There seems to be yet another controversy in our community this week. The issue du jour is over HuffPost changing its dedicated LGBT site’s name from “GayVoices” to “QueerVoices.” While there are strong opinions on both sides of this issue, when I heard about it, it brought a smile to my face.
Since the beginning of my activism back in 1969, I’ve witnessed our community’s attempts to unite over a word or term to define ourselves. There was “homosexual,” “homophile,” “gay,” “gay and lesbian” and most recently, and most accepted, “LGBT.” So what about queer?
HuffPost’s reasoning? “We, like many others before us, have chosen to reclaim ‘queer.’ ‘Queer’ functions as an umbrella term that includes not only the lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people of ‘LGBT,’ but also those whose identities fall in between, outside of or stretch beyond those categories, including genderqueer people, intersex people, asexual people, pansexual people, polyamorous people and those questioning their sexuality or gender, to name just a few.”
First, on reclaiming the word. I say, good luck with that. We saw how great that worked for the black community when some tried to reclaim the “n” word. While the word “queer” is popular with young LGBT activists, many in our community detest that word. Reclaiming a derogatory word is not a new trend. Some of us used to use the word “faggot.” The first suggested title for my memoir was “Pinko Jew Faggot.” We ruled it out for the same reasons “queer” would have been; it’s just a word du jour.
It’s popular with only one segment of our community, and that segment is overwhelmingly activist-driven. Most in our community do not consider themselves activists and still feel hurt when they hear that word. Are we trying to teach our own community, or are we trying to fight for equality? Are we trying to hurt the seniors in our community who suffered harassment by the use of that word and give them another barrier to overcome?
Maybe we should attempt to solve some of the hardcore issues in our community rather than spending time debating semantics.
While all individuals have the right to identify with whatever term or image they wish for themselves, and that should be respected, the word-reclaiming, like that in the black community, will eventually be passé.
So if you spend any capital or time on this, you’re ignoring issues such as homelessness, poverty, employment discrimination, housing to protect our seniors and anti-trans violence. Those are issues I’d rather fight to solve, not a word — and especially not one that some of the most endangered people in our community see as another barrier.