hollis (they/them) currently studying classics and archaeology.
Most reblog iterations of a popular post of mine have a long comment about how considering “queer” a slur is a terf psy op. They’re not arguing with me btw, just using the point I made as a starting point and adding some points of their own. I sort of understand where they’re coming from but I really cannot cosign. I grew up in rural Indiana. The inconvenient truth of the matter is that the people who view queer as a slur usually have understandable reasons to do so, and experiences are subjective. If you’re response to that is “so is gay, but you put up with that anyway,” I’m just going to assume we have vastly different upbringings. Where I grew up in the early 2000s, “gay” meant “your shoes look stupid” and “queer,” outside of academic circles, meant “I want to hurt you.” I always found it ironic that the response to these nuances from the trigger-warning-using, “your trauma is valid” crowd is a resounding “get over it, snowflake.” I do use the term these days, but in my own case I prefer “gay” because it feels more unequivocal and, oddly enough, more queer. Now, the people marching with signs that say “GAY NOT QUEER” are terfs and other unsavory types, but to the extent to which it is a terf psy op, it wasn’t a plot cooked up from scratch but a matter of taking advantage of very real pain that a lot of people feel.