TransGriot: Why Her Community Doesn’t Like “Queer”
January 7, 2009
One of my part time jobs is at a really cool, progressive public radio station, vocalo.org. We are constantly trying to have dialogue and present both sides of issues, and one that comes up a lot is over the word “queer.” Us younger peeps use it, my boss says his friends hate it. I always respond with “well those people probably like the word ‘lover’,” and then only the younger people laugh. Anyhow, I was looking over the nominees for the Weblog Awards (ahem, 2009!!) and found TransGriot, “News, opinions, commentary, history and a little creative writing from an African-American transwoman about the world around her.” She had this post specifically about the word “queer” and why she doesn’t like it. I always insist that you should call people whatever they want to be called, but I do disagree with TransGriot on one point: her dictionary argument. Since when do we need a dictionary to use words? I make up words all the time, remember last week’s list spectaculanza? I don’t think we all need to use the same words to describe ourselves, but we do need to speak the same language. Loving this dialogue, head over to TransGriot and give her some love. If you have a particular thing about what you want to be referred as, make sure you let others know!
I love queer (obviously: beyrownqueero.com) as an all encompassing term for our community. But it’s true that some people aren’t quite so in love with it. She also noted in a comment that it’s likely a generational thing as well which I definitely agree with. My friends and I (20 somethings) use the term a lot, but I should probably think twice about when and where I use it. Honestly, I hope that some day everyone is using the word queer in nothing but a positive way. I’m all about some semantic guerrilla warfare! Reclaiming words that are meant to hurt is a great way to take power from those attempting to oppress us. The comments on the original post are also really interesting, how people in other countries or from different ethnic backgrounds interpret the term. Thanks for posting this.