Perhaps in his very long life, he has loved people of many genders.
Argent Adept being ace is new info for me, and it's awesome. Last convo I had with Christopher about LGBTQIA+ representation in Sentinels had us list all written relationships between characters and then discuss that any character could have any sexuality (for example, I headcanon Wraith as bi, and Absolute Zero as bi/panromantic ace), really. But I do agree, I like it when it's officially written, even if just in backstory, such as Dr Medico's husband.
The problem with this is it’s so vaguely referenced as to be easily ignored, missed or even seen as an afterthought. I don’t think we even know if it was a relationship as much as an infatuation and cowed in such terminology to really obfuscate it, even referred to explicitly as best friends.
This has the effect of that even if we read him as a gay character he’s one that’s functionally closeted for our entire experience of him. That’s hardly something positive in my eyes.
I would say queer can cover more than just genderqueer, genderqueer itself potentially straddling both the Q and the I, as well as the T.
Some see queer as an umbrella term, covering anyone non hetero or cis, some see it as a more political statement, some see it as defining a specific otherness to standard heteronormative culture and some just find it a more comfortable and less restrictive label compared to the connotations of other possible choices.
I like to term myself queer, but I accept that gay is just as accurate. Queer just seems like such a great inclusive term, without feeling like forcing an alphabet soup that is certain to leave someone out.
For example (no plug, I promise) Jodie and I just recorded our first episode for our podcast Roll 2dQueer. We used queer because I'm a cis gay man and she's a trans lesbian. This way, one word easily covers both of us.
The world maybe. When I heard about it, I went "Oh! That makes sense!"
I think that JKR was right not to explore Dumbledore's sexuality in the books. What do you call a 100+ year old man exploring his sexuality around a bunch of teenagers?
Only in the seventh book does Dumbledore's personal life become relevant at all. But Harry is getting second and third-hand accounts of a relationship that happened over 50 years ago, and he's not particularly observant to start with (and has apparently never encounted anyone else who was gay. Which is a different issue). I would be far more surprised if he had read between the lines than if he didn't.
No one said Dumbledore needed to explore his sexuality, just that mentioning he was gay within the text itself would be much better than only mentioning it outside the text. This being an example of why hiding characters' sexualities makes diverse representation less representative, as it were.
Plus there's no way Skeeter would realistically be satisfied with simply implying that Dumbledore had a relationship with Grindelwald when she could come right out and just say it. Assuming there was a relationship other than close friendship.
Yay for sexuality and gender identity being a complicated thing!
I was assigned female at birth and continue to live as female basically because I don't have a strong connection to any gender, so I really don't care what my body parts are, and it's simpler to use feminine pronouns and tick the "female" box because that's how people see me anyway. So, genderqueer, but kind of "passing" as cis.
And attraction for me is something I can't compartmentalise, because gender is way down the list. I'm in a relationship with a straight cis male, but I'd probably describe myself as somewhere between pansexual and asexual, as contradictory as that sounds.
Craig I gotta check out your podcast that sounds like fun. I like the term queer too I am playing with terms right now because my sexuality illudes me.
Silverleaf i don’t think youe sexuality is odd at all I feel like that’s where I’m at too.
What is "cis"? People keep using the term but despite the context I still can't figure out what it means. I got confused by the term "ace" as phonetic shorthand for "asexual" too but managed to at least figure that one out from context ;). This whole area isn't really something I've given much thought to beyond "different people are attracted to different kinds of people (or none at all) and some people have a problem with that, for some reason" so I'm not overly familiar with all the shorthand terms that are used for the various different gender/sexual preferences and stuff.
Btw technically Stephen Fry no longer hosts QI - he stepped down after the last series so Sandi Toksvig is taking over :).
I would phrase it more as "someone whose gender is consistent with their sex assigned at birth." Which is similar to what you said, but not quite the same.
Is "cis" the abbreviation of a longer word? It just seems like a really, I dunno...odd-looking word. "Cissexual" sounds even weird so I'm guessing it's not that. I just like to understand words and where they come from and stuff, and this one just appears to be a sort of "jargon" term by those who spend more time around this subject matter than I do.
