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Queer Quotes

Browse 393 quotes about Queer.

Queer Quotes

“If your organization is not formally committed to a policy of nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression or gender presentation in its employment practices, you should not expect lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender-nonconforming, queer, and/or questioning patients and families to feel safe seeking out your services.”

“At the core of Lacanian ethics if therefore the idea that the subject who steps into the real - the place of the lack in the Other - severes its ties to the symbolic order. Such a subject is no longer embarassed by its inability to adhere to the rules of social behavior but instead embraces - feels compelled to embrace - the destructive energies of the real. This subject is not interested in trying to solve its problem within the parameteres of the system but rather insists on changing the game entirely, on defying the very structuring principles of the system, which is why the act opens a gateway to what might, from the perspective of the established order, seem completely inconceivable (or even utterly insane).”

“At the core of Lacanian ethics is therefore the idea that the subject who steps into the real - the place of the lack in the Other - severes its ties to the symbolic order. Such a subject is no longer embarassed by its inability to adhere to the rules of social behavior but instead embraces - feels compelled to embrace - the destructive energies of the real. This subject is not interested in trying to solve its problem within the parameteres of the system but rather insists on changing the game entirely, on defying the very structuring principles of the system, which is why "the act" opens a gateway to what might, from the perspective of the established order, seem completely inconceivable (or even utterly insane).”

“[John] Money spent the rest of his childhood in a predominantly female household in consistent poverty. His childhood instilled in him a dislike of religious dogma and sexual prudery as well as a deep class-consciousness alongside his ambition to transcend his meager beginning, Science would become his religion.”

“Money spent the rest of his childhood in a predominantly female household in consistent poverty. His childhood instilled in him a dislike of religious dogma and sexual prudery as well as a deep class-consciousness alongside his ambition to transcend his meager beginning, Science would become his religion”

“She follows her nose and stands once more before the doors of a quintessential dilemma. Male or Female. Here is her paradox. A staccato voice seems to challenge her, berate her. Hombre or Mujer. Mann or Frau. Homme or Femme. Gentleman or Lady. Com on, decide. She knows them all. She is them all. Not fluid or all-encompassing, gathering the harvest of the reaping fields, but fractured and split and bleeding. Her inner core weeping out of itself. There is nothing for hermaphrodites. It's too confusing. The words rattle around in her earbones, androgynous and humming. How can she choose? She cannot choose. To choose is to sunder.”

“[O]nce we give up on the idea that only heterosexuality is normal and that all human bodies are clearly either male or female, more and more kinds of bodies and desires will come into view. Perhaps also, one body may, in one lifetime, move through many identities and desires. The use of,queer’ then, is a deliberate political move, which underscores the fluidity (potential and actual) of sexual identity and sexual desire. The term suggests that all kinds of sexual desire and identifications are possible, and all these have socio-cultural and historical co-ordinates.”

“People who think that queer life consists of sex without intimacy are usually seeing only a tiny part of the picture, and seeing it through homophobic stereotype. The most fleeting sexual encounter is, in its way intimate. And in the way many gay men and lesbians live, quite casual sexual relations can develop into powerful and enduring friendships. Friendships, in turn, can cross into sexual relations and back. Because gay social life is not as ritualized and institutionalized as straight life, each relation is an adventure in nearly un-charted territory—whether it is between two gay men, or two lesbians, or a gay man and a lesbian, or among three or more queers, or between gay men and the straight women whose commitment to queer culture brings them the punishment of the "fag hag" label. There are almost as many kinds of relationship as there are people in combination. Where there are -patterns, we learn them from other queers, not from our-parents or schools or the state. Between tricks and lovers and exes and friends and fuckbuddies and bar friends and bar friends' tricks and tricks' bar friends and gal pals and companions "in the life," queers have an astonishing range of intimacies. Most have no labels. Most receive no public recognition. Many of these relations are difficult because the rules have to be invented as we go along. Often desire and unease add to their intensity, and their unpredictability. They can be complex and bewildering, in a way that arouses fear among many gay people, and tremendous resistance and resentment from many straight people. Who among us would give them up? Try standing at a party of queer friends and charting all the histories, sexual and nonsexual, among the people in the room. (In some circles this is a common party sport already.) You will realize that only a fine and rapidly shifting line separates sexual culture from many other relations of durability and care. The impoverished vocabulary of straight culture tells us that people should be either husbands and wives or (nonsexual) friends. Marriage marks that line. It is not the way many queers live. If there is such a thing as a gay way of life, it consists in these relations, a welter of intimacies outside the framework of professions and institutions and ordinary social obligations. Straight culture has much to learn from it, and in many ways has already begun to learn from it. Queers should be insisting on teaching these lessons. Instead, the marriage issue, as currently framed, seems to be a way of denying recognition to these relations, of streamlining queer relations into the much less troubling division of couples from friends.”

“Perhaps the most radical aspect of queer politics was its claim not only to transcend the homo/hetero boundary but to do so in such a way as to challenge the sexual regulation and repression of heterosexual desire, above all female desire. Queer politics, it was claimed, had a lot to teach those accustomed to the narrow confines of ‘male’ and ‘female’ heterosexual roles in relationships. The re-working of notions of monogamy and the send-up of marriage through queer weddings, the greater sexual adventurism, the rejection of the concept of gay men and lesbians as ‘victims’ in favour of assertiveness and redefinition, and the emphasis on the creation of more egalitarian relationships in the domestic, sexual and social spheres, were all cited as examples of how queer could contribute to a new sexual agenda of empowerment.”

“How romantic and dreamy.” My mistress sighed. “I should make someone pick a lover’s quarrel with me.” “I could do it.” The jest slipped out, my brain catching up seconds later to what my mouth had just said. “Would you, really?” Viola asked quietly. The mood shifted, the light, playful air between us dissolving.”

“Les arbres savent quand un des leurs a soif et ils savent aussi comment rediriger l’eau vers lui. Ils sont solidaires. Ils peuvent se prévenir l’un l’autre du danger, des prédateurs, assurer la survie du groupe dans son ensemble. Tout part des racines, des origines, mais le message transite par les racines secondaires et les radicelles, qui sont plus fines, s’étendent plus loin. Tout se fait en chuchotant à travers le réseau souterrain de champignons, le mycélium, ce que tout le monde croit pourri, oui.”

“Changing the social order in one fell swoop, Henry Gerber wrote in 1940, is “like trying to push over a big stone wall with your skull.” It can’t be done. But “we can undermine the wall by little individual blasts and it will topple down by-and-by.” Or, as Del Shearer said in 1965, social revolution required at least “a century of subtle attack” on the dominant culture. As riots engulfed the United States in 1968, Frank Kameny saw similarities between homophiles and those Black Americans taking to the streets to express centuries of anger. “BUT,” Kameny said, “the Negro has truly explored and exhausted well-neigh, if not actually all, other avenues, and has gotten to the firm, unyielding stone wall of prejudice which blocks them. WE have run into this, but have not yet reached the end of all avenues.” Queer people soon hit the end of all avenues, crashing into an unyielding stone wall.”

“What I love about being queer is... Everything. I like that it makes me different, and I like that it makes people uncomfortable sometimes. I like that it makes people ask me lots of questions about things they probably would not normally ask people about their relationships or lifestyles. And most of all I love being queer because i get to have a girlfriend.”

“Suicide. This is the exact opposite of last time, for this time I'm experiencing a kind of pleasure in life, in being alive, a pleasure in living that I've never experienced before, and I'm hopeful and confident that I can become someone with dignity. I know now why I couldn't change certain characteristics and certain things about myself, but it's not a problem anymore. Certain pathways I failed to open in the past have now opened. My whole self is radiating light. I see with clarity. I understand the cause and effect of the last year. What I had imagined I've now attained. It's as if I can see my life right in front of my eyes, and all I have to do is reach out and draw it in... Now I don't feel the acute pain I felt before; I feel enlightened, at peace. It's as if I've instantly found the secret of "Suffering", how to bear it and how to endure it... Yes, this time I've decided to kill myself not because I can't live with suffering and not because I don't enjoy being alive. I love life passionately, and my wish to die is a wish to live... Yes, I've chosen suicide. The endpoint of this process of "Forgiveness". Not to punish anyone or to protest a wrong. I've chosen suicide with a clarity I've never possessed before, with a rational resolve and sense of calm, in order to pursue the ultimate meaning of my life, act on my belief about the beauty between two people... I take complete responsibility for my life, and even if my physical body disappears upon death, I don't believe my spirit will disappear. As long as I have loved people fully, then I can be content fading into "Nothingness". If I'm using death to express my passion for life, then I still don't love her enough, don't love life enough. and I will reincarnate in a different form to love her and to be part of her life... So the death of my flesh really doesn't mean anything. Doesn't solve anything. Is this a tragedy? Will there be tragedy?”

“dykes were put here to tip the scales! we have a very important job and i wouldn't trade it for the world. give me a choice between breeding, accelerated aging, living with an orangutan, and maid duty for life...or, autonomy, black boots, multiple orgasms, cats instead of kids, people who say what they mean, and nothing stopping me from doing whatever i wanna do...and guess which one i pick?”

“Conspicuous lesbians abounded—it's hard to miss teenage queers who have yet to figure out subtlety—and, though I can’t deny that I like my girls a little rough, most leaned so heavily on the dyke archetype that they looked like a Timberland truck crashed into Lilith Fair.”

“It started to rain suddenly and ferociously as they pulled up in front of Rose’s house. A mist covered the truck. It was as if a fire hose had opened up on the dusty, dry earthen roads. The smell of moist earth and damp, pungent flowering trees gave off the last bit of heat from the former Carolina summer sun of a few minutes ago. Now cooled suddenly by the rainwater, an immediate fog to rose off the hot metal of the truck and the soil. It was impossible to see more than a few feet in the formidable rain and sudden fog. Rose pulled Carmen to her and wrapped herself around her, one hand playing around through her T as she kissed her, one hand pushing gently at her pants.”

“Touching her fingers, touching skin to skin. Her mouth, her breath, the shape of her flushed face. A tender hand on a naked waist, exploring the new feelings. The inner-soul scent of her hair, burying your mind in it. Inside of me, always inside of me. Memorizing the feelings and perfumes. Something one can keep. Carmen thought, Trust… Something growing. Something true. Something reaching out.”