what i was taught about queerness growing up

A friend of mine decided to hold an interview with me about my experience as a queer diasporic Asian — it inevitably devolved into me unleashing a pained rant about our community’s collective upbringing as forced members of the social periphery. Below is the transcript.

"I’m not sure it was taught to me because I wasn’t really like sat down and told like, 'Hey gay people are gross.' Like that has never like happened to me. But it’s more like offhand comments—I think that’s how it typically goes.

I was taught that queerness inherently makes you vulnerable. I don’t think I was directly taught that, but it was something I learned residually from being online and seeing how people were treated. I learned that being queer makes you vulnerable, being queer makes you a walking target, it makes you immediately more huntable. It makes you stand out more if you don’t hide it. If you don’t hide it, you are a walking target for many different kinds of groups.

So I guess I was also taught that queerness was something to hide or to disguise—because I didn’t hide my queerness, but I disguised it and made it palatable. I was taught that queerness had to be palatable. Which means watering down so much of yourself to the point where cis people can finally consume it and not feel disgusted.

These are really horrible and unhealthy things to be taught about queerness but it’s something I feel like all of us kind of were taught. I hate it. I despise it, I feel deep amounts of rage… for cisheteronormative society to ever teach someone that they are inherently vulnerable. This is probably why I resent cishet people because centuries of indoctrination have led so many people to believe that they are not safe. And security is something we desperately need. As humans, we want to feel secure, we want to feel protected and connected. And when you have cishet people telling you that you are not safe here, that does things to you, psychologically. And so I resent cishet society for doing that to queer people. I would change that so much if I could, but I hate that it’s something that we’ve always been taught.

It’s not something that you can flip a switch and say, 'Oh suddenly you don’t have to feel in danger anymore.' It’s something that you are born knowing. The concept of coming out is something that I have a lot of gripes over because culturally, it has a lot of significance. It’s a sacred rite of passage that a lot of queer people go through. And it’s something to be expected in queer culture—when I say expected, it’s like when you’re queer, you have to come out in order to be recognized as a member of society when cishet people don’t have to do jackshit to already be acknowledged and actualized.

When you are queer, you are denied identification. I think that does a number of things to the way you perceive yourself. Because when you’re denied identification, you’re denied security, you’re denied the confidence that you exist as a person. I did not think I existed as a person because I felt like I wasn’t truly seen as a person who was queer.

I have a lot of gripes with it because queer people shouldn’t have to come out at all. Coming out is a mechanization to help queer people assimilate into cishet society. That’s mainly what it is. Queer people only have to come out because cishet people made it that way. That’s why I resent it so much. When you come out, you perpetuate the idea that queer people are inherently unseen and inherently subordinate to cishet rule.

And I know it means a lot. I know it means a lot to people because coming out usually means acceptance—well not usually, but coming out means the possibility—it’s not even the assurance, it’s the possibility that you are accepted, which is already really awful to think about. You already don’t know if you will be accepted, if you’ll be loved, if you’ll be acknowledged as much as a cishet person.

I think that’s what gets me so much. That queer people have to put themselves through so much vulnerability just to receive the bare minimum cishet people are given when they are born. That’s something I resent deeply.

Queer people should not have to come out. Queer people should not have to come out. They should not have to come out at all. They shouldn’t have to assimilate to cishet society at all—why do you want to assimilate to the oppressor in the first place? That’s not the point. You shouldn’t be taught that you want the oppressor’s acceptance.

That’s another thing: you’re taught that you want to gain the acceptance of the oppressor. You’re taught that you want cishet people’s love, you are taught that you want cishet people’s acceptance. Fuck if anyone cares—if a cishet person likes who I am or not. Why do I need their acceptance to exist as a person? Why do I need a straight person to validate anything about how I feel? Why do I feel like I have to be seen by a straight person in order to exist? I resent cishet society for not only rejecting queer people but making it feel like in order to stop feeling rejected, they have to play by cishet rule.

I hate the creators of this entire system of assimilation for queer people to jump hurdles and do all these things—you know when trans people want to get gender-affirming surgery, they have to get legally and medically confirmed that they are trans in order for a cishet person to determine that they are trans enough to get surgery? That’s fucked up. Why should a trans person have to prove anything to a medical institution that they want surgery?

Cis people don’t have to fucking do that—if a cis person wants to get their breasts removed, they don’t fucking say shit but when a trans person wants to get their breasts removed, they have to like they have to go to therapy, they have to see a psychologist, have to get medical documents authorized and everything, why?

Why do you need people? Why do you need validation? Why are you taught that you need the oppressor’s validation? Why has the oppressor taught us that we need their validation in order to feel loved?

I have so much rage, so much resentment… so fucking much resentment, for this stupid white cishet patriarchal institution that we fucking have to deal with. I hate everything about it. This is abuse. This is abusive.

It’s an abusive power structure that we have been taught to accept. We’ve been taught to accept it—we’ve been taught to do anything but feel like we deserve more. We’ve been taught that this is what we deserve… we’ve been taught that we don’t deserve more than this. You’ve been taught that this is what we should be happy with and that’s… that’s something that makes me really sad. That a lot of people are settling for this very low bar that this fucking place has set for us.