Surgical Masks are Now a Queer Fashion Statement.
It has been 5 years since the initial Covid-19 outbreak in 2020. The first waves of covid were devastating, ushering in a cultural norm of mask-wearing in everyday situations.
However, On May 5, 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic officially over.
So why is it that, for the past two years, a certain subset of people have continued to wear masks in situations where they are completely unnecessary?
When I say unnecessary, I mean that they have taken mask-wearing to heights beyond what was ever recommended by health officials during the height of the pandemic.
The CDC once recommended mask-wearing in public settings where social distancing was difficult to maintain, such as in public transportation, shops, or whilst walking on busy streets.
But it is increasingly common for me to see people wearing masks when they are walking alone outdoors on uncrowded roads, or in naturesque parks.
What baffles me the most is when I see people wear masks to a public event, and then they remove it half-way into the event.
They just let the thing hang off the side of their ear, showing their full face, laughing and socializing for a few moments before putting it back on—as if the mask is a tool for some deranged peep show.
Ironically, these same people are not practicing any social distancing along with wearing a mask, which also shows that they are not really doing it to protect themselves or others from Covid.
Apart from masks, such people usually wear one or more stylistic markers: short and/or colorful hair, pronoun pins, or androgynous clothing.
You guessed it: The vast majority of said people identify as Queer.
I want to share my theories as to why masks have become a Queer fashion trend in this day and age, and how I feel about it.
The main reason why masks have become a trend is because Queer Culture romanticizes illness.
I have written about how Queer culture has made autism, mental illness, and disability into a hot fashion trend—but this also applies to other illnesses, too.
If you can claim that you are chronically ill, or what they proudly refer to as a “Spoonie” or a “Crip” (the latter of which was taken from the name of a famous black gang in L.A.)…it’s another way of gaining oppression points within this community.
As it relates to Covid-19, it has become popular for people to claim that they are “immunocompromised”.
Much like the term “neurodivergent”, immunocompromised is an umbrella term that a wide range of conditions can fit under.
But because sickness is so romanticized in Queer Culture, it is common for people within that community to apply these terms to themselves, simply because it is easy to get away with labeling themselves in a vague manner that cannot easily be disputed or verified by the average person.
So, some people will wear masks to play up the notion that they are immunocompromised when they are not.
This is very similar to how I have seen so many young, able-bodied “queer” women walking steadfastly with canes and granny walkers, as a signal that they have a disability, when they clearly do not. Sometimes, their canes will be decked out with glitter or pride stickers, to add a little extra swag.
It’s harder to decorate a surgical mask, but a lot of people like to pair the mask and granny walker together as a full ensemble.
So, here is how the mask trend spreads:
When one person says they are immunocompromised, there will be a flock of other people who will want to affirm and support them.
In general, the “Queer Community” is extra tight-assed, and focused on virtue signaling.
Everybody wants to perform their social awareness, and show how friendly they are to the sick, disabled, and oppressed.
So they adopt practices to flaunt this mindset, and they put them to use whether or not they are actually needed.
Even if nobody in their midst is sick or “immunocompromised”, they may still wear a mask.
Even if no one present is blind, they will still have image description.
Even if everyone in the room is clearly a woman, they will still force everyone to share pronouns.
So, the mask is just another element of the whole Queer Culture mentality, which polices people to follow certain practices and beliefs, as if they are worshipping an invisible God.
Surgical masks have become a religious adornment, similar to wearing a cross or burqa. Void of its true purpose, it is a symbol of one’s beliefs.
The mask can also be symbol that someone wishes to hide.
There are usually other ways they will hide from the truth, and from their own authenticity.
Other ways in which they buy into media-induced paranoia, and allow it to sit in their body.
For those who do not wish to be seen by society, masks have become a socially-acceptable way to achieve that.
At this point, masks are no longer needed. I got Covid for the first time in 2024, and it was horrible.
But I still do not wear masks because, I am not afraid of Covid.
I am healthy, and I trust in my body’s ability to fight illness. I do not conceptualize my body as a walking petri dish.
Maybe that is why it’s so rare for me to get sick. Our minds play a big role in our overall health.
Eventually, this trend will die down. Nobody really likes to wear masks, as they are so ugly and uncomfortable.
That 5 minute break to let the mask dangle from your earlobe will slowly lengthen until it is non-existent, and others will give you grace because they hate it too.
In the meantime, I see straight through each and every one of them.
Thanks for posting this and for saying the hard truths that some of us are too polite to say!! Yesterday I saw a lady walking on a huge deserted beach wearing a surgical face mask and I burst out laughing as I walked past her from a distance.
It’s all about the illusion, not the reality.
It’s all about social perception, not biology.
No wonder people on the (so-called) right think that woke culture is superficial, performative and hypocritical. They aren’t entirely wrong.
Unfortunately, that also means they dismiss real forms of oppression like racism and sexism, labelling victims of sexual violence as hysterical / attention-seeking (i.e. fake) etc. Meanwhile, they claim oppression language for themselves too, by lamenting how much white people / men are being oppressed these days…which I suppose in a capitalist society where <1% controls the planet is also true, but still!
The picture you’ve posted in this blog so perfectly captures it: real, fleshy, complex human beings are reduced to caricature, a cartoon, an assemblage of body parts (that can be swapped around at will!), and reduced to laundry list of identity labels (brown, queer, big bodied, disability, gender non-conforming) that screams “BE KIND TO ME, I AM HURTING/FRAGILE OK?”
I find it bizarre how people are embellishing the visibility of their oppressed identities (perceived or not) since if they are truly oppressed, you might not want people to know what that identity is if it’s not visible. People can obviously see I am: 1) young, 2) brown, 3) female, so I have enough reasons for them to dismiss me in meetings, at work, in conversations without also revealing my sexuality or my disability. I don’t need people to feel *more* sorry for me or treat me like a delicate fragile flower that’s going to burst into tears at the slightest thing or further dismiss my opinions just because I’m too weird or put my opinions on a pedestal because I’m winning the “Oppression Olympics”. Golly me, if I think I have an identity/beliefs that are going to get me slammed in public and treated like crap, I tend to hide it – not flaunt it (as nice as being “out” about them would be lol).
The virtue-signalling does seem more about faith than facts, a religious belief than reality – so well put here: “So, the mask is just another element of the whole Queer Culture mentality, which polices people to follow certain practices and beliefs, as if they are worshipping an invisible God.” Amen!
Good on you for taking care of your health with sunshine, good food, exercise etc. During covid I wondered what became of my leftie progressive friends who were all about systems thinking and systems change (as opposed to the individualism of capitalism). The medico-pharmaceutical model is predicated on reductionist beliefs around one cause = one disease = one cure* which doesn’t make a lot of sense from a whole-systems perspective but does make a lot of money!
And it’s further predicated on the aggressive denial of women and Indigenous people’s knowledge about traditional herbs, holistic healing (cue witch hunts) and subjugation and dismissal of nature (because medicine / because tech innovation). A veritable concoction of racist, sexist, technocratic ideology! The very ideology that apparently the mask-wearing queer people are purporting to reject…
The other issue I have with the masks is the war mentality it symbolises. You’re either with us or against us. You’re either a germ-fearing citizen or an irresponsible granny killer. You’re either virtuous or you’re virulent. Science doesn’t matter. Facts don’t matter. The first casualty of war, after all, is truth. If you ask me to take off the mask, you are literally KILLING me. By wearing a mask – even in nature, even in deserted spaces, even after the pandemic is officially over – I am SAVING LIVES. You either care about people or you’re a dangerous murderer who should be locked up (quarantined).
For those of my leftie progressive friends who were so supposedly anti-war (peace and love hippies), it is difficult to see them subscribe to war ideology when it suits them. While most of the queer people are probably not wearing the masks out of an overt war mentality, it’s covert – it’s that they’re the good guys (fighting off the bad guys not wearing masks, or bad guys = germs) or the (potential) victims.
Urgh.
*I understand people are going to panic if I upset their cherished reductionist models. As a biologist, I hate to admit that we actually don’t know as much about the human body and disease as we pretend we do, and most of our reductionist models cannot be verified in reality using the scientific method so remain pure speculation. Try psychiatry first – the theory that an imbalance of molecules in the brain causing mental illness never been proven in reality (but does rake in eye-watering profits!). Some good reads on this are Johann Hari’s "Lost Connections" and feminist psychiatrist blog What Would Jess Say:
https://whatwouldjesssay.substack.com/p/4-ways-mental-health-is-misused-in/
https://whatwouldjesssay.substack.com/p/what-do-i-think-of-neurodiversity/
https://whatwouldjesssay.substack.com/p/lets-apply-sagans-razor-to-psychiatry/
“I am healthy, and I trust in my body’s ability to fight illness. I do not conceptualize my body as a walking petri dish.” -thank FUCK for this.
I’m so grateful for your voice and boldness.
A few weeks ago a new family moved into my neighborhood..three young kids. They were playing with a ball in the front yard and one of them was wearing a mask. Outside, in their yard surrounded by their own family.
I’ve noticed an uptick in mask wearing again and I have been wondering why. I don’t wear them unless I am in close proximity to people whom I can sense are consumed with fear.