Lead illustration by Esme Blegvad
Welcome to 'Introducing', where we get acquainted with Britain's weird and wonderful new subcultures.
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To be clear: there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the aforementioned type of language – far from it. When queer people are more likely to have experienced violence and abuse, it is radical to cultivate and encourage a culture of softness and positivity within our community and modes of interaction. But this isn’t about that. It's more about wearing that type of language as an aesthetic. In other words: just like the straight softboi who uses performative sensitivity to get away with being a little shit sometimes, so does the tenderqueer. Twitter user @mirin_doja summed it up nicely when they said, “tenderqueer generally refers to a trope in queer communities of a queer who presents themselves online or irl as being sensitive, hyper vocal of their feelings, sometimes thought of as prioritising feelings and hyper intentional language over their harm and privilege.”I’m sure the tenderqueer isn’t a new thing. They’ve probably been around since the beginning of time. They were probably crocheting rucksacks at free love communes in the 1970s, and they were probably there in, like, the 17th century, rearing a family of cows and seducing milk maids. But something about the internet – and the language and culture propagated by the internet – has made these tenderqueers suddenly more present than seemed before. Make a quick scroll through any queer woman / non binary person's Instagram feed and you'll spot them: sage and crystals, candid crying selfies with lengthy paragraphs about their feelings during this retrograde, friends in pastel corduroys, shaved heads, some abstract paintings that they did literally just now.People always like to make out as if subcultures are dead – or, rather, that they all just live on TikTok now. But style tribes are everywhere: they've just become a little more complicated. And now, finally, maybe you've got a word for that person you met with the tiny round glasses at the 'Zines Against Anxiety' event who gave you their annotated copy of The Argonauts then never spoke to you again.@daisythejones / @esmerelduh