Categorically Gay: For queer people who grew up in an era when rigid identities were essential, today’s fluidity can feel like their history is washing out with the tide.
I've been thinking about this issue for awhile now, and I'm glad someone's finally gone and articulated those thoughts. The continuing success of the LGBT+ movement is changing the way the world...
I've been thinking about this issue for awhile now, and I'm glad someone's finally gone and articulated those thoughts. The continuing success of the LGBT+ movement is changing the way the world thinks about gender and sexuality for the better. Of course, with that change, it's easy to forget the strife which went into facilitating it.
The author sums it up best in his penultimate paragraph:
If nearly any progressively minded person can find some way to identify as queer, what, exactly, does the term even mean? When I hear about fluidity in that context, it sounds like something made to wash away gay history—my history—drowning it in inclusiveness to broaden its clout. Perhaps that’s an inevitable element of advancement. After all, every movement winds up making itself irrelevant if it’s successful enough.
This article really put together a lot of thoughts I've had over the years. The history is so important, but with progress it is really easy to have that fade, for better or worst. I remember...
This article really put together a lot of thoughts I've had over the years. The history is so important, but with progress it is really easy to have that fade, for better or worst. I remember recently reading about someone thinking that accepting their friend's coming out was to basically see it as "no big deal". I had a guy I work with talk about how "protected" kids are nowadays needing "safe spaces", and I reminded him that gay marriage wasn't legal when I was in university.
It's great that we are seeing progress, but it is definitely getting harder to express that we're not done yet.
I feel like there's a similar tension at times in the trans community--it's wonderful that with growing acceptance there's an increasing number of young people that are able to tackle their gender...
I feel like there's a similar tension at times in the trans community--it's wonderful that with growing acceptance there's an increasing number of young people that are able to tackle their gender issues before puberty, and outside of an awkward year or two of transition in school (and let's be frank, when is school not an awkward time of transition for anyone?), get to live the remainder of their lives indistinguishably from their cis- counterparts.
But at the same time, there's a bit of an awkward schism between this group and the later transitioners; there's not the same set of shared experiences between someone that is able to treat their trans status like a condition treatable with medication, and someone whose status makes them part of a visibly marginalized minority. Sometimes this comes from the younger folk, who would rather not openly acknowledge that they are trans and entirely disengage with the larger community, sometimes this comes from the older folk (we're not immune to unrealistic societal standards of beauty, even if we can't hope to achieve them), and there can be a lot of latent envy and animosity.
On the other hand, outside of some 100% infallible medical test (and all the extremely uncomfortable implications that that would have), it's likely that there will be people that don't figure themselves out until later in life, and so this might be more of a persistent bifurcation.
I've been thinking about this issue for awhile now, and I'm glad someone's finally gone and articulated those thoughts. The continuing success of the LGBT+ movement is changing the way the world thinks about gender and sexuality for the better. Of course, with that change, it's easy to forget the strife which went into facilitating it.
The author sums it up best in his penultimate paragraph:
This article really put together a lot of thoughts I've had over the years. The history is so important, but with progress it is really easy to have that fade, for better or worst. I remember recently reading about someone thinking that accepting their friend's coming out was to basically see it as "no big deal". I had a guy I work with talk about how "protected" kids are nowadays needing "safe spaces", and I reminded him that gay marriage wasn't legal when I was in university.
It's great that we are seeing progress, but it is definitely getting harder to express that we're not done yet.
I feel like there's a similar tension at times in the trans community--it's wonderful that with growing acceptance there's an increasing number of young people that are able to tackle their gender issues before puberty, and outside of an awkward year or two of transition in school (and let's be frank, when is school not an awkward time of transition for anyone?), get to live the remainder of their lives indistinguishably from their cis- counterparts.
But at the same time, there's a bit of an awkward schism between this group and the later transitioners; there's not the same set of shared experiences between someone that is able to treat their trans status like a condition treatable with medication, and someone whose status makes them part of a visibly marginalized minority. Sometimes this comes from the younger folk, who would rather not openly acknowledge that they are trans and entirely disengage with the larger community, sometimes this comes from the older folk (we're not immune to unrealistic societal standards of beauty, even if we can't hope to achieve them), and there can be a lot of latent envy and animosity.
On the other hand, outside of some 100% infallible medical test (and all the extremely uncomfortable implications that that would have), it's likely that there will be people that don't figure themselves out until later in life, and so this might be more of a persistent bifurcation.