Journal

three days to last quarter
june 11, 2001 ~ 10:06 p.m.

They killed Timothy McVeigh this morning. This really pisses me off. Don’t get me wrong, I have very little doubt in my mind that he did it, but he did it to seek justice against the government for what he thought was wrong -- and now they’re seeking justice against him. Who’s going to seek justice against the executioner, and against whoever kills them? It’s all so fucking hypocritical. And it doesn’t even work, it doesn’t deter crime.

Anyway. Here’s a quote from Too Queer. I’m sure a quote this long violates copyright laws, but so what:

I have used the word queer since 1982. I’ve used it for several reasons: I like sound of it. I like the fact that the letter Q is so radically different from every other letter in our alphabet and so rarely used. I like what the word means; it feels elegant to me. And I like that it is gender-neutral -- it isn’t a word in which women are always an afterthought, like gay....As a woman, a lesbian, an activist, and a writer, I know that naming is power. It is control. I have been through the many name changes of this community, have heard gay men tell me that it is “too cumbersome” to say gay and lesbian, that gay includes everybody -- just like mankind includes everybody. Well, I believe that queer actually does include everybody. It includes women and men, whites and people of color, abled and disabled, all ethnicities, all faiths, all ages, all classes. Queer is inclusive. It is not the medical-census-psychiatric term homosexual; it is not the male slang term from a century ago, gay. It is both fresh and new while also incorporating our bitter memories. It is like the pink triangle -- a brand and a talisman and an honor.

This is exactly what I’ve been thinking. No other word includes everyone of the GLBT community. Homosexual is too scientific and excludes both bisexuals and transsexuals. Gay also excludes them, but it excludes women as well, because gay is too often only applied to men. Fag and Dyke are not only still offensive if used in the wrong way or by the wrong people, but also are gender-specific. Queer, while once an insult, has come to include everyone in our community: lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transsexuals.

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