Am I the only one who just...doesn't care anymore if a particular queer identity is "a thing"? Not like I don't care about people's identities, I just...don't feel the need to know what "is" and "isn't" considered a "real" queer thing. Call yourself whatever you want, I'll respect it so long as you're not blatantly being an asshole (ie self identified terfs and exclusionists). I just don't care about all this intra-community drama over needing to know what the "acceptable" queer identities are. This isn't against the previous anon btw who asked if male lesbians are a thing. I love when people ask me if something exists because it often (but not always ofc) means they're thinking they might be the thing in question. But as far as all the in fighting, the gatekeeping, etc...I just don't care.
oof i feel that. as long as it's in good faith, i don't care how someone identifies. like you said, not in the sense that i'm dismissing them or their identity and what it means to them, but in the "i don't need you to prove or defend or explain your identity to me in a way i find acceptable in order to support you" sense.
queerness should be personal and played with. it should not be full of rigid rules imposed by randoms on the internet who don't know anything about queerness to begin with. let queerness be diverse and messy and contradictory and complicated and blurry. let people use whatever words they want to describe something only they know the ins and outs of. trust that queer people are experts in themselves.
and when it comes to people asking if x identity is a thing, like you said, it can indicate that they're questioning their identity and if they're that identity, but it also shows that they're curious about queerness and want to learn and expand their knowledge on and support for queerness, and that they're not just taking the word of people who scream about how someone's self identification is the root of all queerphobia. which is always fucking awesome.
