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lb_leeMori: Was digging around and refound the zines of August Eckhardt, AKA Rocko Bulldagger, Bleached Blonde Bimbos #1 and #2 in the Queer Zine Archive Project (sadly not screenreadable). They're still winners, but this quote in particular, from June 2005, especially jumped out at me:
"What is with this more-radical-than-thou attitude? If no one has a hope of understanding you, who are you even talking to? [...] Between being tragically misunderstood, perpetually on the cutting edge and more radical [than] everyone else, when do you have time to connect with others? [...] So many strict rules about how to be what you are, what to call it, and how you can expect others to relate to it. All this rigidity seems to be isolating, resulting in a cycle of pain, loneliness and bitterness, trying to find people exactly like yourself because they will understand but no one else will, consequently being disappointed, becoming more rigid, more hurt, stricter and more precise about your language and identity... and on and on..." (Bleached Blonde Bimbos II, "The End of Genderqueer," pg. 10)
Rocko was talking specifically about the genderqueer identity, and how it morphed and changed out from under them over the course of 1999-2005, but I feel like a lot still holds true about other things, twenty years later. Also both zines are just still really good! Might have to print out a copy of #1 for my shelf. Also they got me to check out Amber Hollibaugh from the library, which is cool!
Guess I'm gonna be adding them to the Self-Hate and Social Justice Bibliography! (Maybe I'll just make the "edward cullen haunts my soul" tag about noble liberatory causes being twisted into poison and self/other-hate, not like we use it for its original purpose much anymore...)
"What is with this more-radical-than-thou attitude? If no one has a hope of understanding you, who are you even talking to? [...] Between being tragically misunderstood, perpetually on the cutting edge and more radical [than] everyone else, when do you have time to connect with others? [...] So many strict rules about how to be what you are, what to call it, and how you can expect others to relate to it. All this rigidity seems to be isolating, resulting in a cycle of pain, loneliness and bitterness, trying to find people exactly like yourself because they will understand but no one else will, consequently being disappointed, becoming more rigid, more hurt, stricter and more precise about your language and identity... and on and on..." (Bleached Blonde Bimbos II, "The End of Genderqueer," pg. 10)
Rocko was talking specifically about the genderqueer identity, and how it morphed and changed out from under them over the course of 1999-2005, but I feel like a lot still holds true about other things, twenty years later. Also both zines are just still really good! Might have to print out a copy of #1 for my shelf. Also they got me to check out Amber Hollibaugh from the library, which is cool!
Guess I'm gonna be adding them to the Self-Hate and Social Justice Bibliography! (Maybe I'll just make the "edward cullen haunts my soul" tag about noble liberatory causes being twisted into poison and self/other-hate, not like we use it for its original purpose much anymore...)
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Date: 2025-02-20 08:15 am (UTC)I've kinda given up - my happy place is currently living under two umbrella terms with very little desire to engage with the never-ending taxonomy within them, plus still using the genderqueer flag because damnit it included NBs when I first picked it up and the NB one is ugly.
Oh god, I'm going to become one of those curmudgeonly elders that the youth tries to gently explain their wrong... I might even already be that. Ah well, let's embrace it...
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Date: 2025-02-20 08:37 pm (UTC)Kidding! Thanks for linking these.
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