What does it mean to be queer?
Queer Investments is one of the quotes, also sick and unwell. I did get a job once, but I was off for a week because I was queer. We also see here queer as a noun to describe a person who is gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual or otherwise not heterosexual, and also as a verb, which the first definition of the verb here is to consider or interpret something from a perspective that rejects traditional categories of gender and sexuality
Lys Surrexi
@Lys · 3:21
But joking aside, I would start with you with yourself, what it means to you personally, because there is a myriad of definitions and perspectives on the word queer. Some people still find queer offensive for good reason, because it has historically been used as a slur and still is. And then, on the other hand, it is quite widely accepted and used and reclaimed to the point where we have now a reboot of a super popular TV show, Queer Eye
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 3:10
I love that you wanted to start with nausea, because I often feel nauseous about being queer, nauseous with joy. I mean, yeah, that's kind of true. And sometimes I also feel feel nauseous just with confusion and also frustration about there being any sense of norms sometimes and really wanting to live in a culture in which we all define what our happiness and sense of safety and equilibrium means for us without feeling the shame of any sort of dominating or quote, unquote kind of normal forces
Lys Surrexi
@Lys · 4:26
And I asked this in part because I like that you brought in the academics that you learned about queer from and that they referenced it in terms of politics and relationships, because my relationship with my spouse for a long time was open and it's closed right now, but probably will be open again at some other point in our lives. And for the first four years of our relationship, we said we were polyamorous
Lys Surrexi
@Lys · 2:28
So since posting yesterday, I came across an Instagram post that I wanted to share that is by a woman named Gabriel Smith. She's on Instagram At by Gabriel Smith Smith. She's a writer, she's Bishop, she's neurodivergent, and she is polyamorous. And she created a post that says, ethical non monogamy is a way to practice anticapitalism and anti white supremacy. Colonialism erased the possibility of open, non monogamy, queerness and gender fluidity. And now we reclaim those practices
Lys Surrexi
@Lys · 3:54
Something that's exciting to me about this is thinking that this language that I know now and I use now will change because our understanding of gender and sexual orientation and identity is changing all the time. So I just wanted to offer that up as a way to commemorate Trans Remembrance Day and Trans Awareness Week. And Bowie, let me know what you think about all this. I know it was a lot, but I'm eager to hear your response
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 2:54
Let's exciting and interesting to me is the lexicon around how we identify and ourselves and others is constantly evolving, and that's something that I think is really beautiful. And I know something that I certainly have not done perfectly and will continue to not do perfectly, because a lot of our errors and the ways in which we use language come from a place of ignorance. And it's how we learn. And I love that you shared those terms because some of them for me as well
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 2:57
And one way I decided to commemorate the week was by immersing myself in books because that is something I love to do. And it's the way in which I feel really connected with other humans. And so I just want to mention two books that really mean a lot to me that I read this week. And so the first one is Heaven by the writer Emerson Whitney, and this book is part theory and also part memoir. It's totally gorgeous
Lys Surrexi
@Lys · 4:27
And it was during that time I think that I identified or that I started to use the word queer. I remember back in maybe 2009, I guess when I think I joined Facebook as sometimes Facebook reminds you of your Facebook anniversary, which is kind of ridiculous, but whatever I remember putting in my political views, like the about Me section, I put the question is queer feminist, political or queer feminist a political stance and tried to be like tongue in cheek
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 4:51
And I'm assuming it was when I first dated a woman in College, and it was very confusing for me because I at that point wasn't sure if I was gay or not. I was really questioning it deeply and had a lot of fear and insecurity about it because I had dated boys as a teenager
Lys Surrexi
@Lys · 4:12
That was a really beautiful swell to listen to. It sounded like I was listening to an essay. So thank you for sharing that. And I was thinking, what else could we cover? We've covered so much, and I realized that we hadn't really talked about where the word queer actually comes from. And I was doing a little bit of research on the Internet typing in, Where does the word queer come from? And of course, there's tons and tons of information out there
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Bowie Rowan
@bowie · 2:09
If you want to dig into more queer content for sure. There's so much to learn. And I'm so glad you brought up race and racial identities in relation to queer because I know growing up in the 90s, my introduction to queer, I guess, was primarily through learning about and seeing there being more representation of primarily white, CIS women and men who identified as gay