“I’m queer, not gay. Just queer.”
“Sam uses they/them pronouns.”
“Please respect people’s pronouns. It’s not hard.”
“I’m queer and neurodivergent, and my pronouns are they/her.”
These things are said as a matter of course today, as if their meaning should be obvious. But any person over 40 will tell you: It is not obvious. Not at all. Our reaction is not outrage nor hostility; it's simply confusion. We want to know one very simple thing: What information are you actually giving me about yourself?
After assiduous research, questioning, more questioning, and lots of X-post reading, your fearless writer has returned from the digital wilds to grace you with this wisdom: Unlike earlier identity markers, these statements don’t describe behavior, relationships, commitments, skills, or even preferences. They don’t tell you what someone does, values, or wants. Rather, they tell you what a speaker is not. And they tell you how the speaker wishes to be approached.
That’s new.
“Queer” as a Refusal Rather Than a Description
Historically, “queer” meant "strange," essentially, with overtones of harmless. Later, it meant sexually different or simply homosexual. The meaning was reasonably concrete.
Today, “queer” is often, perhaps even generally, used without reference to sexual behavior at all.
In modern Gen-Z usage, “queer” functions as an anti-definition. It signals nonconformity without specifying how. It asserts difference while refusing the constraints that make difference intelligible.
What it communicates is not who someone loves, how they live, or what distinguishes them in action, nor even that the person believes they are peculiar or nonconformist in some way. Rather, it indicates:
- I am not standard.
- Do not assume a normal path.
- and especially, I belong to a moral and cultural coalition.
It’s a positioning statement, not a description, and, surprisingly to Gen-X people like Yours Truly, it has nothing whatsoever to do with sexuality, at least not directly, even when it is used to describe self-identity in a similar fashion to gay or trans. It is additionally a way to claim a minority identity whether you are technically a minority or not.
Underneath much of this language sits something called queer theory, a Marxist-infused academic framework that treats categories like sex, gender, and normalcy not as neutral descriptions but as instruments of power. Rather than expanding or refining those categories, queer theory aims to destabilize them altogether. Its preference for ambiguity is intentional. Fixed meanings are seen as oppressive, while fluidity and refusal to define are treated as moral goods. In that context, words like “queer,” the use of “they,” and the emphasis on pronouns make sense. They are not meant to describe a stable reality, but to resist being placed within one.
But that doesn't mean the common usage of this word is the academic one, though it is related. Rather, when a person says, "I'm queer," they are saying, "Don't expect me to fit any category." That's it.
“They” and the Rejection of Framing
The claiming of "they" as a standard personal pronoun indicates something similar.
The use of "they" for an unknown but singular person has existed in English for centuries, whether grammarians like it or not. That’s not the issue. What’s new is the permanent, personal use of “they” as an identity marker. When someone says “I use they/them pronouns,” they are not resolving grammatical ambiguity. They are requesting that others avoid organizing expectations around sex.
On the surface, this sounds reasonable. In practice, it’s incoherent.
Sex-based expectations aren’t just stereotypes. They’re also the background against which individuality becomes visible. A woman who repairs engines. A man who bakes with care and precision. A mother who leads. A father who nurtures. Contrast requires a frame. By rejecting the frame entirely, “they” doesn’t announce uniqueness. It attempts to preempt judgment by avoiding legibility.
“They” functions less as a descriptor and more as a buffer — a way of saying: Handle carefully; do not assume.
This is why pronouns now carry more moral weight than names. If you get someone’s name wrong, you correct yourself and move on. But holy cow, if you get someone’s pronouns wrong, the error is often framed as harm, and the reaction can range from offense all the way up to a full meltdown.
That escalation only makes sense if pronouns are no longer descriptive but affirmational. Using them is treated as participation in another person’s self-concept, not merely reference to them.
Language becomes a test of compliance. It determines whether you are Us or Them. It's not a matter of politeness; rather, it indicates whether or not you are willing to submit to the demands of the mob.
This is also why disputes over pronouns escalate so quickly. They are not about politeness. They are about who controls meaning in shared space.
Why This Took Hold So Fast
This way of speaking didn’t emerge because Gen Z is uniquely confused or malicious. It emerged because the people who embrace this sort of self-identification were raised in a world where judgment feels permanent and catastrophic.
Screenshots don’t fade. Mistakes don’t stay local. Missteps don’t get corrected quietly.
In today's weirdly intimate environment, identity stops being something you discover and becomes something you defend. Language feels safer than character because language can be enforced.
If judgment is inevitable, the impulse becomes simple: Control the terms under which it happens. “Queer,” “they,” and pronoun declarations function as preemptive moves in that game.
This framework didn’t appear out of nowhere. It developed most visibly inside modern LGBT activism, where recognition gradually replaced non-interference as the central moral claim. Earlier arguments focused on being left alone. Later arguments focused on being actively affirmed. Once institutions accepted the idea that failing to affirm identity through language constituted harm, the model was set. It didn’t remain confined to sexuality or gender. It generalized.
So today, the same logic appears across trauma identities, neurodiversity labels, and micro-categories — often enforced most harshly against dissenters within the original movement itself. Other movements, mostly adjacent movements, co-opted the tactic. Judgment wasn’t eliminated. It was centralized to the mob.
This is not weird. It makes perfect psychological sense to me because it is coherent with my own story.
For years, I led any intimate conversation with a new person with my personal childhood abuse story. Not eventually. Immediately. It was the first thing on the table. The defining fact. The explanation that arrived before anything else. Until a therapist friend asked me why I did that. I told him the obvious truth: It mattered, it shaped me, it was real. He didn’t argue; he was far too good a therapist for that. Instead, he suggested something else. He said I was using the story as a shield, a way of saying This is who I am, so no one would look past it to see who I really was.
You see, the story was so large, so morally unassailable, that I could hide behind it as a sort of ego shield.
He was right.
The abuse was real. It deserved acknowledgment. But it wasn’t the whole of me, only a tiny fraction. However, by leading with it, I controlled the frame of personal interaction. I decided how others would approach me, what they would be careful about, and what they wouldn’t ask. What protected me also kept me from being known.
This is how identity can harden into armor — how something that begins as survival can quietly become a barrier to intimacy, growth, and surprise. And this is how words like queer, they, and pronouns act to shield emotionally fragile people in a world where identity itself feels thin and naked.
Terms like “queer,” “they,” or pronouns are partial truths elevated into protective structures. They say:
- Handle me carefully.
- This explains me.
- Do not look past this yet.
Like all shields, they make sense in a hostile environment. But when they become permanent, they also prevent being seen as a full, complex human being rather than as a managed category. They prevent true human intimacy.
And Yet, They Judge
Here's the weirdest contradiction in this psychosocial mess: This culture claims to reject judgment — yet practices it relentlessly. The difference is that judgment no longer evaluates behavior, competence, or character. It evaluates compliance. It has its own peculiar set of commandments.
- You must use the right words.
- You must signal the right beliefs.
- You must avoid forbidden distinctions.
Those who refuse are punished, often harshly and publicly. Judgment isn’t abolished. It’s monopolized.
Nevertheless, their attempts to control reality ultimately fail. You can't control, in the end, how others perceive you. You can't abolish judgment by controlling the language of other people. You can't have uniqueness unless you have a normal to measure it against. You can't have meaning without contrast. Difference is only interesting when revealed within a shared frame of reference, over time and with at least the possibility of intimacy of some sort.
When you erase the frame of reality and try to substitute your own, you don't wind up with freedom. You wind up with flatness. Everything becomes porridge.
Related: Limiting Compassion: Why Industrialized Niceness Fails the Vulnerable
Bottom Line
When people say “queer,” “they,” or insist on pronouns without explanation, they are generally not telling you who they are. They are telling you how they need to be handled. That impulse is understandable in a world that punishes mistakes brutally. But it is not a foundation for adulthood, intimacy, or meaning.
A shield can keep you safe. But if you never set it down, no one, including you, will ever know who you really are.
And a society that enforces shields in the name of kindness will eventually discover that it has made real connection — and real happiness — impossible.
