Damn right I judge some people!
Recently, I just barely dodged the banhammer over at queer rage. I was debating whether to leave the community or to just quietly work my way back in by leaving a comment here or there until the members liked me again, but when I saw this latest mess with tomata and I found out that this community existed, I decided to just leave and to come here instead. I hope that this community can become more active, because as others have said, queer rage is a good idea taken too far, and it would be great if this community could help fill the gap left by that. I've been asked to tell my story, so I will. I'm glad somebody asked specifically about it, because I've just been screaming inside to let it out somewhere.
I found queer rage a few months ago and I was really happy to have found it. I commented, made a few posts, and thought everything was fine. Everybody seemed to like what I had to say and like that I was in the community. Soon, though, I started to get a really bad feeling. I saw lots of comments picking on really small things in other people's comments, and one post in particular stood out-the post in which someone was getting slammed for being angry that some people who aren't really bisexual say they are just to get attention. All the focus was on how we shouldn't question anyone's self-definition, and that anybody has the right to call themselves bisexual.
My thoughts were that there's a difference between accusing one particular person of not really being bisexual because she (or he) doesn't look or act in a "traditional" bisexual way, and saying that some people are out there who claim bisexuality to get attention and that those people shouldn't do it. It's not right to critizise an individual, but to comment on the phenomenon is legitimate, because it does make life harder for people who actually are bisexual. When I realized that there was no way I could actually say this without making people scream at me, and thus refrained from commenting, I should have known that I couldn't be comfortable in that community, and I should have quit then, but I didn't.
Soon after that, I had my first unwitting flirtation with the banhammer (which I see only in retrospect). A post was made about a guy on a talk show who wanted to date a transwoman and got set up on a date with one by Jerry Springer (or some other talk show host, I don't remember). All the comments were about how great this guy was and about how transphobic the audience was and how maybe JS is transphobic and maybe not. I commented that maybe the guy wasn't so great, that it's a little creepy that his only criterion for who to date was "transwoman". I thought that was possibly objectifying people, and I was uncomfortable with it, despite how trans-positive the guy sounded on the surface. Most people ignored me, but I got several sharp comments saying that some people do in fact find transwomen attractive. I wanted to reply and say "that wasn't my point", but I was afraid to. My point was more like that it seemed he only wanted her for sex, because what do you talk about if that's your only criterion for who to take on a date?
But I stopped commenting, because I was shit-scared to. That should have been clue number two. I myself am dating a transman and struggling to understand trans issues, trying to learn about the whole thing without accidently looking like a bigot just because I was "privileged" enough to not have had to think through these issues before. (I just know who I love, damn it. He's very attractive to me. But not because "omg transmen r teh hott"- it's because he and I are so compatible in terms of personality and we just connect on a mental level. His physical appearance is not relevant, it's just part of him. But it's a long story.) If I'm scared to discuss things about transpeople in what's supposed to be a "safe space" for raging about transphobia, that's a little backwards, IMHO.
Then, a little later, came the fatal post. Someone posted a picture of a poster at their college that was supposed to be encouraging people to be tested for HIV. It was just a huge blowup of that picture of Britney and Madonna kissing, with the caption "Get Tested". I commented that they shouldn't have made the women look so slutty. That was my big mistake. Everybody jumped on me for "violating safe space" with that word. I tried to explain the following:
1. I was not saying that the individual women (who, since I generally live under a rock, I didn't know at first were B and M) were actually sluts. I thought that they were models deliberatly dressed up to evoke that image in the viewer. Whether it's right or wrong for people to think that way about the models isn't relevant. The point is, that's how the minds of a lot of people work.
2. If people looking at the ad just look and think "those women are sluts", and they don't consider themselves also "sluts", they will reject the idea of getting tested. When I found out who was in the picture, I amended this to say that people might think only celebrities should get tested, that ordinary people don't have to. My overall point was that these ads should show a variety of people, so everybody has somebody to relate to, and not be able to think "that doesn't apply to me".
3. (And I don't even know why this got to be relevant) I was using "slut" in the sense of somebody who sleeps with multiple people and doesn't have enough self-respect to use protection (male, female, gay, straight, whoever). But people got so hung up on my use of this word as me being judgemental of women who have multiple partners. I tried to say that I don't care how many partners somebody has, but it's just not smart to do that without protection. Apparently to say that people should use protection is too "judgemental" for queer rage. I wanted to say, "damn right I'm being judgemental, because to sleep with anybody, much less multiple partners, without protection is just damn stupid". But I didn't, and not just because I was threatened with a ban if I kept "debating the meaning of the word 'slut'" (which I wasn't even doing, in my opinion. I was just trying to say where I was coming from and that people shouldn't hate me. So much for that.)
After, I think three, really nasty "mod notes" from mexicanicepick, I sent an email to her saying that I was sorry and that there wasn't anything else I could say, that I'd already said it multiple times in my comments. She wrote back saying that she was actually sorry for having made me feel bad, which is what made me stay in the community at that point anyway. I thought I might be able to redeem myself and start posting again.
It was really an ordeal, reading all these mod notes and trying to contact her to try yet again to explan myself. I was crying so hard in a computer lab that two people asked me if I was all right. I was upset about it and literally could not get it off my mind for about two weeks, and had random spells of crying when I was alone and thinking about it. I had to remind myself that I knew damn well something like that would happen, that I'd screw up in that kind of community, that I would eventually make a misstep despite obsessing over every single comment and post I made.
You can say I was dumb to think that way-you can say I'm still dumb now for still feeling very hurt by it all. But please consider, I'm 30 years old, and I just realized two years ago I was bi and not straight, because of falling in love with the aforementioned transman. I've suddenly had to confront a lot of confusing issues that I will admit I was privilged to not have to deal with before as a plain cisgendered straight woman. Queer rage was the first venue, in LJ or in real life, where I was openly referring to myself as bisexual, and getting comfortable with other members of the queer community. I was finding my feet as a bisexual, you might say. And to feel so uncomfortable and to get slammed so hard for using one word was really really hard, and I felt really seriously rejected by the first queer community I'd ever been a part of as a queer qua queer.
But, as I reflect farther on it, I ask myself if I really was so very wrong. The email from mexicanicepick seems condescending now, like she's telling me, "don't worry, you'll get it eventually". And that they'll be generous enough to let me stay and learn from my "mistakes" and get it right. But what gives them the right to say that that's the only way to be a "good" queer? If they want to have a community like that, that's fine. They have the right to define their space any way they want to, and to admit and reject people based on what they think is right. But just because I don't fit well into that space, it doesn't mean I'm the one who is wrong. It means the community is the wrong place for me. And it's not because I'm not a "good" queer yet. Yes, I have a lot of understanding to gain, both of myself as a n00b queer and of the queer community. But I can be a "good" queer without fittng the mold of that community exactly. It seems that there are lots of queers who think that the mods of queer rage are smoking something funny, and I can be one of them. They have the right to have a "safe space" as defined by themselves. But they do NOT have a right to think I am a bad person because I can't, or don't want to, fit in to that space, and because of that, leave.
Thanks for making this community, and for reading my post, if you did. I know it probably fell into the tl;dr catagory for some of you. But I am very grateful to have been given a space to express my thoughts on this.
I found queer rage a few months ago and I was really happy to have found it. I commented, made a few posts, and thought everything was fine. Everybody seemed to like what I had to say and like that I was in the community. Soon, though, I started to get a really bad feeling. I saw lots of comments picking on really small things in other people's comments, and one post in particular stood out-the post in which someone was getting slammed for being angry that some people who aren't really bisexual say they are just to get attention. All the focus was on how we shouldn't question anyone's self-definition, and that anybody has the right to call themselves bisexual.
My thoughts were that there's a difference between accusing one particular person of not really being bisexual because she (or he) doesn't look or act in a "traditional" bisexual way, and saying that some people are out there who claim bisexuality to get attention and that those people shouldn't do it. It's not right to critizise an individual, but to comment on the phenomenon is legitimate, because it does make life harder for people who actually are bisexual. When I realized that there was no way I could actually say this without making people scream at me, and thus refrained from commenting, I should have known that I couldn't be comfortable in that community, and I should have quit then, but I didn't.
Soon after that, I had my first unwitting flirtation with the banhammer (which I see only in retrospect). A post was made about a guy on a talk show who wanted to date a transwoman and got set up on a date with one by Jerry Springer (or some other talk show host, I don't remember). All the comments were about how great this guy was and about how transphobic the audience was and how maybe JS is transphobic and maybe not. I commented that maybe the guy wasn't so great, that it's a little creepy that his only criterion for who to date was "transwoman". I thought that was possibly objectifying people, and I was uncomfortable with it, despite how trans-positive the guy sounded on the surface. Most people ignored me, but I got several sharp comments saying that some people do in fact find transwomen attractive. I wanted to reply and say "that wasn't my point", but I was afraid to. My point was more like that it seemed he only wanted her for sex, because what do you talk about if that's your only criterion for who to take on a date?
But I stopped commenting, because I was shit-scared to. That should have been clue number two. I myself am dating a transman and struggling to understand trans issues, trying to learn about the whole thing without accidently looking like a bigot just because I was "privileged" enough to not have had to think through these issues before. (I just know who I love, damn it. He's very attractive to me. But not because "omg transmen r teh hott"- it's because he and I are so compatible in terms of personality and we just connect on a mental level. His physical appearance is not relevant, it's just part of him. But it's a long story.) If I'm scared to discuss things about transpeople in what's supposed to be a "safe space" for raging about transphobia, that's a little backwards, IMHO.
Then, a little later, came the fatal post. Someone posted a picture of a poster at their college that was supposed to be encouraging people to be tested for HIV. It was just a huge blowup of that picture of Britney and Madonna kissing, with the caption "Get Tested". I commented that they shouldn't have made the women look so slutty. That was my big mistake. Everybody jumped on me for "violating safe space" with that word. I tried to explain the following:
1. I was not saying that the individual women (who, since I generally live under a rock, I didn't know at first were B and M) were actually sluts. I thought that they were models deliberatly dressed up to evoke that image in the viewer. Whether it's right or wrong for people to think that way about the models isn't relevant. The point is, that's how the minds of a lot of people work.
2. If people looking at the ad just look and think "those women are sluts", and they don't consider themselves also "sluts", they will reject the idea of getting tested. When I found out who was in the picture, I amended this to say that people might think only celebrities should get tested, that ordinary people don't have to. My overall point was that these ads should show a variety of people, so everybody has somebody to relate to, and not be able to think "that doesn't apply to me".
3. (And I don't even know why this got to be relevant) I was using "slut" in the sense of somebody who sleeps with multiple people and doesn't have enough self-respect to use protection (male, female, gay, straight, whoever). But people got so hung up on my use of this word as me being judgemental of women who have multiple partners. I tried to say that I don't care how many partners somebody has, but it's just not smart to do that without protection. Apparently to say that people should use protection is too "judgemental" for queer rage. I wanted to say, "damn right I'm being judgemental, because to sleep with anybody, much less multiple partners, without protection is just damn stupid". But I didn't, and not just because I was threatened with a ban if I kept "debating the meaning of the word 'slut'" (which I wasn't even doing, in my opinion. I was just trying to say where I was coming from and that people shouldn't hate me. So much for that.)
After, I think three, really nasty "mod notes" from mexicanicepick, I sent an email to her saying that I was sorry and that there wasn't anything else I could say, that I'd already said it multiple times in my comments. She wrote back saying that she was actually sorry for having made me feel bad, which is what made me stay in the community at that point anyway. I thought I might be able to redeem myself and start posting again.
It was really an ordeal, reading all these mod notes and trying to contact her to try yet again to explan myself. I was crying so hard in a computer lab that two people asked me if I was all right. I was upset about it and literally could not get it off my mind for about two weeks, and had random spells of crying when I was alone and thinking about it. I had to remind myself that I knew damn well something like that would happen, that I'd screw up in that kind of community, that I would eventually make a misstep despite obsessing over every single comment and post I made.
You can say I was dumb to think that way-you can say I'm still dumb now for still feeling very hurt by it all. But please consider, I'm 30 years old, and I just realized two years ago I was bi and not straight, because of falling in love with the aforementioned transman. I've suddenly had to confront a lot of confusing issues that I will admit I was privilged to not have to deal with before as a plain cisgendered straight woman. Queer rage was the first venue, in LJ or in real life, where I was openly referring to myself as bisexual, and getting comfortable with other members of the queer community. I was finding my feet as a bisexual, you might say. And to feel so uncomfortable and to get slammed so hard for using one word was really really hard, and I felt really seriously rejected by the first queer community I'd ever been a part of as a queer qua queer.
But, as I reflect farther on it, I ask myself if I really was so very wrong. The email from mexicanicepick seems condescending now, like she's telling me, "don't worry, you'll get it eventually". And that they'll be generous enough to let me stay and learn from my "mistakes" and get it right. But what gives them the right to say that that's the only way to be a "good" queer? If they want to have a community like that, that's fine. They have the right to define their space any way they want to, and to admit and reject people based on what they think is right. But just because I don't fit well into that space, it doesn't mean I'm the one who is wrong. It means the community is the wrong place for me. And it's not because I'm not a "good" queer yet. Yes, I have a lot of understanding to gain, both of myself as a n00b queer and of the queer community. But I can be a "good" queer without fittng the mold of that community exactly. It seems that there are lots of queers who think that the mods of queer rage are smoking something funny, and I can be one of them. They have the right to have a "safe space" as defined by themselves. But they do NOT have a right to think I am a bad person because I can't, or don't want to, fit in to that space, and because of that, leave.
Thanks for making this community, and for reading my post, if you did. I know it probably fell into the tl;dr catagory for some of you. But I am very grateful to have been given a space to express my thoughts on this.