Self-Organizing Man

What’s not to love about Bitch, Ph.D.?

She’s got a great motto:  Saving the World, One Good Bra at a Time.

And last week, she attempted to answer the question, Am I  a Big Ol’ Queer?  as someone involved in an open marriage/heterosexual polyamorous relationship.

In answering the question, she offers up that she has never read any queer theory in her life.  Already I love her!

She then takes us through both the pros and cons for claiming the label "queer," including a lucid discussion of queer as identity versus action and what does it mean for her as heterosexual to like best the various communities of queers she has been part of.

In the  end a kind of ambivalence/paradox rises to the surface, which she claims in a delightful manner.

But I confess I’m hesitant to identify as queer, though not for the same reasons I’m hesitant to be open about the open marriage; precisely the opposite. Mostly, I guess, because I’m not really sure I have the credentials to be part of the club. But I’m not entirely part of the straight club, either. I think I’m coming to the realization that I’m queer enough that I owe it to other, "real" queers to be out about my deviations from the norm, because obviously passing is not only uncomfortable for me personally, but also implicitly a kind of perpetuation of the idea that heterosexual = straight and GLBT = queer (an idea that’s obviously still one I’m thinking my way out of).

I found these words insightful for me as a heterosexually identified transsexual.  Yes I used to be more queer identified than I do now.  For most of the world I live as a married white guy who appears very queer supportive.  Yet  I once was a lesbian and did use the label queer after I started hormones. 

But dating women, marriage and an extreme disenchantment with a so-called movement that does not really understand nor support transsexuals, queered me on the whole queer thing.

Now I don’t use queer very often.  Mostly because I don’t think I fit that label nor participate in the so-called queer community.  And because "queer" gets used as a label, instead of action, I rarely use it.

While I ID and practice heterosexuality I do not think of myself as straight.  Heterosexual, yes.  Straight, no.

Whenever we get to a time when queer gets used to describe a person’s actions, then I claim the title "One of America’s Top 100 Queers."

Until then I’ll think of myself as Bent.