On Stereotypes & Queer Identity

I’d always despised being put into stereotypes even when I was a really young child. To be pigeonholed as a boy or a Malay kid felt so incredibly offensive to me. It felt like it was a violation of my own individualism, which was both a natural thing and a conscious effort. How dare you reduce me to a loosely-connected list of characteristics society had deemed to be typical of a person of my gender or race or any other such categorisations?

But now I find myself finding delight in relating to the queer stereotypes presented to me on the likes of lgbtqia+ TikTok and Twitter. It’s utterly alarming what I consider to be the height of humour nowadays is me and my sapphic, asexual bb Dayah Maha calling each other gay for falling into gay cliches, or me and my bisexual, asexual bb Bash sending each other queer tiktoks.

Am I being hypocritical? Was I too easily offended? Am I a self-loathing homophobic bisexual? Could that even be a thing? 

There’s lots to be said about the performativity of gender and sexuality, mostly by people smarter and more informed than me. One thing I’d like to pick up from that is the fact that it often fortifies a sense of belonging to members of a community who before that might not have felt like they belonged anywhere. The way one might speak, dress themselves, or act are all part and parcel of self-identification.

This is where I’m at. For the longest time, I was searching for the right terminology. The right community. 

Yes, labels can be restricting, but it can also be self-affirming. To finally find a descriptor so fitting is a different level of freeing. 

Sometimes these stereotypes explain to you a part of yourself you never found easily explainable before. It’s like someone who just discovered horoscopes and found that certain parts of their personality was connected to whatever their moon rising is (I don’t do horoscopes, so don’t kill me if I got this wrong).

Will all the stereotypes fit? Of course not. Is every facet of my personality explainable through the lens of my sexuality? Not even close.

But just like zodiacs, sometimes these stereotypes are just a little bit of fun. 

There’s a caveat to this though. If you’re not queer (or if I don’t know you very well), don’t even dare to joke with me using these queer stereotypes. Only fellow queers can do that. 

Just because I do it with my queer friends doesn’t mean straight friends are allowed to do that. Not even if you think you’re doing it ‘out of love’. It’s all about power dynamics and punching down, and a straight person calling a gay person ‘fag’ is offensive, no matter how loving you think you’re being, or how progressive you say you are. And that’s on the long history of homophobia and abuse in our society.

Straight people, we love you, but you are too much sometimes. 

Edited to update out Maha's deadname