I have to agree with LAS.

Keep your labels off my body. Just because we agree that TG is fine doesn't mean you get to label US.

The whole "don't label me" thing is a little out of hand but I think this is an area where labels actually don't help anything at all, and I don't want to be labeled any more than LAS does. I'm not straight, I'm not queer, I'm not bi, I'm not anything. I'm a person and I have sex (and relationships) like I want to. Fuck right off, it's my business.

And yeah, I know, I know, "communities" and "convenience of identification" and "cognitive shortcuts" and blah blah blah, I'm not in the mood today. Fuck off.

I agree with LAS. Reading that column this morning, I raised an eyebrow at Kate Bornstein's comment. For all the talk about labels and identity, it's interesting that she was so aggressive about telling him how he should think about himself.

I think even the sentiment that someone supporting equal rights for everyone including LGBT is called "one of us, part of our tribe" isn't necessary unless that tribe is all people everywhere. It kind of goes against the notion that you don't have to belong to a group to respect it's rights as equal to your own.
I have LG&B friends and family who's equal rights I fully support, but it'd be a really big stretch to say that I'm any part of a LGBT tribe.

well, now that you've rejected the name they chose for you, you're out of the tribe for sure.

Literally while reading the print article, I got pissed off.

Seriously, just because you invite us to dinner and parties and your weddings doesn't mean we're the same.

It's a rainbow, not a straightjacket.

Whatever, as a sex-positive, LGBT-supportive straight boy, I'm honored to be a part of the queer tribe.

I love my gay brothers and lesbian sisters, although honestly, it'd be nice if the lesbian sisters were available to hang out a little more often, or at least sent a Christmas card.

Also, a person who says "I'm straight, take my sex straight and vanilla, but identify as queer" is gonna get eleventy kinds of "Oh no, you're not!" Pfui!

+1 straight. I appreciate the open-arms sentiment, but it came across to me as if Kate was implying that "straight" = "homophobic", and I found that quite offensive.

& isn't there already a word for us to denote our affiliation with the queer community? Allies? Is that still a thing?

I consider "gay" to be the opposite of "straight," whereas "queer" can also describe a political stance. I consider myself "queer," in this sense, and I sign petitions, support businesses, and give money accordingly. I don't donate to bell-ringing Salvation Army Santas, buy trees from the Boy Scouts of America, or vote for anyone who doesn't support equal rights. You don't need to know who I fuck (or which variety of G or B or L or T I identify with, if any) to accurately describe me as "queer," or "queer-positive."

I would agree, except a) he was PRESIDENT of his gay/straight alliance. That is some varsity-level alliedness. And b) that was Kate Freaking Bornstein calling him queer! What an honor!

Seriously, if you check out her "it gets better" video, you'd see she's super loving and this was her way of showing it, rather than her saying that all straight allies need to identify as queer.

I agree. I'm a hetero ciswoman, and it seems to me that adopting the label 'queer' would be a misappropriation of the label. I'm definitely supportive of LGBT rights, because I see it as an extension of human rights. I'm proud to call myself an ally, but queer just feels inauthentic when applied to me.

I'm gay, but don't call me queer. Maybe I'm old, but the word "queer" still gets my hackles up. Yah, yah, I know, you youngin's are reclaiming the word. But I'm not quite with you on all that reclaiming crap.

It isn't just straight allies that dislike that label. I hate it too.

I already belong to so many socio-cultural tribes as it is, it's not like adding one more is going to make a difference.

How about "Honorary Homosexual"? It's the title I bestowed to a completely hunky, completely nice natured, and unfortunately completely heterosexual neighbor who oh so politely declined my offer to indulge in some hanky panky, when we both lived on Rainier Ave. S. many, many years ago.

My ex had this phobia about identifying as straight/hetero. She preferred to identify as queer, even though she had zero interest in women and she wasn't exactly gender-queer either. I once asked her why she identified that way, and her basic response was "I'm not straight," but the way she said the word "straight" with such contempt was bizarre to me. It was like she was ashamed of being straight, which really bugged me. That made about as much sense as being ashamed of being gay.

There's really no way around two simple things:
1. Kate's comment was a de facto statement that "straight" is the same as "bigot".
2. She should own up to that and apologize.

Dan, the "part of our tribe" reasoning is weak. Furthermore, the idea of a group of people corralled into a tribe solely based on their sexual orientation frustrates the hell out of me. LAS is rad because his existence, unlike so many jaded queers, isn't solely defined by his orientation or gender. Leave it to queers to pigeonhole him because of his beliefs.

Equating "straight" and "homophobic" (or transphobic) is going to pointlessly alienate a lot of people.

The simple fact is that most straight people really couldn't give a flying fuck what label 2% of the population gives to us. It's simply not on our radar.

The people who don't support gay rights are the ones who should be singled out and labled -- as homophobic bigots.

I'm not a big fan of the whole "I'm offended" thing. Saying a douchy thing is wrong because it's a douchy thing, not because it is offensive. If I look at a person and, say, use a racial epithet, that word is unacceptable, period, even if the person I use it on laughs in my face and isn't troubled a bit.

If we start using "offensive" then we are in risk of joining the Official Whiny Grievance Brigade and, frankly, I think we straights don't want to go there.

GLAAD much, anyone? All this fuss over whether a straight ally is 'queer' or not. Just shows that word is still a very loaded one, especially for straight men.

This is not the first time such a thing has happened. It happened in the women's' rights movement when straight females started identifying themselves as lesbians because, regardless of their sexual orientation, when they advocated for women's rights, the Right Wing called them lesbians.

So, yeah. I kinda get the LW's drift. He's not embracing the name "queer-het". A female is imposing it on him. I think he's evolving in the right direction but, wait, let him evolve at his own pace. Anyone else who wants to embrace the power of "queer-het" - Wecome Aboard!

@4 - period

I'm may be off topic here (I left my reading glasses on the plane....but that's for another day)...

Most people probably do fall somewhere along the spectrum of totally straight to totally gay. But I'm sure there are many people who are absolutely at one end or the other. If I am "completely gay", and I am, then it stands to reason that there are also people who are "completely straight".

I work with several really hot guys who are completely straight, and are so comfortable with their sexuality that mine is of zero consequence to them. But I can't tell you the number of times that I've heard "he must be partially gay" or "he's just two beers away from having a **** in his mouth" from my gay brothers and sisters. It seems that these guys can't really buy a break. They're damned if they do or damned if they don't.

Being a straight person who supports queer rights doesn't make you queer, it makes you a mensch. And the world needs more menschen.

#28: Yay!

Queer heterosexual, mensch... it's all good. I don't care what I am called, I care how about how I'm treated.

Breeder. That's a horrid label.

I've never thought of myself as queer straight, but I get where there is a place for this. And why some people would choose to use it for themselves.

The issue is about having a label applied by one person to another person, more than anything.

@28: Well said.

What's wrong with the term "straight ally"?

@25 Actually, "political lesbianism" was a real thing. Some straight feminists who began calling themselves lesbians were actually trying to identify that way and have same sex relationships, believing that lesbians were the only women who could free themselves of internalized patriarchy. It wasn't simply a response to being called lesbians.

really? i thought GLBT people don't want us hets sniffing around in their community. you know, stay off our softball teams and stay out of our bars? which is it, alphabet soupers? all of us or none of us?

@31: Breeder. That's a horrid label.

Oh, man, that term takes me back to the halcyon days when Savage Love was just getting started. I always thought the term was funny, and it used to be a way for a straight person to identify themselves as being in the know (e.g., "Dear Faggot, I'm a twenty-something breeder boy who's girlfriend doesn't like blow jobs. Please help!").

And Kim Deal even used it as a band name!

If Dan used the terms "faggot" and "breeder" in his column these days, it would cause a huge stink. Not sure if that's a sign of progress or not.

@33: believing that lesbians were the only women who could free themselves of internalized patriarchy

Ah yes, Andrea Dworkin's whole anti-porn, "straight sex == rape" thing. Thanks to her, Ed Meese, and AIDS, ours was easily the most sex-negative generation since the pilgrims in 1620.

Yet it was the puritanical swamp of the 80's that gave birth to Savage Love...

My objection to calling straight allies "queer" isn't so much about people judging me badly for being queer. I dont' care about that. I just don't think that most queer people will respond with "Welcome to the club!" I expect them to say "No you're not!"

I'm not going to bruise my already fragile ego by trying to be part of a label that I don't really need.

UGH. This reminds me of when my sister switched her facebook orientation to 'queer'.
She's never been involved in anything but textbook straight relationships and it annoyed the hell out of me. Supporting a minority group's rights does not automatically include you n their group. Do I get to be a person of colour because I am supportive of their actions and their communities? Don't think so.

Troll: One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument - Urban Dictionary

"Queer heterosexual"
"Go have good sex with cis women"
"One day he might meet the right trans person"

Bornstein's comments are what I would expect Rick Santorum fans to use if they were trying to troll SLOG

Dan, she didn't just say "You're one of us, part of the tribe." She all but re-enacted the dinner scene from "Freaks."

Count me as Bornstein just wanting to be inclusive, by saying that if you're completely supportive of the community then you are a full member of that community. There's also some strategic thinking possibly. By now the number of fully supportive straight folks probably outnumber the total number of LGBT folks. If you can get suppotive straights to identify as queer, you make the community much, much larger.

I object to the label, but not because I find it offensive. As a 100% supportive straight woman I actually find the impulse to be sweet. My problem is that it does the opposite of what sexual orientation labels are supposed to do, which is clarify your orientation/identity. If I identify as queer, it will be assumed, quite reasonably, that my sexuality is something other than cis-heterosexual. Confusion will ensue. I'll stick to straight ally, myself.

Personally I thought that the comment was sweet. I didn't take it as Ms. Bornstein trying to re-define the letter writer's sexual identity. It seemed to me to be an affirmation of trust. As if she was saying, "You are family to us."

Then again, I'm not offended by the word "breeder" either. It depends on the context of course. If a friend calls me that, I will know it for the joke/smart ass comment that it is and laugh. If it's said in anger, I would mostly be confused as to what had inspired that person to lash out at me. The conversations that have occurred on this board in the past week, about words and the power and meaning behind them, have been really interesting. They've given me a lot to think about.

What's wrong with words like 'allies' or 'surporters'?

I love Kate Bornstein and have taught her work, but.... This reminds me of the time one of my black students, who knew me as an ally, discovered one of my brothers is black, and he was stunned and immediately declared me black. I had to explain to him that what I had witnessed my brother being put through as we grew up (and still as an adult) made it very clear to me that I'm not black, no matter how much I "got it."

I think for me to identify as "queer" would be to belittle what many queer people go through; indeed, it would seem almost to suggest what they went through was their choice to go through?

I've chosen to be an ally, but they didn't chose to need "It Gets Better."

I agree with LAS. I don't like the label police, especially when they invent new confusing labels to police. Reminds me of the Lovecast question from the bi guy who only liked to call himself "bent." Well good for you for being bent, but nobody's going to know what that means unless you explain that you're into guys and girls. In the same way, "queer heterosexual" will require further explanation where "gay-supportive straight guy" is self-explanatory. Also, to say he shouldn't call himself "straight" implies that being "straight," by definition, is to be intolerant, and that's a bad message to send to both straight and gay people. Let's please stop dictating to our allies so that they support us exactly the way we want them to support us.

I'm with LAS. Let him label himself. I actually get mildly annoyed (but only mildly) when supportive straight allies label themselves as queer to be part of the community. I get that it's hard to feel outside of our fabulous community, and our allies are welcome to join us, but you don't have to adopt a label that doesn't really fit. Maybe we need some sort of "allies" term so they can feel more included.

@47 - Perhaps SLOG would pay more attention if your unregistered comments weren't hidden. Register a handle so your daily diatribes can be seen. Coward.

I've always wondered who "queer" applies to. Straight but kinky? Straight but poly? Straight leather fetish? Never considered straight but ally.

@seandr, who wrote:

If Dan used the terms "faggot" and "breeder" in his column these days, it would cause a huge stink. Not sure if that's a sign of progress or not.

I think it isn't a sign of progress. It looks to me more like a sign that policing others has replaced being sensitive to others. So many people are more interested in telling others how they should or shouldn't talk than in really understanding what does or does not offend them, and why they talk the way they do...

I concur. Taking a word that already has an established meaning, "straight," and pretending that it means something that it does not really mean, such as "homophobe," just confuses people.

When KB said to FRAUD, "You're not straight," she was ignoring the fact that that literally means "therefore you are gay." "Straight" doesn't mean "non-kinky, non-supportive, homophobe, etc." That's just what KB WISHES it meant. It's insulting.

Quelle tedium.

To the anon posting about Danny Vega, it might be a good idea to email your questions to the Stranger's staff instead of posting them in the comments. There's a contact link on the front page.

Mr Ank - You are reminding me of my Homocentric August, during which period one of my little habits was to start writing a phrase that was patently homosexist and then pointedly correct myself to a hetero-accepting substitute. The exercise in general went rather better than I expected.

I've been wondering, though, ever since you mentioned your friend who hates emoticons, about how far your sensitivity to others extends. I entirely agree that one cannot just excise anything that somebody finds objectionable from one's vocabulary. But your examples, such as your friend's hatred for emoticons and your wife's distress at all things Romanian, were all, as I recall, personal. I presume you aren't being required or requested to hold the same such prejudices yourself.

The reasoning you gave, though, could just as easily apply to someone who is racist or sexist or otherwise prejudiced by has sufficient manners to govern his tongue when around those against whom the prejudice would apply. Is there any specific example of some word you don't use because it offends many people, even if you are in company with somebody who doesn't find it offensive and you don't entirely agree with the offense taken at your putative usage?

I have particular examples in mind, but alas no time to flesh anything out at present.

I frequently call myself culturally lesbian. My hair is short, I drive a subaru station wagon, avoid shaving, hang out with queers, listen to angry lady music, wear combat boots and support LGBT and women's rights constantly. I just also like dick (along with a few other straight-stereotypical hobbies). So I do think there is an element of what this lady was trying to say that goes beyond straight=bigot. Maybe she was trying to get at being a straight person who feels like a native in the queer culture.

On the other hand, screw this lady because my biggest annoyance in the queer world and the larger straight dating scene has to be the inescapable assumption that queer-friendly, queer-cultural or whatever secretly means queer. You only need to have one woman watch you fuck her husband and then expect her turn to get really pissed off at queer-assuming. The last thing straight allies need is a queer label.

http://whiskeyandhaterade.blogspot.com/

Once again, Kate was using "queer" in the academic sense, where it doesn't pertain (necessarily) to sexuality. Under that definition, being gay makes one "queer" or culturally-non-normative. So does engaging in BDSM, being Black, being elderly (and not conforming to normative codes of behavior for elderly persons), being physically or mentally handicapped, even being female/female-presenting/female-read/a woman (and not following a still relatively strict cultural script). "Straight" was, a ways back, the opposite to queer - its implications were not limited to sexualities; think of "the straight man" in a comedy duo or "on the straight and narrow". "Straight" was adopted as the term to represent the heretofore-unmarked category once the "gay" identity was articulated and gained cultural capital (much like "cisgender" as a response to "transgender"; it's a bit funny to me that so many of you who are defending your "straight" identities objected to "cisgender" in the other thread, as straight was also an imposed label conceived to mark a culturally-unmarked category). These are being deployed here to comment on larger notions of cultural restriction and social conformity.

Further, the expectation to not be labeled by others is a function of social privilege. Either get over it, or never again complain about the proper application of terms in any context. If I can't label you how I need to for my own convenience in forming groups and categories, then no one can label anyone, and the entire concept of identities, group or community membership, and sort of ascribed description goes out the window; we will have gone over the postmodern precipice into the canyon of meaninglessness. The problems come about when social status or essentialist notions become attached to those labels or identities; I'm suspicious that many of you are objecting to "queer" because you read a lower social status or a loss of privilege into that (I don't know, though; I'm only speculating based on the fact that, other than total ignorance of the historical and contemporary uses of "queer", I can't come up with any alternate reasons that make sense, and I know that once I disabused myself of essentialist notions of identity, I stopped caring in the slightest how people label me). Other people have a right, I would even say a need, to label you. You have every right to challenge that label, but ultimately, insisting that everyone accept your self-label at face value and never attempt to use anything other than that to describe you is as much an exercise in cultural hegemony as insisting that your labels for everyone else are also the only "correct" ones: I don't have to accept your self-identity any more than you have to accept the identity that I ascribe to you (and, yes, this goes for trans activists too; by all means, keep challenging ascribed identities, but also realize that there are reasons other than transphobia that people may not agree with your organizational schema).

I think Kate said that with the best of intentions, to be inclusive of an ally, but did it the wrong way, by basically telling him that he shouldn't identify the way he feels comfortable about identifying himself.

I would put this under the category of "good idea, bad execution".

I just want to say, I'm straight, and I got mad about Kate's labeling too. I am attracted to women. That is my sexual orientation. That is the end of the story (or beginning, whatever). I am not a homophobic bigot. I am also not queer; I don't think these things really contradict each other.
Yes, I occasionally wear purple shirts, or ties. I use a pink sports water bottle. But I am still straight, and I am not queer straight. I know people, whom I like and respect, who are queer-straight. I am not. Perhaps it makes me a little boring, but I am what I am. which is not queer.

@39: Having only textbook straight relationships doesn't necessarily mean that one hasn't had queer non-relationship experiences. I don't know how close you and your sister are, but I certainly don't tell my siblings about my one-night stands with men and women, and if I hadn't told them I was bi they certainly wouldn't be able to tell based on my official relationships.

As for "queer heterosexual"... If someone identified themselves that way to me, I would assume that they were into BDSM or were poly or some other kind of non-normative hetero. Using queer to mean any kind of straight ally of the LGBT community just seems like it would cause confusion.

Well, I like being called a queer heterosexual, personally. "Straight Ally" just seems to me to be holding the hets at arms length, which bothers me. But if you want to be called straight, that's cool too