One last piece of self-acceptance was missing for years: i would not accept the word “queer” as a good descriptor. I was graceful if i saw it used as a catch-all, but i would avoid using the word.
A freak? A weirdo? Certainly. On my own terms.
But queer? The doorman at the entrance of the club constantly told me i do not belong here. Wrong clothes, wrong hair, no tattoos, no piercings, no passing: i do not fit in.
Coerced to accept the word, yet constantly denied entry to the club, as escalating demands piled up.
Mandating specific schools of communism, of atheism, of veganism, of feminism.
The allosexuality, obligately polyamorous, obligately BDSM, expectedly bottom, implicitly anal.
The art? Slimecunt hyperpop murdergrime and young adult positive representation. No place for the himejoshi. I saw so many artists dragged and driven out, i kept my art in the drafts.
Queer Fedi has many issues, but i’m not leaving. Queer Fedi is what i call the good part of the Fediverse: we do not mingle with Tech Mastodon at large. It’s not like Twitter, where it was normal to have friends from both worlds.
Queer Fedi is hermetic, and not for everyone. I won’t bother telling you where to find me on it: if you’re the target audience, you already know how to.
There is much i wish to write about the Fediverse and its issues: it’s worth fixing and improving. It’s worth addressing multiple forms of abuse that thrive on the network.
As i write this today, my small neighborhood is still healing from two cases of abuse amongst our own.
But today i’m here to thank the weirdos.
In Queer Fedi, we have genuine freaks, and most of those freaks are truly great people.
Everyone’s way too weird to be a cop.
When everyone you know is five flavors of neurodivergent with ten microlabels, you have no way to police what the word “queer” requires out of people.
When everyone you know is a fellow misfit, you don’t demand their misfitting follow the same contours.
Policing the boundaries of the word, that’s a normie’s game.
Other social spaces get bogged down in endless policing of identities, and i resent having to conform to their expectations.
In Queer Fedi? Only the true weirdos belong.
I’m not leaving.