Last Tuesday, on the final day of Pride Month, Matthew Vines of The Reformation Project published an opinion piece for The New York Times called “I’m Gay, Not Queer. It Matters.” In it, he argues that in a national landscape growing increasingly hostile toward LGBTQ+ people, our movement would be better served by pivoting away from the word “queer”—both because of its umbrella quality, which “lacks clear limiting principles,” and because of its “adversarial charge” that implies we are, by nature, subversive and anti-normative. “Because the word ‘queer’ can describe any departure from social norms,” Vines argues, “it becomes an open door through which almost anyone can walk.” Because of what Vines reads as an overly expansive nature within the queer category, the public’s trust and understanding of the core parameters of what it means to be gay are being eroded. Vines asserts, instead, that his own self-acceptance came from acknowledging that “there is nothing inherently radical or subversive about being gay.” As such, he does not wish to be described as queer, with all the unwanted implications it brings.
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