BAYPUPPY! NVR
Posted by Miss Jones on Jun 17, 2007 · Member since Jan 2007 · 98 posts
So I'm a newbie on this forum, I've been hanging around for awhile checking out recipes. I have a personal question for baypuppy. What does "queer" mean?
I am a gay female and I am confused. You say in your profile you are not gay and so I would like to determine what is "gay".
What does "queer" mean?
Curious ;)
So...this question is totally NOT directed at me, but I can't stop myself from chiming in! :) To expand on baypuppy's answer to this question, there are a number of reasons people might want to identify as "queer" rather than "lesbian" or "gay" or what have you. One of the major reasons is that lesbian tends to refer strictly to women, for example, and not all persons who are biologically female identify as women. There are gender issues, as baypuppy notes, as well as sexuality issues. You can even go beyond that to the question of sexual identification. If a person is born biologically male, s/he could feel like a woman and also desire other women. Would that person qualify as gay? lesbian? straight? The feeling many people have on the matter is that the basic gay/straight dichotomy is quite simply insufficient and frequently inaccurate. It can even be harmful to those who don't line up with the sex/gender paradigm as neatly as people think they should.
Another answer to your question about what "queer" means is that queer is sometimes understood to be an ideological or political position that refers not so much to the claiming of a certain identity (gay, lesbian, etc.) as to a resistant position to mainstream and hegemonic systematizing of persons. For that reason, indeed, some "straight" people might identify as queer for political purposes, declining state sanctified marriage until it's available to everyone and that sort of thing.
Sorry to butt in! I have obsessive compulsive thread hijacking syndrome. ;D
babypuppy...
did you ever read the sociological study story, "X: a fabulous child's story" by louis gould.
i agree, labels are not who people are, what a person does, feels, means, relates, etc. is their person, a label is not an identiy, no labels...not race, creed, sex, religion, etc...
on a second note, one thing that TOTALLY PISSES ME OFF is when "straight" people identify as "queer" BUT use all the hetero benefits (i.e. marriage) that they can. it also bothers me when married couples use the term "partner" because i feel they are trying to downplay their privilege. but it also pisses me off when people claim to be for the environment/feminist/equality/etc and aren't veg*n. shit, what's with that? (enough of my ranting, just had to get it off my chest!) ;) i'm usually so lighthearted...
I always wondered how others felt about the "partner" thing. I have a hetero professor who referred to her significant other as her "partner". I, myself, am in a long-term relationship with a man who I will likely spend many years with. We don't plan on getting married anytime soon (unless we need to for insurance benefits, etc.), but I feel that "boyfriend" doesn't quite capture the meaningfulness (apparently that's a word because spellcheck didn't catch it) of our relationship. However, I feel weird using the term "partner"...I usually just stick to "This is Josh" and avoid the whole categorization thing...
In Europe a lot of "straight" people use "partner" basically because no one bothers to get married anymore--or they wait until their kids are in their late teens! In Spain this started basically because in terms of taxes it was advantageous to remain single if both were working. (No such thing as dependent benefits!) This has changed but the mentality hasn't. A lot of splits happen but at least they don't have to go through all the trauma and expense of a divorce...I guess...though of course that means that a lot of parents get out of any child support etc because they were never married. The "common law" thing is just now coming into force to protect the children of this sort of "union."
Honestly, I don't feel that anyone's label ever means just exactly the same as someone else's. So pasting them on people is not something I ever really like to do. There are as many variations (and people using terms differently) in sexuality as there are in vegetarianism.
Now onto the idea of people not getting married! My sister and her "significant other", as I call him when not using his first name, have been together 17 years. Their oldest daughter just graduated High School. They have not felt the need to get married yet. They have two more kids as well together. It works for them.
Of course LB and I have gotten married officially once and unofficially 4 more times. We keep saying things like "ooo lets get married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator". haha
In New Zealand we have marriage, civil union and de facto relationships. My boyfriend/partner and I are technically de facto as we've been living together in the manner of a married couple, meaning shared expenses etc. for over 2 years. Being de facto gives you the same rights as a married couple. Civil Unions and de facto relationships do not discriminate on sexual or gender orientation. Marriage still does discriminate. That is why I call my partner, 'my partner'. Boyfriend seems to mean 'the person I'm dating', where Partner is closer to 'the person I'm in a de facto relationship with'.