Lea DeLaria clearly has no problem with queer labels — derogatory, positive, or anything in-between. The outspoken actress wears T-shirts saying “faggot,” has “butch” tattooed on her forearm, and uttered a total of 47 queer slang terms during her legendary appearance on The Arsenio Hall Show as the first openly gay comic to perform on American television. But one label she has little love for is her community’s collective LGBT acronym — which has recently been extended so far as LGBTQIA to account for queer, intersex, and asexual people. In an interview with Pridesource, DeLaria says that the acronym, in any of its incarnations, tends to stress differences rather than bring the community together.
“This is the biggest issue we have in the queer community to date and will continue to be the biggest issue until we learn to accept our differences, and that’s the issue,” DeLaria says of division within the community. “And part of me believes that this inclusivity of calling us the LGBTQQTY-whatever-LMNOP tends to stress our differences. And that’s why I refuse to do it. I say queer. Queer is everybody.”
Predictably, not everyone is thrilled with the suggestion. One fan wrote on Facebook, “I love Lea — I’ve been a fan since she hosted Comedy Central’s Out There special back in the early 90s. I LOVED her in The Edge of Seventeen but she is dead wrong about ‘Queer.’ Many, nearly all gay men over 40, have negative feelings and memories of that word.” Another pointed out the word’s less welcome definitions, including “strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint” or “of a questionable nature or character.”
DeLaria herself notes that this is just her opinion, and that she never asked to be a spokesperson or role model. “How fucked up is it when I’m the voice of reason? You’ve got to be kidding me that you guys can’t see this,” she said, restating a quote she gave when she pulled out of Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival in 2014 over their trans-exclusionary womyn-born-womyn stipulation. “When Lea DeLaria and Larry Kramer are the voices of reasons, people are fucked. ‘Cause we’re the two biggest bitches on the planet! We’re little brats. We scream and yell until people listen to us, that’s who we are.”
Hear Lea DeLaria sound off on feminism and reproductive health.
Credits
Text Hannah Ongley
Photography Katie McCurdy