There was a time, not so long ago, when it was de rigeur to tell people that they were valid. I’m sure you remember doing this. Maybe you are still doing this. The idea was to confirm that people — usually trans people, though sometimes queers — were, in fact, who they said they were, that trans women are women, trans men are men, non-binary people are non-binary. Those genders? Valid! Stamped with a seal of approval from the community and its allies, unable to be voided by the evil transphobes.
Something like that.
In the circles I travel in, people don’t use “validity” in this way anymore, I think because it started to feel awkward, perhaps even patronizing, after a while. To confirm someone’s “validity” is to suggest that their identity might possibly be fraudulent — if no one felt the need to confirm cis people’s “validity,” then what did it mean that this was the crumb constantly being tossed to trans folk? What use was “validity” in an era of direct attacks on trans medical care; what did it mean if “validity” was all that allies had to offer?
Or maybe it was just that thing where after enough time, every inspiring catchphrase starts to feel a little cringe and hokey. Maybe it was that.
These days, when I hear about queer “validity,” it’s usually in a different context. It’s not so much about queer identities, or queer genders, being “valid” as in real and worthy of recognition in the broader cisheteropatriarchy. It’s about individuals having their own queerness validated. Is your bisexuality enough to make you “count” as queer, to get your queer card stamped, to give you access to queer spaces? Are you a valid queer, or are you just a pretender?
I’ve been thinking about this because of an Instagram post from the wellness publication Salty that’s been making the rounds on social media. The post — which I think is a summation of a Salty article that I cannot find in full owing to the fact that Salty is a newsletter and the navigation is confusing me — briefly walks the reader through the experience of a cis bi woman who experimented with non-binary identity before realizing that, nope, she’s cis. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that — I did it myself, it’s fine to explore gender identities and see what does and doesn’t stick for you — but I think the reason this essay is sticking in people’s craws is both because the woman in question specifically identifies as a bi cis woman who is primarily attracted to men, and because at one point she says this:
I used she/they pronouns for nearly a year. I immediately felt more queer. It didn’t matter if people in the community thought my bisexual identity was invalid, I would always be queer because I was nonbinary.
You could be forgiven for reading that and thinking that this woman is using marginalized gender identity as a way to get people to think that she is cool. Maybe that’s not what she means by “more queer,” but the context makes it feel that way. The cool queers reject you for being bisexual, but if you’re non-binary they have to let you into their club, right? No one can invalidate your queerness if it’s rooted in gender identity, even if your gender basically presents as cis. Not like they can if you’re bisexual, and especially if you’re bisexual with a strong hetero lean.
I will admit at this point that while I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the fact that this woman experimented with non-binary identity before deciding that, nope, she’s just a bi cis woman, and while I don’t think that bi cis women with a strong hetero lean are “not really bi,” I do think that this framing — this quest for “queer validity” — is basically… bad. It reifies the idea that queerness is a club that you prove you’re cool enough to enter rather than a reflection of one’s experience of marginalization and oppression. It makes queerness some aspirational lifestyle rather than a flag that society is constantly telling you that you are wrong.
And the thing of it is, like — personally, I don’t give a shit if other queers see me as “valid.” I mean I used to, sure. I used to want the party invites, I used to want to fit in, I used to want “my people” to recognize me as queer. But after literal decades out of the closet, I don't really know what purpose that “validation” serves. I still face the same bullshit for being bi whether or not my queer card gets someone’s stamp of approval. I still face the elevated risk of rape and abuse, I still face the harassment, I still struggle with getting my bi-specific mental health issues recognized by therapists. These problems don’t go away just because another queer decides that I’m not cool enough to be in their cool club. The validation proffered here is kind of irrelevant, because queers don’t get to decide if I’m “actually queer.” That’s a status forced on me by a cis hetero world that doesn’t like when I step out of line.
In the backlash to this Salty post — because of course there was backlash — I saw someone complain about publications platforming the emotional struggles of white cis bi women who are basically straight while other folks are out there constantly fighting for fundamental human rights. And this too struck me as irritating. Because if your whole deal is fighting for liberation, then what are you even doing dunking on some lady because you think she’s insufferable? Why are you ranking experiences of oppression rather than simply trying to eliminate it across the board? You’re allowed to not like this lady — you’re allowed to not like any bi people, I truly don’t give a fuck — but amplifying her to decry her as insufficiently queer, as insufficiently committed to the cause… it’s just reinforcing the very same idea of queerness as “coolness” and “cred” that led to the essay in the first place.
Everyone is valid, everyone is invalid. If you feel that you are queer you are. I don’t really care very much anymore. All of this is just words, you know? What I care about is what you are doing to create a world where none of this actually matters — where the way that you choose to structure your romantic life, where the way that you choose to present your gender, where the how and when and why of your sexual exploits is all entirely up to you. I care about what you are doing to build a world where “validity” doesn’t matter because the whole idea of someone else certifying your personal identity as legitimate is completely ridiculous. I care about about what are doing to build a world where everyone has the freedom to simply be.
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Thank you for this post! I was so dismayed that this random essay at a low profile publication became an excuse to mock bi women. The backlash against that post is the only reason I or anyone I know even knew about that essay. The posture reflected by the backlash is why the original author even felt the need to write her story in the first place. It’s all so self defeating. Just traumatized people mocking each other instead of fighting back. Thank you for breaking it down like this.