TIL that there's a pride flag to represent queerness itself.
"Queer is an identity in and of itself that more and more people are choosing to identify with. It is a sort of label for those who don’t want to put themselves in a box. Often considered a movement, queer people are those who fall outside of and/or renounce the cultural norms around sexuality, gender identity, and/or gender expression.
The word queer can mean different things to different people, but the most accepted definition is someone who is not cishet or someone with variant experiences with orientation, gender, and/or sex."
I see where you’re coming from, but I think the reason “queer” works well in that context is precisely because it’s a word that refers to the community as a whole, and not a specific experience within the community that is separate and different.
Calling yourself “queer” signifies nothing more that you’re part of the LGBT+ community. Which makes it a great label for those who don’t feel that any of the the other labels define them perfectly — but it also works well for those who do claim another label as their own, too.
To me, it’s important that it’s a word (and a flag) that unites us, and not one that is in any way exclusive.
(Although I agree that the flag is beautiful <3 and I’ll never tell anyone they can’t use a flag they want to use!)
Yeah, it’s both an overarching label for the LGBTQIA+ community at large and also a label that some people do identify personally with, as they may feel that no others really fit but they still are part of the community.
My wife, for example. I’m a trans girl, we married when I was still deeply buried in the closet. She’s ostensibly cishet - she’s more attracted to masculinity, she wouldn’t consider herself a lesbian or even bi, but nonetheless she’s happy married to another woman.
She’s doesn’t like saying she’s straight anymore - she says it doesn’t capture our relationship. She sees me for the woman I am, this isn’t a situation of her denying my gender, and she says it doesn’t feel like a straight relationship anymore. So if she has to pick a label she just calls herself queer and that’s good enough.
As a late 20s asexual gay person, I was in complete denial until my early 20s about my asexuality and until my mid 20s about being gay. Not because my parents weren’t accepting, but because society is heteronormative. Always good to reinforce an open, positive attitude!
Not sure, if this is truly the case. For example, on reddit I was mostly subbed to queer or queer friendly communities. And in my feed only appeared these communities. In how far would this be different in decentralized and federated communities? And apart from that, we all still have to constantly live people being bigoted over here, as everyone has it all internalized. E.g. I'm white and come from a academic context, so I have to make a conscious effort to keep this in mind while participating here. And if someone else writes in any of the non queer-related communities, they are statistically speaking neurotypical and cishet, so I easily feel (and am) excluded in some way.
My point is, it certainly helps to have decentralized spaces, but in order to abolish structural discrimination etc we still have to be conscious about it and make an effort.
Regarding your last sentence, I would guess that generally social media are more attractive to queer or otherwise marginalized people as they can meet likeminded people. See any of the leading social media.
Lemmy is an special case because people here don't seem to grasp the concept of Federation, are choosing servers that aren't for them or not defederating from bad servers (not Beehaw's case) because they think federation is people putting up with their bs or that they have to put up with other people's bs.
I'm mostly talking about mastodon, all the -key(s), pixelfed, peertube, etc. They're populated by marginalized people because the big centralised alternatives promote a hostile environment for them/us.
Also the fact that your feed in Reddit had to be curated specifically to contain only queer subreddits says a lot.
In centralised social media I had to curate my feeds that way, here (fediverse) I can follow different groups and people from different servers that I know I won't encounter bad actors because they're isolated in their own instances
Queers of Time, a #WheelOfTime podcast, is having an anniversary and charity livestream supporting the Marsha P Johnson Institute, which helps uplift the voices of Black Trans people.
Edit because I'm seeing this get some engagement now: the livestream was on June 3rd.