Don’t Listen To The Rogue Queerofascists! The Argus article in the Valentine’s Day edition, “Queer perspectives on the day of love and loneliness” grossly misrepresents Queerness. As Officially Sanctioned Representatives of the 18th Annual Global Queer Caucus to Reach Consensus on the Queer Perspective on Valentine’s Day (GQCRCQPVD…), we, Scattered Focus and Mattio Garlic, would like to set the record straight (well…).

Those who claimed to represent a universal agreement on Queerness and the Queer Perspective on Valentine’s Day were not a part of the GQCRCQPVD…. Rather, they are part of a tiny rogue faction that seeks to tightly control the Queer perspective. Their tactics include becoming bedfellows with media representatives, who in turn publish articles misrepresenting Officially Sanctioned Representatives of the GQCRCQPVD… by censoring crucial and Officially Sanctioned quotes. This leads to a one-sided, inaccurate, hijacked portrayal of the Officially Sanctioned Opinions of the GQCRCQPVD… and the true consensus on Queerness.

Ask any token queers who attended the GQCRCQPVD… and they will agree with Aaron Welo that ‘There’s no universal experience of Valentine’s Day for queer people, just like there’s not one for the straight community.’ Unfortunately, Welo’s companion Tay, another Officially Sanctioned Representative of the GQCRCQPVD… was the victim of censorship.

Tay was censored when ze spoke out against the Rogue Queers’ alliance with local media interests. Unreported by the Argus was Tay’s accurate statement: “Rogue Queers are breaking away from the GQCRCQPVD… and using their ties to media interests to propagate the myth that there is consensus on Queerness and Valentine’s Day!” Thus, the Argus paid lip service to the notion that queers should have a voice, yet in siding with the Rogue Queers, failed to acknowledge that all queers, like straights, should have the individual autonomy to speak for themselves about personal, individual perceptions on sex, love, romance, and cute-yet-problematic corporate greeting cards.

We would like to turn our attention to Claire Potter, a high profile and influential, yet controversial, person who is suspected of guiding and advising the upstart Rogue Queers. In the Argus article, she was quoted as saying, “Queer folks are constantly loving one person and having sex with a bunch of others [idiocy sic].” As Officially Sanctioned Representatives of the GQCRCQPVD…, we would like to state the Official Position, that either more, fewer, or just as many queers as Potter implies are never, sometimes, or constantly loving either one, some, or many others, while never, sometimes, or constantly having sex with zero, one, a few, or a bunch of others (in different combinations).

Hear us now: Queerness on Valentine’s Day isn’t about looking for a cute queer voice to insert into the newspaper in order to highlight diversity at Wesleyan. Queerness on Valentine’s Day is just like Queerness on any other day—there is no consensus on the queer perspective, and it’s not about being polyamorous or not. It’s not even about being sex-positive. It’s about resisting hegemonic binaries, including the us-against-them rhetoric of “queer perspectives” and Officially Sanctioned Representatives versus Rogue Queerofascists. All it’s about (and we could very well be wrong here) is sexual and gender self-determination, something that is dangerously undermined by the Argus article.

Note from the Rogue Queers: Focus and Mattio have been abducted. “This is all wrong,” said Naria Norse. “You can ask any token and they’ll tell you that Valentine’s Day can be quite tokenizing for tokenized token queer queerofascist-controlled token opinions!”