I've been thinking about myself and my identity and embracing the thought that I am queer. Can others relate to this? Each queer person’s queerness is unique to them. After all, being queer is all about individuality. There is no common formula that makes us queer. What we do share, what makes us queer, is a common understanding of ourselves as being different in fundamental ways to the main-stream: we feel different, conceive of ourselves as different and experience life differently. It is true that many of us are LGBT. But labels like lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender seem inadequate. As a queer person, being gay is merely a part of what makes me a person, what makes me queer. Being queer is much more holistic an expression of who and how I am. Queer is my way of being human. That said, I have no objection at all if an LGBT identifies as queer only because they are LGBT. Its just, for me, it means much more than being gay. I cannot say that I was gay when I was seven. But I can say without hesitation that I was queer. As a seven year old I wasn’t aware of my sexuality, but I was aware that I felt different, conceived of myself as different and was experiencing life differently. Of course its hindsight, but I know I was as queer then as now. Thus my queerness connects me to my childhood in ways mere sexuality never can. Since childhood my queerness has pervaded my personality. It is in so many aspects of how I think and feel and sense and experience. I was then, is now, and shall ever be. Accepting my queerness, or rather recognising it, has been a long journey. But, now I have recognised it, and fully accepted it, my life has at last found meaning. Identifying as queer has integrated so many aspects of me into a contiguous whole. Aspects that, hitherto, have seemed dissolute and unconnected. For far too long I was sure it was only my sexuality that made me different. In other ways, I reasoned, I was just a normal guy. But that never really worked for me. There was always something fundamentally lacking in that reasoning. For one thing, I’d never found my sexuality problematic. Yes, it meant I was part of a minority. And coming out as gay hadn’t been easy. But, on the other hand, being gay had since puberty felt as natural and unequivocal as the colour of my hair. And, since my twenties, my gay relationships had been the source of great joy, filled with love and tenderness and caring. And, since coming out, I’d been accepted by family and friends without condition. No. There was something else. Something more fundamental even than sexuality. But it wasn’t “something”. It was many things. It was all the individual traits that made me experience life differently. It was, in many ways, the same things I had felt since early childhood: empathy, emotional sensitivity, creativity, instinct, reflectiveness, gentleness, tenderness. These are what made me feel different to most other boys back then, and it is these that make me feel different now. It is these traits that are at the centre of me, and that make me queer. My queerness I now see as entirely positive. Being queer has given me so much. It has allowed me to experience joy and success. Being queer is a gift.
Thank you for your post and your perspective. It is important to note however that whilst an LGBT person can self-identify as queer it is wrong to assume that LGBT (or L or G or B or T in their own right)=queer (for a number of reasons). I think that is the crux of why it doesn't apply to all. For many their sexual or gender identity is the only "queer" or perhaps statistically non-conforming thing about them. One question though - if queer is more than just sexuality to you, and borders into individuality, does that not make heterosexuals who express similar individuality or difference queer? Looking at the traits you are defining as "queer" (empathy, emotional sensitivity, creativity, instinct, reflectiveness, gentleness, tenderness) - these are not necessarily incompatible with heterosexuality or traditional masculinity.
741852963 You are absolutely right. Queer is not about being gay. Its about a whole lot more than that. And there is no reason a heterosexual person cannot be queer. What I am getting at, I guess, is that we stress on sexuality as being problematic. But in reality it is difference, or, in my definition, queerness, that can be at the root of our troubles. Embracing our differences, our queerness, seems to me to be a whole lot more truthful, at least for me. (I don't think the qualities I describe are incomparible with masculinity, but, in my experience, they are rarely present in men).
