Performing Queerness Is Still Performing Society
Let’s tell the truth
Most of what we call queerness today is still a performance
Still society/patriarchy/colonialism/westernism/reductionist/binary/rigid/ancient/outdated/expired
&
Still constructed
&
Still digestible
&
Still crafted in the image of what the dominant culture demands, just with more eyeliner and hashtags
Being queer doesn’t mean being free
Not automatically
Not if the movements themselves still center the same binary thinking they claim to destroy
Because make no mistake
Most people, regardless of their chosen identity, are still binary thinkers
Even if the performance looks new
Even if the language has been updated
You peel back the glitter, the theory, the aesthetic
& underneath you still find hierarchy
Still find power dynamics disguised as “progress”
Still find scripts
Just rewritten for a different audience
Society teaches us to perform society
It doesn’t care what costume we choose
As long as we hit our cues and don’t improvise too much
& queerness, for all its potential, has been folded into that game
People perform “nonbinary” to feel free while the word binary is in the name of their identity
People perform “inclusive” while demanding conformity to their own internal world view, not described, explained, or conversated about, simply demanded to be compliance with
People claim freedom while enforcing new rules of legibility
New rules of attraction
New rules of acceptance
But nothing about this is free
A truly radical space—an actually queer space—would not just rearrange the costumes
It would let people fall apart
Deconstruct
Become whole on their own terms
Without needing to reassemble into a familiar shape just to be seen
It would prioritize embodiment over performance
Self-recognition over social validation
It would say: you don’t owe anyone your alignment
Not with femininity
Not with masculinity
Not with womanhood
Not with manhood
Not with any category built to police desire or assign value
This is personal for me
Because I am homosexual
I have always known I was homosexual
I didn’t learn it
I felt it
I remembered it
But even knowing that, I couldn’t find love
Not because of my sex
But because of gender
Because I am not a woman
I don’t understand “woman”
I never did, try as I might to perform the assignment given to me by the silence in the throat of my online matches
& the pressure to perform as one—or desire one in the approved way—never sat right in my body
I do not appreciate being forced to identify as a pronoun that inevitability leads back to centuries of abuse against my flesh
Modern queer discourse demands that I want what they approve of
That I desire according to their rebranded binary
That I erase my boundaries for the sake of inclusion
But I don’t want men
& I don’t want women either
I want females from my own species, homo sapien& with nüroDEFIANT minds
I want to love someone who, like me, knows what it is to be female
Knows it without needing to perform it
& when I say that
When I say I might love a trans man
& not a trans woman
Because I am more like him than her
I’m told I’m wrong
I’m told I’m exclusionary
I’m told I’m a bigot
By people who only see projections of their need for control when they look at me
But I’m not here to make anyone comfortable
I’m not here to rearrange my desire to suit the dominant narrative
Even if that narrative is dressed up in Pride flags and Instagram infographics
I reject binary thinking
In all forms
Not just because it feels wrong
But because it limits what we can become
When masculinity becomes proof you are “not a woman”
When femininity becomes the passport to “real” identity
That’s not queerness
That’s control
It’s oppression with a different color scheme
So no
I don’t owe anyone my acceptance of their framework
I don’t need to affirm your role in the binary
To validate my exit from it
And I won’t pretend queerness is working for all of us
Not while it still demands we perform legibility to be seen
Not while it still erases the bodies it can’t categorize cleanly
This Pride
I’m not performing queerness
I’m embodying sovereignty
I’m not here to be understood
I’m here to be whole
Sov4Sov
No scripts
No apologies
