More on where do I fit in? Labels, why do we need them?

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by EnderD_503

Queer is probably among the most stable of my identities simply because the very implication of queer is completely open and not attached to sex/gender or who you fuck, but has more to do with dynamics and existing outside a sexually normative framework.

I actually see queer identity, for myself, as important especially when in Canada there's still a lot of G/L folks and straight-identified folks who think rights struggles are over since marriage equality happened (without challenging the oppressive origins and implications of the marriage institution) and basically are still on a crusade to prove that "we're just like everyone else." Basically the party Pride culture, white gay male "professionals" and the white picket fence.

Whereas being politically queer, to me, means making the challenge to normativity (sexual, ability, racial, gender, sexed etc.), and not just to the "heterosexual" world. Queer is important to me because it's an identity that really acknowledges its function as an identity within a social/political context.

First, Ender, thank you for this post! I broke this section into three parts so I could focus on your points; I hope that's okay.

Thank you, in particular, for validating my reaction to the intense and sometimes domineering focus on marriage rights, that I've experienced in the LGBT community.

What's been hard for me—since it became a prominent issue when Clinton was first elected—was that marriage seemed the ONLY social justice issue visible to the white, professional gay and lesbian community I was part of.

As I gradually became more involved in the literacy community (and left my wealthy white lover and her friends), my companions and friends included more straight people, more people of color, more academics and writers, older people, and in general, people who were extremely left in their politics.

And for the first time—now detached from a middle- and upper-class GLBT core of people—I was able to talk critically about the institution of marriage without someone pressuring me to get on the pro-marriage bandwagon and essentially, join them in emulating straight culture, right down to the registry at Bloomingdale's.

Now, many years later, and with marriage legal in my state, I've had more than a couple women say to me, about my relationship, So when are you two getting married?

And suddenly I feel pressure to marry, and even have some empathy for straight women hitting a certain age, in a culture that has capitalistic, religious, or just traditional reasons for wanting her to be married.

(Which is not to say, marriage doesn't protect women (and sometimes men) financially.)

Thank you for making a space where I could say that.

Also, thank you for speaking so clearly about what it means to be queer.

You wrote, "...the very implication of queer is completely open and not attached to sex/gender or who you fuck, but has more to do with dynamics and existing outside a sexually normative framework."

I'm queer!

I don't embrace "femme" anymore, because my partner (who looks and acts in what I would identify as a very butch manner!), doesn't relate to the butch-femme identities or culture, and since my femme identity was always contextual—I put it out there as a shortcut in my search for a butch lover—it felt like one hand clapping for a while, and then I just didn't "feel" it at all.

Queer, as you describe it, is me to a T. Yes, I exist "outside a sexually normative framework"—totally.

PS, I know many women ID as femme whether their lover is butch, trans, a lesbian, whatever—I respect you and ask you not to denigrate the contextual nature of my femme ID. Thank you!