asynca:

Ugh. Reading a whole lot of ‘queer history’ posts on Tumblr that are exclusively North American. Elsewhere in the world, we have a different history, a different lexicon and different experiences. I have a different experience of coming out 21 years ago than someone in the USA would. Our politics were slightly different here, and still are.

For example ‘queer’ is just a mainstream word here in Australia. Perhaps some very old people (I’m thinking my late grandma) may have used it to mean ‘strange’, but I only ever heard the word referring to people who weren’t of mainstream sexes, sexualities or genders. The first time I heard that it was a slur was when a teenager demanded that I stop using ‘a slur’ to identify myself on my own Tumblr.  

I know Tumblr has a lot of US folks on it, but I think it’s important to remember that the USA is just one country, there are nearly 200 others. Your history is not everyone’s history. Your experience is not everyone’s experience. I will be respectful of your experiences where appropriate, but you also need to be respectful of mine. And that includes not trying to make me ashamed of the word that I use as my identity for any reason. 

Also Australian, also identify as queer. Worked for the AIDS council of NSW as a volunteer in the mid noughties, and queer was the generally accepted and used blanket term for the non-cis-het community and things associated with it. Queer spaces, queer music, queer club, queer lit, queer films, etc. Our branch office was small, hundreds of kilometres from a capital city. We had one bar. One. And everyone would meet there – gay, lesbian, bi, trans, WHATEVER, because our community wasn’t big enough to segregate much, and queer was the term that united us under one beautiful rainbow banner.

You don’t like a term, or don’t identify with it? Fine, don’t use it. But you don’t get to tell anyone else that their identity is wrong.