Oh hello darling, and welcome back to age month. Today I want to talk about one of the things that I hear all the time.
Being openly queer in 2019, I have faced a lot of abuse. Verbal and physical. Yet it is the comments that genuinely question my very existence that really stick in my head. I don’t know how many times I have heard that being queer, non binary or trans is just a trend. It is something that only young people are doing, for attention,
That an actual gender identity is even being questioned is plain offensive, but here we are. However, I refuse to let comments like that pass. There are two main issues here that we need to break down.
Firstly that queer is not only a young persons experience. Okay so the Stonewall riots happened 50 years ago, now I am sure there were young people there. You cannot refute though that 50 years ago equates to modernity. We are talking about people that we’re fighting the same things we are now.
There are people that have been fighting for decades since, and continue to do so to this day. There are so many queer people in this world and they are represented by all ages. Queer has no age limit, being young is not a requirement.
What I am trying to say here is that being queer is NOT A NEW THING. It is not a trend, it is nothing that we haven’t seen before for CENTURIES. Which brings me to the second and crucial linch pin to debunking this offensive myth that some people choose to spout.
Technology. Yes it all comes down to our access to media. More than ever before, we are exposed to so much all the time. We have 24/7 news, thousands of tv channels, and of course social media. So now can you see it? What some people confuse with a rise in popularity of being queer, is just a rise in visibility of queer people.
Queer people find each other and make communities. Through the safety of Instagram and the like, we are able to meet and talk to likeminded people, more than ever before. We are so lucky that we have the technology at our fingertips.
So there is not a huge new surge of queerness, just an influx of visibility. Isn’t it astonishing how narrow minded people are so easily confused?! There is something that is different for younger queer people, we feel safer to explore who we are at a younger age because of the fighting of past generations.
We are more visible and open because of the tireless campaigning and lives of queer people past. They worked hard for us to have the present we have now. In order to pay thanks to all their hard work, we have to do the same for the future queer people. Which is exactly what I try to do every day.
Join me next week for the conclusion of Age Month
Shot by Rachel Pechey
Shop my lewk:
Top: ASOS Curve
Trousers: River Island, very old
Sandals: Evans
Earrings: Mango, Sold out