Heyo, my name is Ash, I’m a white queer person and fellow white queer folks, we need to talk.

There is a lot of gatekeeping in the white queer community. This isn't exactly news, I'm sure. But it's still worth mentioning. The gatekeeping I'm referring to is maintained mostly by the idea that there is a monolithic ‘queer’ vibe. The septum and other piercings, tattoos, the “shading” “reading” and “dragging,” drag culture. Visual affirmations that we are different, aggressively othering ourselves in response or in defense of the accusations of being different. To a degree, this is just good ole human socialization as we have always grouped ourselves and drawn up social contacts to express it.

However, the queer culture that exists today is vastly different from its origins. This nearly homogenized look of queerness is white, asymmetrical haircut with a dye job, piercing and tattoos, ‘androgynous’ (the idea that there are gender extremes and the neutral of this is western masculine dress merits its own discussion) is pretty limiting, honestly. It exists within the colonial patriarchy structure. Sure, there is some subversion of it, but it doesn't leave the confines, does not explore these institutions. Attempts to do so are done on an emotional labor of black and indigenous activists, often without acknowledgment of their contributions, or inclusion. Without that crucial inclusion, we fail. We fail because it requires a constant, conscious engagement to end these paradigms. We feed into this systematic monster we often feel martyred by.

Septems, other piercings, and tattoos have been a long-standing practice in First Nation cultures. The idea that they seem ‘exotic’ or ‘counter culture’ is built on the colonial exotic fetishization. Colonialism in part relies on other cultures deemed ‘less’ civilized, with western biased double standards. A result of this othering is a fetishization of the features of a culture while leaving the actual community behind. Shading, reading, dragging, drag performance, vogueing all came from black communities redefining gender norms, sexuality and expressing themselves outside of colonial binarism. A lot of the white definition of queer resides in staying within colonial, patriarchal contexts, replicating the hierarchy within the culture. It is assumed on our part that with our visual attempts to intentionally other ourselves, it can be comparable to oppressions of black, indigenous and other people of color. This is preposterously false, and insulting considering that many of these people live intersectional lives: being a person of color as well as queer.

There are many ways to other oneself. Personally, I find it to be infinitely more valuable to subvert patriarchal paradigms that encourage othering. If we help deconstruct the very things many of us find self-defining, does that destroy our sense of queerness? No, of course not. I believe to many, however, the comfort in alienating ourselves lies in the idea that we are forced to be alienated. Much like a singular issue feminist, a lot of our self-definition comes from continuing oppression in order to lessen our own. There are many very real, intersectional issues the white queer community can resist and fight against that boil down to the essential liberation, not legalization of all of us.