people sound like absolute judgmental d-bags trying to articulate. 

I don’t identify as a radical queer because radical queers too often romanticize a highly editorialized bohemian account of queer histories while ignoring the fact that a lot of queers 40, 60, 80, and 200 years ago probably wanted to get married too.

I don’t identify as a radical queer because I’m over 30 and felt serious embarrassment around many of the other over-30 radical queers I’ve met. 

I don’t identify as a radical queer because radical queer community is misogynistic and has tried to entirely dispense with the contributions of lesbian feminism to dyke culture. Even where it responds to widespread absolute worship of maleness and masculinity, it has to be dressed up as gender-neutralized “femmephobia” and the proper response is “glitter! stilettos! look how fucking FIERCE we are!” and not “look at all this misogyny and look at what a fucking travesty it is that dykes are expected to put up with it, and even participating in it.”

I don’t identify as a radical queer because last year I saw Matilda Bernstein debating Dan Choi and telling him, a Korean-American, about racist imperialism, and I just had to back away slowly from all that. 

I don’t identify as a radical queer because nearly all of the prominent radical queer rock stars editing anthologies are really obnoxious people whose male-centric analyses have more to do with public sex and being snarky about the homos they don’t relate to than with power relations.

I know this is going to make people mad, but every thing I’m criticizing here is something I have regretfully taken part in so haters to the left etc.

(via saltmarshhag)

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9. everythingbutharleyquinn reblogged this from poofterdagger and added:

   Also, radical queers suck at race politics.

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    emphasis is mine. reblogging again cos it’s everything i’m so sick of right now, after the annual onslaught of...

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27. nuancedvagina reblogged this from saltmarshhag and added:

    well, that is just fucking gross.

28. saltmarshhag reblogged this from justaswell138
29. justaswell138 reblogged this from saltmarshhag and added:

    this is from awhile ago, but i just found it and it’s so brilliantly and perfectly articulated that i wanted to share it...

30. shannonsunrise reblogged this from mmmajestic
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33. nemesissy reblogged this from mmmajestic and added:

    A few thoughts, that are not...totality of my still-ongoing process of thinking through...

34. surpassingtheloveoftexts reblogged this from beanonwire
35. howoddnichole reblogged this from mmmajestic and added:

    must be very different...rural-ish areas, because this is not my experience

36. kylieriot reblogged this from mmmajestic and added:

    YES YES YES to all of this. This is exactly how I’m feeling right now.

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40. queerest-femme reblogged this from mmmajestic and added:

    disagree heavily...this. That’s just

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42. appropriately-inappropriate reblogged this from ineffableshe and added:

    Testify. Because if I had a penny for every time I’ve been called essentialist or oppressive or assimilationist for...

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45. fuckslikeagirl reblogged this from saltmarshhag and added:

    I don’t identify as a radical queer because I hate the way lesbian is seen as a dirty word in the queer community, even...

46. oppressionisyucky reblogged this from thatcub and added:

    I ID more with just in general being a social justice activist and don’t worry about what those around me ID with unless...

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