[CW: (Internalized) Queerphobia]
I have not convinced myself that I should be proud of my queer identity. I've seen 100 reasons to be ashamed of it and 0 to be proud of it.
Pride month seems like a joke to me. It's a month where we're supposed to celebrate ourselves for who we are, but it only generates the opposite attitude for me.
You can be "proud" of yourself for being queer, but that's only if you're not too queer. I am too queer for even other queer people to think I deserve to exist, let alone experience pride in the way I exist.
I think you're the perfect amount of queer and I hope you can get through the anxieties society gives us by telling us not to be ok with ourselves.Never been to any particular ‘Pride’ function but I was quite the slacktivist in the pre-Obergefell days and did my best to live openly and true to myself as I could back then as a queer-adjacent young person. In high school, I got several students on board with me participating in the Day of Silence protests. It really pissed off the admins and I got targeted for in-school suspensions all the time afterward.
And the part that I can't get over is that all that energy put into expanding gay rights and queer acceptance has been for the rich gays to consolidate their assets. At the time I genuinely believed I was part of some rising tide movement that was going to change things. A decade out it seems pretty clear that the entire movement through the ‘00s and ‘10s was a sham so the rich gays could more easily hoard their wealth like straight couples do. The rich gays finally got to have their dream weddings all while the greater movement backslid and violence against trans and queer people has increased. So the rich gays hide away and start television ad campaigns to lie and condescend to the rest of us and say, “It gets better,” because, in their discrete experience, it does.
As it turns out it was always about class politics and there can be no gay/queer liberation without the rest of it.
I am too queer for even other queer people to think I deserve to exist, let alone experience pride in the way I exist.
I don't know how much this means coming from a cis straight male but you absolutely deserve to exist and it's heartbreaking to read you feel that way. Sending you as much love and positive vibes as the internet allows.
Interesting, I'm the opposite. I'm bi and in a straight passing relationship, always felt like I was never queer enough. Most of my friends are queer but were never integrated into queer culture. I always felt I would feel out of place.
I'm sorry you feel ashamed of your queerness, especially among other queers. I can't imagine that sort of isolation. Wish I could offer more than just condolences though.
This is me too, I’m bi but have only dated women (most of who were also bi) and I know I’m outwardly perceived as straight but even my straight passing relationships don’t feel straight. But I still feel guilty taking up space in queer spaces, like I’m not queer enough
9/10 queer folks are also ableist as fuck and have no intention nor desire to interrogate any of it so pride month is largely meaningless to me too. Trans rights are human rights, unless you’re a certain type of human, in which case it doesn’t matter how trans or queer you are, you don’t matter. I feel no solidarity with even radical queers these days. They’re taking unmasked selfies completely oblivious just like the guys who say injecting horse tranquilizer after your raw egg smoothie breakfast cures HIV. This is different from your struggle, but I get it.
I will probably go to my first pride this year since I finally have queer friends. I could never push myself to go alone.
I hope you find some queer friends that love you for who you are. We all love you here
I feel something like what you’re feeling. Last year I stopped identifying as a trans woman because it felt like a joke. I’ve never really fit in with the queer community—I’m basically a straight cis man, except I’m non-binary and kind of femme.
I wish things were different. But they never will be.
There are people who are a little avant-garde in breaking down gender prescriptions...
...and there are those who clearly make up the vanguard of liberating humanity from gender procrusteanism.
When I thought I was just a bi guy I didn't think I was queer enough to go to pride. Now that I'm well into my transition, I'm definitely hoping to try to see the parade this year. I am proud to stand in face of adversity and be my authentic self. To hell with the world that hates us.
Same, at this point I kinda just want to stay closeted for the foreseeable future.
I've seen 100 reasons to be ashamed of it and 0 to be proud of it.
??
Not being cishet is based and revolutionary in this hellworld of ours, that alone is reason enough to be proud, what reasons are there to feel shame that aren't capitalist lies?
The issue is that even queer people, apparently even queer radicals, don't like me because I'm an unacceptable kind of queer. I can't help but be ashamed about it at this point.
I don't understand how that could be, I'm sorry your local queer community is bullshit D:
I'm not really accepted a lot of the time either, but I honestly hate them enough to include myself out of spite.
