Openly Queer
Someone wrote…
“Openly queer” is a funny expression, because you can’t really be openly queer. Every time you meet someone new, you would have to say “Hi, I’m name, I’m queer.”
Like, how about just not assuming people are straight/cis?
What’s your experience?
Category: your voice 2 comments »
June 6th, 2016 at 7:07 am |
This is always been a bit of a pickle for me, because some people seem to think that if you’re not making a big show of your identity, you’re not really “out”.
What if ambiguity is a part of my identity and your questioning it is a win for me, not a fail?
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June 9th, 2016 at 6:09 pm |
Yeah, it’s a social shift that needs to happen. I think people do less assuming you’re straight than they used to. It may depend on your definition of “openly”; if as you get to know people and things like sexuality/romance/gender come up, you can choose to share, and so you are open with those people, and open to anyone who asks. Gender is difficult; people are still very attached to a binary. It seems like the only way to get around it at the moment is a) to have the talk, or b) to dress very androgynously, assuming your body is very androgynous and doesn’t seem obviously one gender or another. I work in a public school, so I find myself sometimes having to resort to reductive ideas for the sake of teaching colloquialisms. Or for the sake of speaking in a way that I’m understood (if my co-worker says, who was that? To best describe the person, “a girl with blue eyes” is most likely to be helpful to them in the absence of a name). But I do try to omit gendered language whenever possible.
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