Thank you for this discussion Ali.

Take for example a trans male who his entire life has felt like, and known he was, a man, even before transitioning. And say that trans man has always been and is attracted to women. In my mind, he could very well identify as straight AND queer.

I am an older gay man, child of the ’60s and ’70s, who remembers well when queer was only a pejorative term. Queer equaled abomination and shame. I lived most of my adult life in New York, and early on, when the word was reclaimed, I embraced it conceptually even though I had discomfort calling myself queer. But as a gay artist who in the ’80s did gender performance work, the term made sense and I eventually included myself as a member of the queer community. I even fired a therapist, who accused me of self loathing, over not understanding my use of the term. (She, I believe, was the homophobe.)

Today, I feel it is quite possible to call oneself queer and not be gay. I can think of a few artists whose lives and work are so other as to fit my understanding of the term’s definition perfectly, if they so chose.