Polyamory

TL;DR ofc poly is queer.

I’m tired of the recurrent debates about who qualifies and who doesn’t, which factions are probationary, which participants are just allies, and so on.

Every time some new group gains awareness, a startling number of voices pop up saying the new cohort doesn’t belong in the umbrella. They haven’t suffered the same as the rest of us, or haven’t been allies long enough to pay their dues, or they have some disqualifying privilege, whatever.

Gatekeeping the new umbrella term “queer” seems especially ludicrous. What’s the point of reifying normative bounds on others’ behalf? To be fully reclaimed, the liberality of queer’s application in pride should be proportional to that of its use as a slur, which certainly extended to poly folk.

Anyway, if we’re really hung up on technicalities, one could argue that there are no true cishet poly relationships due to the nature of shared intimacy and the 2-colorability problem. Of course, I acknowledge not everyone in a poly relationship is ready to identify as queer. But that’s the thing. People are allowed, to whatever extent they’re able, to decide for themselves when, where, and how they identify. We don’t pull people out of closets, after all, and even that is less ridiculous than trying to push them back in.

Why gatekeep someone’s identity? Does excluding them from mine further my cause? Does ignoring their struggle amplify my own? Are they too privileged to march with me or wear my colors? If so, exactly how much persecution is the correct amount for them to belong? We should know better by now than to entertain that rhetoric. It’s simply against the ethos of the movement and the work we signed up for.

The point of this alliance was never build new exclusive country clubs for ourselves. It was to burn the old ones down. The triumph of inclusion and belonging over normative hegemony is nearly within reach and this gatekeeping toxicity only pushes it further away.

Yes, the new groups will tend to be more privileged. Does it matter? I’ll bleed for them the way others less privileged bled for me. And I’ll keep doing so for each new faction until the term straight itself is meaningless.

So if you feel queer, welcome. Our endgame includes everyone.