I am laughing the deepest & hardest of belly laughs right now. Bless you, good folks who made this.
See also, shit like this is EXACTLY WHY I don’t refer to myself as a radical queer*.
See also, the line “I’m really committed to building… for like, 2 years” was probably my favorite line. (Although the “I mostly date trans guys” montage is a close second.)
I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in San Francisco (in The OMI area, right on the border between The Ingleside and The Lakeview). I have made my home in San Francisco as an adult for many reasons. I love the Bay Area (all of it — I also have deep love for the east bay, though I’ve never lived there). This is absolutely my home, and growing up in SF made me so much of who I am today.
And I’m not meaning to diss transplants when I say this, but seriously: “radical queers” who treat (generally rapidly gentrifying!) areas of SF and the east bay like they are the holy damn grail, who then leave after 2 years (often for Portland), piss me the fuck off. Esp. because those are also the kids who are always like “Oh, you grew up here? I’ve never heard of that neighborhood,” implying that there is something wrong with where I grew up, that it is not “cool,” because it’s not trendy and hella gay, like, I dunno, neighborhoods my family could never have afforded in a million years. Fuck you and the fucking fixie you rode in on, dude.
*Also, Real Talk for a minute: I have a piece in That’s Revolting (I wrote it when I was 19, it is not the best thing I’ve ever written by faaaaaar), and I genuinely think there is a lot of awesome stuff in that anthology. And yeah, I’m queer, and yeah, by most people’s definitions I’m pretty politically “radical.” But I feel by & large alienated from most people & things labelled “radical queer” these days. This has to do with a number of factors: largely, personally, for me it is about class & (lack of) class analysis from within the “movement” (see above). And also some disability stuff (esp. ways that you’re valued if you’re running at a million miles a minute, but not valued if you are sick or resting). Also, fatphobia stuff (usually, the people who are valued in radical queer spaces are white, female-assigned, conventionally attractive, skinny, able-bodied — there’s not a lot of room for other people within the “radical queer” aesthetic, as it were). Also, serious-ass lack of racial diversity. Also (as the video both hilariously & horribly points out) the privileging & propping up of trans men as the New Hot Thing and really shitty treatment of trans women. Also, bad treatment of femmes (of all genders). I could so seriously go on for so long, but I’mma stop now. Man, I take a melatonin before I check tumblr and suddenly I get all prolific and shit. Nighty-night now, folks.
“yeah, i mostly date trans guys” haha, gross.
