Have you ever noticed how much queer identity is sexualized?
Like, I know of someone who had come out to an adult when they were 10 or 11, and the adult responded by asking, “Aren’t you a little too young?” But then the same adult doesn’t say anything when other 10 year olds mentioned their hetero crushes.
Or when a queer couple is accosted on the street just for holding hands, because the person harassing them equates queer handholding with queer sex. Yet, they never approach cishet couples when they’re holding hands.
Or when a person comes out to their partner and their partner is immediately worried that they’re going to leave the relationship or have an affair, as though queer people are more likely than straight people to leave relationships or have affairs.
It’s no wonder queerness is attacked so much.
People oppose drag shows but not beauty pageants because drag shows represent queer sex and beauty pageants are just about beauty.
People oppose educational material about queer families but not educational material about straight families because queer families are about sex and straight families are just about families.
Cisgender, straight relationships have become normalized. That’s why it’s called “cisheteronormativity”. As such, anything not normalized will be seen as sexualized.
No one will ever question a 9-year-old girl saying she has a crush on a boy in her class. But watch the reactions if she says she has a crush on a girl in her class.
No one questions a man falling in love with a woman in a movie and the film ending with them kissing. But whatch the reactions if it’s two men.
If a child is raised as a boy and identifies as a boy, no one makes anything of it. If that same child instead tells their parents that they’re a girl (or have some other gender identity), watch the reactions.
It’s no wonder they accuse us of sexualizing their children. If they equate queerness with sex, then of course they’re going to think that exposing people to the lived experience of queer people is sexualizing children.
Except we’re not sexualizing your children. You’re sexualizing us.
2 replies on “The sexualization of queerness”
You did an excellent job pointing these things out. Thank you!
It’s unfortunate that too many people can’t or won’t see things your way.
I’m a heterosexual senior female. I’ve always thought that people are who they are and if they found someone, anyone to love that loves them back, then go for it! I don’t know how it changed, but it didn’t seem to be a big deal in the 60’s and 70’s, at least not for me and my friends.
It baffles me that people feel that they need to interfere when it doesn’t hurt or concern them!!
None of these people have the right to judge anyone!!
Thanks again, Kim. Spot on, as usual. 👍🏻
Thanks, Sylvia!