r/gayjews

For this bi-weekly post, we shift focus to create a space for folks to talk, even if the subject is not specifically LGBTQ/Jewish-focused. Hopefully, as a space made up primarily of LGBTQ+ Jews, we'll be a good support for each other with all that's going on around the world right now.

Please note: Our quality standards and expectations of civility are still in place, and this isn't a thread for name-calling or insults. This is a place to process feelings and be in community with each other and share what's on your mind.

Shabbat shalom!

I’m not queer anymore.¹

I’m absolutely, 100%, בײַסעקסועל² (or ³ביסעקסואַל, if you prefer).

But I’m also absolutely, 100%, not queer.

Queer, as a self-signifier, was on shaky ground, personally, even before October 7th 2023.

I’m old enough to remember when the word was mostly a weapon wielded by others. It took a long time for me to hear it without feeling a sting, and even longer to use it without worry.

Those decades of reclamation effort notwithstanding, the word started to lose its lustre and utility for me when I realised way too many Kinsey 6 über alles folk — especially among the terminally online — were using the term as an unspoken but not-nearly-as-subtle-as-they-thought-it-was way of excluding bisexual folk.

Bisexual folk who weren’t sufficiently queer according to their lights⁴ were the obvious targets. But, in the end, and at least in my experience, all bisexual folk were, in various ways, targeted by the unsubtle exclusionary hints embedded in the ways they used the word.

But, post–2023-10-7, I’ve abandoned the term entirely.

In English, at least (and again, in my experience), queer is now synonymous with Jew-hater. That is, the set of people most vociferously identifying as queer are, for practical purposes, also the set of people most vociferously acting as if Israel’s mere existence is a hate crime against their imaginary, universalist,⁵ utopian world dystopian fantasy.

Consequently, and except as a way of identifying those who’s violent bigotry is dangerous to me in multiple ways, I no longer have any use for the word.

 

 

addendum

I’ve heard קוויר-לײַט⁶ here and there. If it takes off in Jewish circles, I’ll go along with it, even though I likely won’t use it myself.

 

 

1. A sort-of apology for the title. As soon as the sentence occurred to me, I knew I wanted to both write down this quick, ≅450-word, note and post it with the click-baity title that spurred it into existence.

2. biseksual

3. beyseksuel

4. read: any bisexual person who dared act on their cross-gender attractions even in passing, let alone seriously. (There’s a coincidental parallel in this targeting as well. More than 80% of partner-bonded bisexual folk are in a bond that includes someone of another gender than themselves. Seeking to exclude this overwhelming majority sub-set of all bisexual folk from ‘queerdom’ is, in percentage terms, a whole lot like only approving of non-Zionist Jews.)

5. read: Judenfrei.

6. kvire-layt (translates to the hyphenated-even-in-English noun phrase queer-people or, perhaps LGBT+-people).

This is such a low level problem; אבל אני לומד עברית and I noticed, as a nonbinary person I struggle with the gendered word endings. Can anyone relate?

Also, I just finished Pimsleur and still lack confidence to speak. Looking for advice on solidifying my knowledge. Outside my congregation, I dont really know anyone who speaks Hebrew.

I’ll be traveling to visit my mom to help her recover from a surgery so I’ll be there about 3 weeks. I’d love to make some connections as I don’t really know anyone there in the community. My mom’s family isn’t Jewish (though my cousin used to work at the West Hartford JCC) so it’s not like I can rely on them.

About me: late 30s, cis, gay, bearish guy from Oregon. Some mobility issues (janked my knee bad a few years ago) but will have access to a car.