Snieker

“When I teach "Introduction to Gender and Sexuality Studies" at UC Riverside, I show a series of documentary films about gendered violence and suffering. These films are about the horrific violence (sexual, physical, emotional) that women endure at the hands of men and the state, about the incredible toll that masculinity takes on men's bodies and mental health (as well as women's bodies and mental health), and about the tedium and unequal division of labor that destroys, or threatens to destroy, astrounding number of heterosexual relationships. Even though I have seen these films a dozen times, I still cry when I watch them, and I have always assumed that I am crying feminist tears. I have assumed I am crying for women. But more recently, something shifted. After wachting the films, rereading the numerous articles about gender oppression I had assigned, and listening to countless stories from straight women students about their abusive or just plain not-feminist male partners, I got in my car and breathed a huge sigh of relief that I am queer. I went home and told my partner, "Thank god we are queer." And I realized that I was crying queer tears for straight people.”
― Jane Ward, The Tragedy of Heterosexuality