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OFFENSIVE, OFFENDED — Disagreeable or upsetting due to insensitivity, rudeness, or denial of empathy or personhood. To be upset by something offensive.

Queer people are often accused of being too sensitive and too offended when we challenge language or norms which reproduce violent hierarchies. Apparently, we’re meant to be more respectable and politely acquiesce to being denied healthcare, housing, and personhood. Being told we’re being too offended is a derailing tactic to distract from the issues being raised by the “offended” party by focusing on their reaction to the offensive thing, rather than the offensive aspects of the thing itself.

We shouldn’t stop using “bad” words because they’re “offensive”; they’re offensive not because people are too sensitive, but because those “bad” words uphold and reproduce harmful stereotypes, stigmas, and systems of oppression. “Bad” words and slurs are used as weapons to remind marginalized people of power dynamics.

Intra-community policing of what terms are offensive is counter-productive. When queer people tell each other that we cannot reclaim the slurs which have been weaponized against us, or that our preferred identity label is outdated and now “offensive,” we’re erasing our histories and denying ourselves the possibility of naming our own experience. This is especially relevant in talking to queer people without access to intra-community discussions on language, like older queers and queer people who live in rural areas.

No word or phrase is inherently offensive or oppressive; language is context dependent. Who is saying the potentially offensive thing, and to what audience? A good guideline is to ask if the “offending” person is speaking on their own marginalized identity and culture, if they’re punching up (poking fun at groups or individuals with more structural power than them), or if they’re punching down (further entrenching stereotypes about a group which has less structural power than them).

see also: TROLL; TONE POLICING

OPPRESSION — Structural violence against a group of people based on their identities and perceptions of their identities.

Structural oppression exists on several axes: ableism, sexism, cissexism, homophobia, classism, racism, agism, and fatphobia. Within these are other oppressions, such as anti-Blackness (a specific form of racism), whorephobia (a manifestation of misogyny and classism), xenophobia (where the immigrant is racialized as Other), Islamophobia (racialized oppression against Muslims), and anti-Semitism (ethno-religious oppression of Jews). An exhaustive list of oppressions based on identity, and perceived identity, is not possible. Because our identities intersect, so too do our oppressions and privileges. It is not possible to analyze these oppressions distinctly, because they do not exist distinctly.

Because everyone is indoctrinated into oppressive structures, like patriarchy and capitalism and white supremacy, everyone is by default sexist and classist and racist. Everyone has the potential to be oppressive, even oppressed people; for example, a woman may try to distance herself from femininity by claiming she’s “not like other girls,” which is an expression of internalized misogyny based on the idea that girls are inferior. Being oppressed does not give you a pass (“I can’t be oppressive, I’m gay”), and having proximity to oppression through marginalized friends/partners/children certainly does not (“I can’t be racist, I have a Black friend”).

OMNISEXUAL — Sexual attraction to all genders, or sexual attraction regardless of gender.

Omnisexual could be used interchangeably with bisexual, pansexual, and polysexual; the choice of which term to use is a matter of personal preference.

see also: BISEXUAL; PANSEXUAL; POLYSEXUAL; BIPHOBIA

OTHER, OTHERING — In opposition to “self” or “I,” or the dominant identity group. To make someone feel, or portray them as, negatively alien, strange, and fundamentally different.

Straight is I, queer is Other; cis is I, trans is Other; white is I, person of color is Other; Western is I, “Oriental” is Other. Other is outside, unknown and unknowable, or only known and defined in opposition to I. Society is designed for the ease of the I and the discomfort of the Other, not only through negligence but in a deliberate attempt to exclude the Other, for the I only understands itself in policing its boundaries and excluding the Other. Without trans there is no cis, and cis would not be prized and superior without an inferior to subjugate.

I and Other rely on the (flimsy, false) presumption of stable binary categories of identity. Despite the assumption of inherent I-ness or Otherness, the I must constantly reassert itself and prove its position as superior. Hegemonic masculinity is a good example. The I, the privileged identity, is fragile; it cannot withstand an interrogation of its construction (“What is a man?”) or its “naturalness,” nor can it stand a challenge to its superiority (“Why is masculinity better than femininity?”). It is also too fragile to withstand tension around its privilege, and it easily collapses from guilt (often masked in anger and “resolved” through violence). The I is constantly seeking to establish the boundaries around it, so that it can find comfort in knowing that it is included in privilege and is excluding the Other—men tease each other and challenge each other’s masculinity to this end.

see also: TWINK; BEAR; GAY CULTURE

OUT — Being openly gay, queer, or trans. It can also mean to be open about another marginalized status (e.g., sex worker).

Choosing to be out is a luxury, only available to people who won’t suffer serious homophobic or transphobic consequences. Some people are not given a choice because they don’t pass as cisgender or heterosexual, or because they are outed by someone else.

The dominant narrative is that being out is “living authentically.” Shaming people who aren’t out puts the onus for social change—eradicating queerphobia—on the people affected by the bigotry.

People can be selectively out (e.g., in their personal life but not at work). This may entail using different names or pronouns depending on what situation they’re in. It’s important to respect people’s decisions to be, or not to be, out.

Cisgender and heterosexual people don’t need to come out or be “out” about their genders and sexualities, because theirs are taken as normal and the default. This normalcy should be disrupted.

see also: COMING OUT; OUTING; CLOSET; BRAVE; STEALTH; PASSING

OUTING — To disclose someone’s LGBTQ+ status without their permission. It is also used for sex workers, and (problematically) abusers.

Outing people (except abusers) is dangerous and rude. It removes agency about something deeply personal, and makes the outed person vulnerable to homophobic, transphobic, or whorephobic violence and discrimination.

Outing abusers is dangerous too, for the people who they have abused. Any action taken against abusers must be survivor centered and insulate the survivor(s) from harm as much as possible.

OUTRAGE! — A British queer direct action group, stylized as “OutRage!”

OutRage! was active between 1990 and 2011. They formed in response to escalating queer-bashing, including homophobic murders, and the persecution of queer men having consensual sex.

OutRage! was an anti-assimilationist, non-violent, non-hierarchical group. They focused on homophobic attitudes, especially in policing, and their tactics were non-violent civil disobedience. Their actions included: invading the Vatican’s embassy in London to protest against the Pope’s support for anti-gay laws in 1992; ambushing the Prime Minister’s motorcade in response to Parliament voting to maintain the unequal age of consent for same-sex sex in 1994; and invading police stations and protesting the prosecution of queer men cruising and cottaging, throughout the 1990s.

OutRage! was possibly the longest-running grassroots, volunteer LGBT+ direct action group in the world.

see also: ACTIVISM; ASSIMILATION; ACT UP