on the policing of queer language and terminology
I think it’s important when you stumble upon a debate about who is or isn’t ~allowed~ to use certain terms then you should always take a step back and ask yourself the following two questions:
- If we forbid a certain group of people from using certain terminology then who actually benefits from that ban?
- What harm would be done to whom if said group of people just used the terminology in question?
Example A:
When there’s discourse about whether or not bisexual woman are allowed to use “butch/femme” then you can pretty much stop bothering with any arguments about historcal accuracy if you just ask:
- Who benefits when bi women are forbidden from using “butch/femme”?
—- the answer is: biphobes, because they would succeed in alienating bisexual women from queer spaces and it would make it harder for bi women to talk about their sexuality if they are only granted a limited vocabulary to do so. Ultimately that’s leading to more bi invisibility and more bi people who don’t feel “queer enough”.
- What harm would be done to lesbians if bi women used “butch/femme”?
—- the answer is: none, because bi women are just as capable as lesbians are to understand what it’s like to be a sapphic woman and the existence of bi butches and femmes doesn’t take anything away from lesbian butches and femmes.
Example B:
On the question of whether straight cis people should be allowed to use “top/bottom” (be it for piv sex or pegging or whatever else they might be doing in their bedrooms):
- Who benefits from forbidding straight cis people to use “top/bottom”?
—- the answer is: well, probably biphobes again? because they tend to see every m/f couple as inherently straight even if one or both partners in that couple are actually bi.
but most importantly, and that’s admittedly where this entire post was supposed to lead to: gatekeepers who think they have the authority to decide who is “queer enough” benefit immensely from that. bear with me, I promise it gets clearer when we jump to the second question…
- What harm would be done to queer people if straight cis people used “top/bottom”?
—- the answer is: none. However, restricting people’s access to queer language, even if a ban seems to be directed at straight cis people only, ultimately also hits queer people. Specifically queer people in m/f relationships that ~look straight~ and closeted and questioning people. Maybe it’s just my personal experience with running this blog but I have read countless messages by people who were still identifying as straight yet started questioning their sexuality but they didn’t dare to use queer terminology and labels in case they turned out to actually be straight. They were afraid of overstepping a boundary or infringing on queer territory that they as “straight” people don’t belong in. If we keep insisting that certain language is only for Certified Queer People that ultimately alienates those who are in the process of discovering they are not actually straight and/or cis.
Add to that the plenty of messages from bisexuals who weren’t sure if they were “queer enough” to exist in queer spaces and use queer lingo, especially if they were in an m/f relationship.
And hey, even if we talk about actual real straight cis people who use “top/bottom” then so what? Why would you care about how other people describe their sex lives. If they find those terms useful then who are you to deny them that?
Those are just two examples that came to my mind - one I see frequently, one we’ve recently been asked about. There’s probably other such debates out there and maybe not all of them are as unfounded as these two but when you start asking about benefit and harm then you’re beginning to see how much of it boils down to gatekeeping. Gatekeepers are people who think they have some God-given power that gives them the authority to decide who is allowed to enter their sacred club. They restrict the use of ~their language~ as if language is a product that you can own but only if you’re “queer enough” or “queer in the right way”. If you’re one inch too straight for their taste then you have to hand in your queer dictionary?
tl;dr: Placing bans and restrictions on queer terminology ultimately causes more harm to queer people than benefit.
