#on queer assimilation

[glasswaters]

on slurs. on pride.

"it is quite important", he says, his lips stretched over dull teeth, "to show gay characters on screen. We are honoured to do you justice."

i think i have long since pulled my mouth into a scowl. i think, by the time i reach you, that i could tear the world from where it sits in your palms. on screen, the moment has passed. unnamed and unimportant, everything remains the same.

a neat cut is all it takes, see. they might as well not be there at all.

the first gay character. the first gay scene. the first gay kiss. and nothing queer about them at all. is this not a riot? is this not a beating, bleeding heart? is this not-

*

i check my notes. i clench my teeth.

#q slur

some people don't like it, see. so fit yourself into their mould. come, let me pull all the teeth from your mouth. give me that brick. it will do you no good.

don't call yourself queer, child. file down your teeth. all this anger will do you no good.

*

i am a slur, frothing at the mouth. if i closed my eyes and sleepwalked into their world, i would wake up screaming. white picket fence. two children. where have you been? where is your phone?

(in a bar, i sit in someone’s lap. she buys me a drink and a lipstick, and when her lashes come undone, she laughs. her cheek bones are contoured, and her lips are overlined. when she looks at me, i see the world in her eyes.)

*

her mouth curls. his eyes are cold. those people, after all, are nothing like us.

*

i am queer.

where is the riot we were born in? where is your grief, pressed in between old photographs? where is your rage, filling queer lungs and trembling papers? where is the queerness in the unnamed? give me one word that was not spit back at us, blooming rot.

how long have you spent ironing out your wrinkles until you sat, smooth and palatable, neat against their shoulders? are you not, still, under that needle, fraying at the edges?

your seams are still jagged to them. your world still tilts wrong, and no matter the fences you put yourself in, they won't sit clean enough. you will always be bent.

to the boots you grovel to, we are all the same gay plague.

*

come. look at me.

i will tear their tongues from their mouths. i will smash windows and bite flesh until i taste blood. fence posts make good weapons once uprooted.

i am queer. i am a slur. i am spitting bile.

i am a riot, see. and this is mine alone to wield.

#on queerness #queer #pride #happy pride 🌈 #riots #stonewall #aids #slurs #in which i am fuming #in which i spit rage #poetry #poets of tumblr #writers of tumblr #writerblr #my work #on queer assimilation

[fuzzyalpacacrusade]

Queer rights may be about our right to be normal- to be normal couples, to live normal trans lives, to be normal people. But queer rights are also about our autonomy to be odd. We are QUEER, after all- weird, odd, not normal. And that is something that was originally imposed upon us, but we have taken it. It is ours now. Because lgbt rights are about our right to be normal, yes, but it is also about bodily autonomy! It is about our right to live our lives with odd genders and weird relationship structures and queer bodies. Assimilation might sound like a fine way to escape prejudice- but quite frankly, it doesn't matter. Because we are not just fighting for our rights to live like cishet people, we are also fighting for our right to live without having to worry about putting a toe out of line. We are queer, and we always will be. We won't really be free until we can live our lives as odd, as strange, as queer as we want.

#pride #trans rights #lgbt+ rights #lgbtq #queer #No assimilation.

[transrevolutions]

honestly when I see someone with a gender/sexuality label I don't understand, I treat it like seeing a mutual post about a show I don't watch. like I understand that it's important to them even if I have no idea what's going on and I respect that. it would be weird to complain about a show being confusing when you've never watched it or even read a synopsis, and it's weird to complain about an identity being confusing when you don't identify with it.

#queer #queer pride #liberation not assimilation #pigeon.txt

[dyke-husband]

Transsexual love notes part 3/5

Letterpress and screenprint on linen cloth

#messy queer #radical queer #transsexual #transgender #trans artist #transsexual artist #trans liberation #liberation not assimilation #queer #trans joy #trans pride

[uncanny-tranny]

I love trans people whose transness means that their sexuality is complex. I love trans people who adopt contradictory labels. I love transmasculine people who still have ties to old lesbian spaces and transfeminine people who still have ties to gay spaces (even if they themselves aren't lesbian or gay). I love trans people whose dysphoria has put them at a place where they don't want to engage with any type of sexuality. I love trans people who are confused, unsure, or questioning. I love trans people who toe the lines of queerness. I love trans people who are unapologetically embracing their sexualities. I love trans people who are working through internalized shame about their sexualities.

#trans #transgender #queer #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #honestly being trans has really complicated my sexuality in so many ways and i don't always see people remember this i guess #because i think people expect that trans people will assimilate into their gender and immediately adopt their sexuality... #...in an assimilationalist way where it is uncomplicated and understandable to even cishet people #but it's honestly more complex than that for a ton of us #like i've found myself in most of the situations i included in this post and i'm probably forgetting some more (feel free to add onto this) #because the reality is is that transness *can* make figuring out your sexuality more complex #and that is okay. we should acknowledge this in addition to recognizing that sexuality can be easy or less complex for some #we can recognize that transness can be linked in some way to a person's sexuality without being weird about it i think #because a ton of people are weird especially about trans people's sexualities or their assumptions about our sexualities #this blog aims to grow and encourage growth and acceptance - especially if *i* don't get it *personally*

[jesncin]

Diane Meade doodles!

Upon learning that the police force on Earth is somehow so much worse than the manhunters on Mars, J'onn decides to become a private detective (and superhero) instead to help people wherever he can.

Diane Meade notices his almost supernatural intuition when investigating his cases, so she sometimes sneaks him into cases the police are struggling with. John and Diane have a tense friendship, since he admires her character but wishes she wasn't part of a corrupt system. She becomes one of the few people in Denver who finds out he's a martian.

I think it'd be cool if instead of being a redeemed cop character, Diane could be someone John tragically learns he can't change.

#martian manhunter #dc comics #j'onn j'onzz #justice league #justice league unlimited #fanart #ma'alefa'ak #jl remix #my art #Diane as a testament to queer assimilation #J'onn's like I can fix her! #But he can't :(

[comradeupdog]

Pride Month reminder: we tried assimilating in the 1950s-1960s and it didn’t work! If you are making an argument about what a Queer person should do based off whether it’s going to upset straights or is disruptive to society, you have learned nothing from our history. This country (the US) has given us nothing when we try to fit in, it has only ever given us a little bit of freedom because we flew our fucking freak flag and threw bricks at cops!

That trans person who whipped her tits out at the White House Pride event shouldn’t have had to apologize and no Queer person should have agreed with Fox News when they bashed her. Fuck the president, fuck the office of the president, I don’t care what Biden or his staff thinks should happen at a Pride Event they are our class-enemy.

#also just for clarification this does not apply to people in the closet or assimilating for safety reasons #liberation #revolution #queer liberation #lgbtq #solidarity #comrade does politics #pride #marxism #communism #socialism #pride month

[sunflowertaters]

Working with a lot of trumpers really makes a lot of queer discourse funny

Most of their heads would explode if I attempted to say gay people shouldn't get kicked out of their homes

They quite literally just want us dead

So be a bi lesbian, or use unorthodox pronouns, fuck whoever you want to fuck (consensually), be as openly weird, queer, and kinky as you want, use whatever label, identify with whatever term, be an unabashed faggot or dyke or whatever

These people will never respect us, so why try and earn it?

#anarcha queer #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #lgbtq #gay #lesbian #trans #transfem #transmasc #bisexual #bi lesbians #bi lesbians are valid #fuck terfs #no seriously fuck em #fuck respectability politics #and assimilation too

[sexy-sapphic-sorcerer]

"But the reason why we retell the tales over and over is to create hope. We keep these themes and characters alive because we need them, because we need to make sense of what is happening and what needs to happen in our lives, and what better way to do that than with grand, tragic characters who already make sense to us? They explain the world to us and inspire us to keep going even though a happy ending may not be possible (Gilgamesh) and maybe because a happy ending may not be possible yet (Arthur).

“When Albion’s need is greatest,” Kilgharrah says in the last episode of Merlin, “Arthur will rise again.”

And he has risen when we needed him most. Multiple times. We were even the ones doing the resurrecting."

#besties what if I actually wrote my thesis about this #just. the way that folklore evolves over time to tell the story that society needs to hear #of course. the messaging of merlin is... problematic to say the least. but it is a reflection of 2010s queer assimilation politics #BUT THEN fandom comes in and says “fuck that. let these characters be gay and happy now” #and then we get arthurian adaptations like Gwen & Art #where lex croucher basically said “these characters have always been gay and I'm gonna give them a happy ending because I want to. fuck u." #and I think that's beautiful #arthurian legend #bbc merlin #gwen & art are not in love #epic of gilgamesh #< is there an epic of gilgamesh fandom? I hope so #narratives #tropes #themes #folklore

[deancasforcutie]

merry 5thmas Cas saved himself

(and saved the world and remade the world to come)

(through the power of gay love canonically in canon)

#(''turn off the flash'' guy voice) it’s assimilation of the Shadow ya fuckin moron #to clarify: Cas was the one to hear the Mary line because we’re meant to understand his path the same way #Castiel is complete - you who can’t see the vision might not be. But he is. #spn #supernatural #castiel #destiel #spnedit #spn scripts #parallels #13.04 #14.02 #14.18 #15.18 #15.20 #spn is queer #mine

[hussyknee]

K. J. CHARLES, I LOVE YOU.

...

— Wanted: A Gentleman, K. J. Charles (2017)

That's the emotional thread that runs through the whole novella, coupled with his conflicted love for the Conroys' daughter he helped raise. It runs in parallel with Swann's own shackles of ursury and exploitation, which, while not comparable with Martin's bondage, still inspires his empathy and compassion.

Cesar Picton

Black Georgians: The Shock of the Familiar

FUCK YOUR BRIDGERTON-ASS WHITE LIBERAL DIVERSITY-COOKIES REPRESENTATION. THIS IS HOW YOU WRITE BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLE. We've always been here, bitch. Pay attention and be curious about our interiority for once.

#she's so confident writing characters of colour and their struggles #i wish she'd include a little bit of their culture as well but the fact that they've assimilated into whiteness so much #while never being accepted as fully british is a big part of it #mimi matthews does a slightly better job but she doesn't have as many black characters and she's not this polished and clever #she's quarter indian though #kj charles #wanted a gentleman #black british history #queer historical romance #interracial romance #writing diversity #black representation #black history #slavery #anti blackness #british history #book recommendations #book recs #knee of huss

[lord-radish]

imagine thinking that trans men are inherently bad or evil or predatory on the basis of gendered privilege and societal power structures. cringe

#transmasc discourse #like the idea that trans men gain male privilege and kick down the ladder to beat on the queer community is astonishingly stupid at best #the idea that transphobia or queerphobia as a whole doesn't affect them because they're Assimilating With The Oppressors is like #man fucking what is up with people yknow #gender essentialism is fucked up and it's the same force that's beaten down on bi ace and transfem people #the fact that this has turned into 'trans rights but only for the women' by some dumb-fuck shitstains is awful #no. trans rights for all. #like let me explain what I mean here: trans men aren't seen as men by transphobes #it's not 'oh you're a fella? crack a cold beer and let's bash some gays'. passing as a man has just as much risk to it as passing as a woman #because a man who will attack a trans woman as someone who is not a woman will most likely attack a trans man he does not see as a man #with the same violence he might level against a cis woman #that's just on the masc side. i can't speak for any violence against trans men by cis women but I can see how cis women discredit trans men #by claiming them as Lost Lesbians and Sisters In Arms who've been lost due to the Trans Agenda #like people shit on bi people because they have 'passing privilege'. but we know that bi people face homophobia #and other issues about their orientation. the idea that trans men get their Boys Will Be Boys card is to focus on a tiny selection #that *potentially* has the power to he a shithead - like a queerphobic asexual person or a malicious bi person #and paint an entire group of diverse people as literally the worst interpretation you can imagine about them #like consider that you have your own issues and/or biases in regards to people you like and want to hang out with #and stop calling entire groups of people invaders and oppressors whose entire goal is to upend the community #and turn the power of queer people against them #i understand how it feels to feel powerless and to have somewhere where you feel supported and safe #but if you're going to see pain and hate in every group who shares your experience but gives you an ick for whatever reason #there's a solid chance that the Righteous Crusade against them is - in fact - your own personal dislike wielding a modicum of power #that essentially functions the same way that hetero- and cis-normative standards and people have rejected you. #it is essentially you becoming the bully. and just like bi and ace and transfem people before I won't stand for it #trans men are my people.

[certainwoman]

“The problem with a marriage-based organization of intimacy is not only that social benefits—including access to one’s partner’s hospital room—remain tied to a marriage certificate but also that it automatically vilifies those who reject monogamy, thereby threatening to wipe out queer subcultures that have historically been organized around promiscuous, anonymous, and fleeting sexual encounters. For many queer critics, the disappearance of such subcultures equals the death of queer culture as such. As Dean notes, “the mainstream gay movement [has] achieved considerable institutional success only by desexualizing queers” (2009, 19). Ironically, it is because the lgbtq movement has managed to make gays and lesbians seem “just like” straight people, eager to endorse the family values of married monogamy, that it has made such tremendous political strides. Essentially, the gay and lesbian subject has been sanitized, stripped of its disturbing “otherness,” in order to make it more palatable to straight society. For many queer critics, this is a shortsighted victory that undermines more radical efforts to gain social justice.

More specifically, queer critics accuse the lgbtq movement of pandering to the desires of the most domesticated—and usually the most privileged— members of the gay, lesbian, and queer community. From their perspective, relatively affluent, mostly white gays and lesbians are using marriage as a way to purchase their way into “normalcy” at the expense of those who cannot be so easily assimilated: poor queers, racialized queers, gendervariant queers, immigrant queers, and so on. As Heather Love argues, “the increasing media visibility of well-heeled gays and lesbians” threatens to obscure the fact that one may enter the mainstream only “on the condition that one breaks ties with all those who cannot make it” (2007, 10). Simply put, from a queer theoretical viewpoint, gay and lesbian mainstreaming— or homonormativity—merely intensifies the problem of social marginalization, so that while some gays and lesbians now “make it” in dominant culture, others are all the more irrevocably excluded and exploited.”

Mari Ruti, The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory's Defiant Subjects 

#mari ruti #The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory's Defiant Subjects #queer #lgbt #assimilation #marriage #queer theory

[craycraybluejay]

Just blocked likely around 100 or so people and there's more on that post. I'm tired. Fuck puritans. Yall think you're so progressive when you spout the exact same shit as conservatives. You are conservatives. You call people "freaks" and "weirdos" in a derogatory manner and scream "think of the children!" in an inflammatory attempt to increase censorship or eliminate people you don't like. Your fake queer fake tranny asses will be next and you're going to act so fucking surprised when people are calling YOU a pedophile for holding hands with your partner in public or dressing funny. And yknow what? I commend the "freaks" that will try to protect you like we historically did AGAIN despite you being an asshole assimilationist. But I will not. And I will not encourage anyone to. Assimilationism and purity culture kills queer people. If you want to live with and assimilate to cishetero Christian norms that is up to you but you cannot have it both ways. The same way a real feminist does not support terfs, I flat out do not support purposeful assimilationists and puritans that try to act like the poster child of queerness. You are a token queer. You are one of those people a company or political party might pick to use so as to act as if they are progressive while continuing to murder queer people. You may be queer, but you have long opted out of the pro-queer movement. The moment you start spewing reactionary anti-kink, pro-censorship, or thought crime rhetoric, is the moment you work against queer liberation. Queer liberation IS NOT "only for the acceptable, polite queers who stay in their lane."

Fandom is not some isolated island of inconsequential internet shit. It is a scary reflection of how young and impressionable people forget their roots and think that the privileges other people fought for are immutable rights. People fought for your right to make whatever art you want, and for your right to decide who to kiss or not, and for your right to identify as whatever gender ever. And now you're fighting against those rights because you don't understand. But I cannot make you understand, and am tired of trying. And it will hurt when you are hurt by the policies you so fight for. But it hurts even more when people who have always been pro liberty and pro freedom and pro art and pro queer are suffering for your stupidity and cruelty. So you are like me. But you are against me, and other people like you. So you are not like us. And if you so despise freaks maybe you at least somewhat deserve what's coming. Maybe I won't have to feel all that bad for prioritizing those who want to prioritize me and each other. History will repeat itself. And those of us who are united will survive. And those of us who are not will be converted and murdered out of existence. It hurts but the only thing that I can do is protect and fight for the people who know what they are fighting for.

#ranty venty rant #personal #anoutherposting #queer as in fuck you #fuck antis #fuck purity culture #puritans #assimilation #purity culture #the intersection between fandom and queer culture as a whole #uncomfortable truths #history repeats itself #don't forget #stonewall riots #weirdos and freaks fought for you

[francisforever2014]

three separate white people pissed me off bad in class today can y’all be quiet tomorrow to make up for it

#white queer people stop equating queer liberation with whiteness and escape from ‘backwards’ poc cultures………… #today a person literally implied that imperialism wasn’t all bad bc it ‘gave people terms’ . in this case meaning like . the term #non binary and the idea #of being gender non conforming . are you fucking kidding me #i pushed back but jesus christ . #also they were talking about their navajo friend who’s nb like i hope they secretly hate you. sorry that was mean #1) assimilation is not safety if you’re poc #2) western imperialism is the REASON we have the gender stratification system we have today #3) even if it wasn’t stop acting like whiteness even contemporary whiteness is some escape or safe place that other cultures aren’t #i’m gonna lose it

[uncanny-tranny]

This is purely speculation on my end, but I've noticed that it seems like people (specifically younger queer people, partially under forty) are so used to queerphobes indignantly saying, "you have the right to marry, what more can you want?! Why do you shove it down our throats?!" that they internalize the idea that gay marriage and other rights were only fought for for queer assimilation.

The push for things like gay marriage wasn't just "to assimilate," and especially after the AIDs crisis, you very well could watch your lover or friend or mentor die in front of you and have no recourse. No protections. No guarantee that you could even say goodbye. Learning that - as a young queer myself - hammered home how important these things can be. To get where we are now didn't happen because of the magical benevolence of the cishets. We fought for that shit. We died for that shit.

Again, this is speculation, but I don't think young queers (even me) will truly understand the scope of queer history. It takes effort to learn about this, but it is an effort worth pursuing every single time. At the least, we owe it to honour the people who came before us who have sacrificed so much. We owe our communities that much, at least.

#queer #lgbt #lgbtq #politics #it just irks me to see the 'why werent queers of the past trying to move to reprioritize marriage 🙄' #it gives off the same vibes as 'why transition? shouldn't you abolish gender altogether🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄. hashtag owned!' #it's just...please learn about history. even the aids crisis ALONE was harrowing to learn - but it's so important #i don't see assimilation as what you do per se but rather what you believe in #queer assimilation isn't getting married and having kids - it's (to me) an attitude of queerness #it's devaluing queerness and thinking of it as lesser - so you will distance yourself intrinsically from it #maybe that's the same to some people but i don't see it that way #and even then the conversion of this alone is nuanced and complicated #instead of blaming an individual i tend to blame the systems in place that lead people to devaluing themselves and who they are