For me, the LGBTQIA+ community is about creating a welcoming, supportive space for anyone who feels like it’s where they belong. However, as important as inclusivity is, we have to have some standards. That’s why there will never be an S in LGBTQIA+ that stands for steampunks.
You heard me.
I promise you that no matter what Pride parade you go to, no matter what city you’re in or what year it is, you will never see a float of guys wearing massive cloaks and huge Doc from Back to the Future goggles, waving their stupid canes and holding up their Party City-ass weapons, looking like time travelers from whatever century was the ugliest. Everyone in the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to feel proud of their identity, but there is no pride to be found in being steampunk.
I hate their corsets, I hate their gadgets, and I hate that I gag every time I see a horde of them sitting out on some dumb stoop, stinking up the entire street with their godawful retrofuturism. Oh, that giant clock necklace is your “timepiece?” Well I have a timepiece too: Time to give you a piece of my mind: Steampunks have no place in the queer community.
There is a reason why we never made anyone look steampunk on Queer Eye. It’s hideous. Plain as day.
Also, no one better try to tell me that the “+” includes steampunks. It does not. The acronym should be LGBTQIA+(-Steampunks).
To be frank, even if steampunks never get to be in the LGBTQIA+ community officially, I don’t want any trying to join in by saying they’re also gay or intersex or whatever. If you’re steampunk, I don’t care how lesbian you are: You are NOT my sister. We are NOT the same. No one wearing a Victorian beehive hairdo and a metal fist over their hand should even be considered an ally. We’re better off without them.
By the way, don’t give me some bullshit about how the beauty of this community is that no one person speaks for us all, so I don’t have the authority to say this. Because yes, I do have the authority. I made 9 billion dollars telling straight guys to change their hat to a different hat, and watching that made you cry. So what I say goes. And I say no Steampunks—not now, not ever.
