What should gays do to stay politically "relevant"...?

[SpectreAgent]

14 minutes ago, RawUK said:

'I am having a fag' has a completely different meaning in the UK to the US for example. If a UK smoker (a fag to most people here is a cigarette), said that in the wrong circles in the US,  at best he'll get a strange look, but at worse who knows!

I was actually thinking of the very same example! 

[ErosWired]

The first dictionary definition of queer - and the one originating circa 1500, is ‘strange, peculiar, odd, eccentric’. By 1740, it had the added sense, colloquially, of ‘open to suspicion, doubtful as to honesty’. By 1781, ‘appearing, feeling or behaving in a way other than normal’. By 1812 the term is used in relation to money that is counterfeit, and begins to be used as a verb, meaning ‘to spoil, ruin’. The sense of ‘homosexual doesn’t come along until 110 years later, first attested in 1922.

Language does change over time, and obviously new nuances of meaning are being overlaid on queer at a snappy pace just now. But the word already had over four centuries of common usage before it meant ‘gay’, and just because people may co-opt it to suit their desires in the given moment doesn’t mean that the word loses all its past associations in the culture. In the case of queer, a derogatory connotation lingers, carrying a sense of something abnormal, suspect, odd.

I don’t like the word, and would never label myself with it largely because I have the sense of it as a negative term. No doubt this is partly a result of coming of age in 1980s Appalachia, where queer was used as a slur. Yes, the meaning has changed for some people in recent times …but that new meaning hasn’t replaced the original as the first definition in the dictionary. Although a person can call himself what he likes, he must still contend with how others will react when he chooses a word others use in a different way.

[Danthebttmman57]

On 1/16/2023 at 8:36 PM, harrysmith25 said:

Uh, so I can't help worrying that us gays might be viewed as incredibly passé by the left, which is in control of the US presidency, and also dominates other parts of the western world in general politics and culture.

Aren't we just "old hat" to the lefties? Trannies are where it's at now. Everyone knows that: there's a million headlines about trannies, and 1 per week about us.

What happens if those in power just kind of forget about us cause we're so 2013 or 15 (at best) with our precious "gay marriage" and whatnot. Sure, Biden may have signed gay rights into federal law, but so what? Cranky old farts like him are fickle customers, they really are. Anyone who's spent time with the old know how they can be just as fickle as toddlers, change their minds like that.

What if tomorrow, Pete Buttigieg is talking with Biden and mentions his husband, and then suddenly Biden says "COME ONN, MAAAAAAN". Then we'd be finished, because as everyone knows "COME OOOON, MAAAAAAAAN" is the wittiest put-down in history, and Mark Twain himself could not have outbarbed our current heroic leader of the free world.

Should we start threatening a children's author, or would that just be unimpressive copycat behaviour?

Should we get our own version of JK Rowling, but who or what would that be? It's important to be threatening violence, or just being nasty. The culture of "liberals" today only appreciate you when you're being nasty, like how they tweet that they love the taste of "Republican tears". Lefties do not do it for "love of their fellow man" any more or "stand up for the little guy", those days are long gone. it's about "pwning" people and drinking their tears. right?

So what do we have to do to impress those bloodthirsty, nasty goons  that I just described. And also what can we do to please the ornery, borderline-senile old men they choose as their leaders.

Just don't look to the retrumplicans to be validated. Once  they clean up this abortion mess they will becoming after the "sexually correct in marriage ". Yes Mr Biden is far from perfect but bozo Trump and DeSantis scare the shit out of me. 

[BergenGuy]

19 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

Which is why I have come around, over the years, on "queer". Yes, it's a slur in origin. But it's also one of the few words I can imagine that covers all the people involved, without having to keep adding on letters (LGBTQIAMNOP). 

I get what you're saying.  But, at the risk of setting off a firestorm in here, I do have to question whether that many "initials" can possibly be lumped into the same category and still have that category mean anything for policy-making purposes other than "not 100.000% hetero."

[hntnhole]

On 1/21/2023 at 3:21 PM, BergenGuy said:

Since the "+" seems to be a catchall, it seems to me that "LGBT+" should be sufficient.

22 hours ago, BootmanLA said:

"Gay" was a slur once, too. We adapted. We (or most of us, at least) can adapt to "queer", eventually.

I don't mind the rich broth that comprises the nation-of-origin of Americans, since the vast majority of us originated elsewhere, however many generations ago.  Every group, sub-group wants their fair share of recognition, and that's ok. 

What gets to be a bit much is trying to keep up with all the letters, plus signs, and we're all expected to not only keep up with the daily updates, we're expected to use them.  Just as African Americans "took back" the filth commonly used to denigrate them by using it amongst themselves, and thus took away the sting of that disgusting term, we have taken back the word queer - removed the sting by using it ourselves.  

I agree with both of you. 

 

Edited January 22, 2023 by hntnhole
phrasing

[ErosWired]

2 hours ago, hntnhole said:

since the vast majority of us originated elsewhere

100% of us originated elsewhere. Native Americans simply got here first (from northeast Asia) and ate only called ‘native’ because the Europeans found them already here when they arrived. There was no human presence in the New World to begin with; humans did not evolve here independently.

I can trace part of my lineage to 1635 in Jamestown. Others came in the late 18th Century. I, as an individual, did not come from abroad and I have to go back in some cases centuries to find a member of my family who did. Having been born here, I am myself a native American (small N).

 I have great sympathy for those of First Peoples descent and what they lost with the catastrophic introduction of European influences, followed by their unconscionable treatment ever since. They deserve better.

But (since my genetics show I am basically 100% of British Isles derivation) I would also point out that other cultures hail from places with histories of calamity resulting from outside invasion - like, for instance, Britain. The history of the British Isles is a litany of conquests from without, which in some cases almost wholly supplanted the original (native) populations, and each successive culture was the ‘native’ one to the next invader.

The breakdown of my ancestry by DNA says all Britain, but how can I say that when there’s a smattering of northern France and Scandinavian, and a tiny hint of Italy in there, too? Easy - those traces are the echoes in my blood of the Romans, the Vikings, and the Normans who all overran Britain in their day and started fucking the natives. Followed to its furthest extent, one could say that I’m ‘from’ places separated by hundreds of miles, but I obviously didn’t ‘come’ from there as an individual, and I can’t ‘go back’ to somewhere I’ve never lived.

[hntnhole]

14 hours ago, ErosWired said:

The history of the British Isles is a litany of conquests

Well, we may very well share a droplet of dna in common, thanks to my ancestors thirst for conquest centuries ago, long before a similar thirst developed in yours.  What I don't know however, is how many generations have to pass until the question of - well, "inbreeding" arises ??? 😀

[evilqueerpig]

Is it better for the QUEER community to align with the Right?  Il Douchebag DeInsanity whose "Don't say gay" bill wants us back in our closets if not destroyed.  The Left ain't perfect, but they have our backs.  As for the op, can you hate your QUEERNESS any more?  If I sound vicious, it's purely intentional!

[ErosWired]

5 hours ago, hntnhole said:

Well, we may very well share a droplet of dna in common, thanks to my ancestors thirst for conquest centuries ago, long before a similar thirst developed in yours.  What I don't know however, is how many generations have to pass until the question of - well, "inbreeding" arises ??? 😀

I’m willing to risk it. 😉

[Guest]

On 1/21/2023 at 12:12 PM, BergenGuy said:

I'm one of those "older guys" who find it offensive.  And, I'd wager that there's more than a handful of us.  Personally, I don't feel connected with any organization that has "queer" in the title.  In fact, I feel excluded.  

I am the same way so add me to your handful,  Very negative connotation to me. 

Edited February 26, 2023 by RobGPW

[BlackDude]

Power is not inclusive, but exclusive. The more me you invite under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, the more the message will be diluted and resources will be redirected. The very law of nature is that diluting weakens. 

Unfortunately, gay men have this recent obsession (led by Gen X) with classifying gay men as everything but gay. While this may be sexually and psychologically gratifying, it is absolutely political suicide. 

Gay men need to have a specific agenda and code, and only allow those who push the agenda guests to represent. All other must be called out and discredited. While I have my issues with the “gay community,” that’s my two cents in the topic.