{"id":377,"date":"2014-02-14T08:33:47","date_gmt":"2014-02-14T16:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/?p=377"},"modified":"2014-05-05T13:14:01","modified_gmt":"2014-05-05T20:14:01","slug":"queer-as-in-weird","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slowbloom.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/queer-as-in-weird\/","title":{"rendered":"Queer as in Weird"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"floral<\/a><\/p>\n

Recently I was having a conversation with some people about identity and labeling – specifically around sexuality. One of my friends asked me what queer<\/i> meant to me. He felt it was vague and unspecific, whereas for me, I feel it’s more meaningful and a better descriptor than the other options that are available.<\/p>\n

Erika Moen drew a comic<\/a> a couple of years ago that encapsulates fairly well how I feel, but yesterday after another friend asked me what queer<\/i> meant to me, I realized it didn’t tell the whole story.<\/p>\n

I came out as bisexual over twenty years ago, and I felt that identity\/label fit for a long, long time. I was (and am) attracted to both men and women. But over the last several years, as I learned more about the gender spectrum, I felt constrained by this particular label. As the comments and discussions around Facebook’s decision to allow people to indicate a “custom” gender illustrate, there are far more than the two genders we’ve been led to believe.<\/p>\n

But there are a few other components that Erika’s comic doesn’t touch on. Just as lesbians and gay men get a label that doesn’t have sexual<\/i> in it, neither does queer<\/i>. If you ask most people along the spectrum of gender and sexuality, I’d guess that while sexuality is a component of who they are, it’s not THE defining quality. <\/p>\n

Finally, as I indicate in the title of this piece, I like queer<\/i> for its OTHER and much OLDER meaning: odd, strange, or weird. I’ve always felt a little bit like an outsider, even within supposedly queer space. I’m too much this or not enough that. I like that queer<\/i> is inclusive, broad and maybe a little slippery. It makes it that much harder for other people to define me, and that suits me just fine.<\/p>\n

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