ayrt that's very valid and i'm glad you're bringing this perspective bc one of the biggest things that worries me in activist movements is people tearing each other apart. i think there is enough oddness in this incidence that it makes the OP suspicious.
this might be veering into semantic nitpicking as well but i think things just ARE dogwhistles regardless of who's using them or what context they're using them in. for example, 88 is a nazi dogwhistle. this does NOT mean that people born in 1988 who use the numbers in their username are all nazis, because we can use context clues to determine whether it's being used as a dogwhistle by that person or not.
lesbians specifically saying "q-slur" instead of queer and using the phrasing structure of "lesbian, not q-slur" is an even stronger dogwhistle than 88. i say "stronger" because the vast majority of people saying 88 do not intend any nazi context, but i would say in a significant percentage of incidences of people saying "lesbian, not q-slur," it is being used as a dogwhistle. like i said in another comment, it is so common that it's a popular terf t-shirt slogan.
the "strength" of this dogwhistle is also why i don't feel thaaaat bad that there's an accusation attached to pointing out that it's a dogwhistle. the fact that this person used that specific phrasing and made it the very first thing in their profile is suspicious.
"How are they supposed to set that boundary without saying anything remotely along the lines of that?"
this is a good question, and one i thought of as well. i guess i just have to wonder how many times it comes up, so that the person feels like it has to be the very first line on their profile.
as one of the tumblr links someone else posted says, when i say "the queer community" i am talking about people who identify as queer. it does not include people who do not identify as queer. i can see it coming up in occasional dialogues, for example when i'm talking to someone and say "it's nice to talk to other queer people," thereby implying they are also queer. so in theory someone might want to preempt that situation.
but again, i have ask -- why did the person choose to make it the very first thing on their profile? is it truly happening so often to them that it's such a priority? maybe! but it's still weird. wouldn't it be weird if someone just put "eighty-eight" as the first thing in their profile? the number by itself is perfectly innocuous. but why would they put it first?
if they said something like "note: i have personal trauma around the word qu*** and prefer not to be referred to with it, thanks" somewhere later in their profile i wouldn't consider it suspicious at all. so there is a way to do it while lessening its dogwhistle-ness.
Re: not trying to stir anything
this might be veering into semantic nitpicking as well but i think things just ARE dogwhistles regardless of who's using them or what context they're using them in. for example, 88 is a nazi dogwhistle. this does NOT mean that people born in 1988 who use the numbers in their username are all nazis, because we can use context clues to determine whether it's being used as a dogwhistle by that person or not.
lesbians specifically saying "q-slur" instead of queer and using the phrasing structure of "lesbian, not q-slur" is an even stronger dogwhistle than 88. i say "stronger" because the vast majority of people saying 88 do not intend any nazi context, but i would say in a significant percentage of incidences of people saying "lesbian, not q-slur," it is being used as a dogwhistle. like i said in another comment, it is so common that it's a popular terf t-shirt slogan.
the "strength" of this dogwhistle is also why i don't feel thaaaat bad that there's an accusation attached to pointing out that it's a dogwhistle. the fact that this person used that specific phrasing and made it the very first thing in their profile is suspicious.
"How are they supposed to set that boundary without saying anything remotely along the lines of that?"
this is a good question, and one i thought of as well. i guess i just have to wonder how many times it comes up, so that the person feels like it has to be the very first line on their profile.
as one of the tumblr links someone else posted says, when i say "the queer community" i am talking about people who identify as queer. it does not include people who do not identify as queer. i can see it coming up in occasional dialogues, for example when i'm talking to someone and say "it's nice to talk to other queer people," thereby implying they are also queer. so in theory someone might want to preempt that situation.
but again, i have ask -- why did the person choose to make it the very first thing on their profile? is it truly happening so often to them that it's such a priority? maybe! but it's still weird. wouldn't it be weird if someone just put "eighty-eight" as the first thing in their profile? the number by itself is perfectly innocuous. but why would they put it first?
if they said something like "note: i have personal trauma around the word qu*** and prefer not to be referred to with it, thanks" somewhere later in their profile i wouldn't consider it suspicious at all. so there is a way to do it while lessening its dogwhistle-ness.