anonrerising | It's All Made Up, Anyway.

"Queer is a slur" has recently become a thing because terfs hate the term, and honestly, 80% of the time, it's a terf dogwhistle.

They have picked up the phrase because queer is inclusive when used by folks who do not see it as a slur. Queer is an umbrella term, and means "anyone who isn't cishet"

(YES, this includes Aro/Ace people)

Terfs hate this inclusivity because it means trans women are included with lesbians, and terfs hate anything that include trans women.

Is queer still used as a slur? Absolutely.

Is it valid for LGBTQIA2SP+ folks to not want people to use that term for them? ABSOLUTELY.

Is it valid to tell folks NOT to use a term that has been largely accepted as a term that was used by us for decades, then reclaimed as our own again?

Absolutely not.

It's fine if you don't want to use that term, but dictating what other people call themselves is bullshit- and when people tell me I can't use queer for myself, I almost always assume they're a terf.

+1
DA - you know what's 'funniest' for me in the entire "q-slur" crowd? How I've been called a lesbo just for saying no to a date with a man, yet I've never seen the "q-slur" crowd shy away from using the l-slur or g-slur to refer to themselves, OP's example included...

"lesbian" and "gay"??

those don't have an equivalent history at all.
better example would be lesbians using/referring to the "d-slur," which similarly to "queer" is both reclaimed and a slur in the wrong hands.

Idk where you grew up but 'gay' and 'lesbian' have a major and protracted history as an insult and slur across the US and UK. Gay in particular was used for decades to mean bad, and lesbian was an outright dangerous thing to be called in a female school communities. Where I grew up, queer wasn't even on the radar as a slur. It was and is the academic term used for LGBTQ+ by LGBTQ+, among other things.

That's fine and dandy but i live in the U.S. south and queer is still a slur here. Hell, my sister calls her son a queer for crying. I also grew up playing a game called "smear the queer" that was essentially like keep away except whoever had the ball was the 'queer' you had to 'smear' i.e. beat the shit out of until they relinquish it.

Different places, different customs, dont make assumptions etc.

💯 I totally understand having personal trauma around the term and wanting to avoid it but broadcasting this preference and being preemptively defensive in doing so gives me terf vibes.

eehhhhh i get what youre saying but this, but people make similar statements regarding other things that make them uncomfortable. ive seen people request that ppl not use small text/bright colors when talking w/ them because they have eyestrain problems, or stating certain phobias im advance to avoid stuff like trypophobia, thalassophobia, etc etc in skins or art. being "preemptively defensive" about those things is fairly standard if you know they cause distress when directed at you.

i dont really know enough about this persons Deal to make a solid decision on if theyre a terf or not but it feels like theres a lot of extrapolation/assumption happening here. and yeah its an anon comm, this place is for shittalking, yadda yadda but i can understand why someone would make that kinda statement without being a terf/transphobe/etc. feels kinda weirdchamp to make big accusations with minimal context

ayrt i'm not making accusations. i'm just saying it gives me terf vibes. it's certainly very possible they're not a terf but the q-slur thing is a terf dogwhistle and it's worth noting that. i've seen "lesbian, not queer" used as a terf t-shirt slogan.

Huh, it's funny you say it's a TERF thing because this person's profile also says...

"I will not buy dragons with the silhouette scroll applied to them"

Since silhouette scrolls often indicate trans dragons, it's a little sus. 😅

AYRT

HA. I didn't even see that on their profile.

I hate to say "I knew it" but.... I knew it.

Not trying to be rude but it feels kind of odd for you to say "there's nothing wrong with people not wanting to be referred to as queer" and then immediately agree with someone who jumps to the conclusion that op is definitely a TERF for something completely unrelated. Like, maybe they just don't like having the extra icon on their lair page?
And to be clear I don't think queer is a slur. It just feels like a lot of people who are in the same boat as me are really vitriolic towards people who just don't want to be called queer, which is like... fine and normal? I know in my personal experience people still used it in a cruel way towards me growing up and while I don't care I can see why people might feel uncomfortable with even saying it. Idk I'm not trying to pick a fight I just feel like we can extend compassion to other members of our community without assuming an expression of vulnerability is actually something done with malicious intent *shrug*

nayrt it is entirely, 100% possible this person doesn't realize "lesbian not queer" is a terf dogwhistle, but the reality is that it is a terf dogwhistle. i wouldn't assume anything unless i did discover evidence they're actually a terf but meanwhile it's important to note dogwhistles.

AYRT

But that's not what OP said- and I promise I'm not trying to nitpick semantics, but this just seems like someone trying to set a boundary. Is it really fair to assume every person who says something along the lines of "Please don't call me queer, I prefer the term lesbian" is dogwhistling? How are they supposed to set that boundary without saying anything remotely along the lines of that?

I feel like when we apply "x is a dogwhistle" beyond what the original phrase was we have to be mindful of when we are going so far, to the point where we're applying it to people who are in fact the victims of the group we're saying they are. A close friend of mine has had people call her a terf for simply requesting that people not call her (her personally) queer -nothing more- and she's a trans lesbian. It's fine if you're just pointing it out, as you say, but other people very quickly latched onto other, entirely unrelated things as "evidence". Idk if my opinion will effect anyone but I feel like our kneejerk reaction shouldn't be to demonize fellow community members. Obviously if someone shows you who they really are, believe them, but I feel like it's disingenous to say things like "well I'm just pointing it out" when there's an obvious accusation behind stating someone is using a terf dogwhistle like that.

Ofc you don't have to agree with me, it's just my opinion and all that but I don't think we should be tearing each other to pieces over little things like this instead of just like. Talking to each other.

I would like to point out that the op didn't say that they didn't want to be called queer, if we're going to argue semantics or the lack thereof. They didn't want to be called the "q-slur," which is what I find insulting and disturbing. Not the fact that they don't want to use it/have it applied to them.

If someone doesn't want to be called queer, that's fine. Perfectly valid and you do you. We should be able to use or not use whatever labels we want. But q-slur is rejecting *my* identity. It's saying to me that it's a gross word and I'm gross for wanting to use it. To apply queer as a label for me and the queer community in general, not the person who doesn't want to use it.

So, yes, I get a little defensive and upset over that, which I feel is a reasonable reaction. And it does make me wonder/worry what other ideas this person holds, because ideas and beliefs do not exist in a vacuum. Do I think they're a terf? No, not without real proof. But their phrasing *is* a terf dogwhistle whether they intended it that way or not. So I'm going to be wary of them and point out to my friends why I am doing so.

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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.

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I definitely also found that sus, like... is the tiny bit of clutter really so objectionable that you not only won't buy dragons based on it, you'll also broadcast that fact in your bio? At best those are some odd priorities.

Yes, this exactly. Many others have that preference as well, but you could just... quietly not buy those dragons? lol

I don't find it as sus paired with the offspring list part... But it does look off

The offspring list thing has been a thing since forever, but what's really odd is, permababies also have an extra little icon and have been around forever, but not a word on those.

Could it be that it is because it is easier to not buy a permababy (which you would know was a permababy pretty much before you buy due to age/price?) than one with a pose change scroll applied? Since the scroll will change the dragon back to its default pose when it is put on the AH (not sure about crossroads, but think it probably does), it could be easier to buy one without realizing it?

NAYRT

Eh possible, but if they care that much about visual clutter, I imagine they're checking these details. The Silhouette/Permababy icons are IMO more noticeable than age, which you have to hover over for.

True, though I was thinking more of 'I am buying dragons that are more than 5 days old so they should be adults, so if they aren't it has to be a permababy'.

Then again, another anon had the most probably reason: permababies can be reversed, removing the scroll, while the pose change scroll is a permenant icon that cannot be removed at all.

Silhouette icon is shown in AH and can be filtered out, same as the permababy effect.

I just assumed they meant not buying them through the Crossroads, not AH, though I had forgotten they can both be filtered out.

You can remove permababy from a dragon. Silhouette is eternal.