Hello!
I am new here, and new to the LGBT community in general. Around 6-7 weeks ago I realized I was trans(htf do you make it to 30 and not realize?)
In talking to my therapist, they said they(belonging to the community themselves) like to use queer as shorthand since it includes everyone and isn’t an unending acronym that is constantly getting new letters. I also like that and would use it, but being new, I’m not sure how others who’ve been here longer feel.
Are they equivalent?
I don’t like how the acronym keeps changing and accidentally leaving out a letter could be taken as an intentional slight.
i never say lgbt, it feels heavy, especially with the full lgbtqia (I already don’t know what can come after)
i use gay for any kind of not straight sexuality, and queer to me also includes trans stuff, ace, aro…
we’re not cis and or straight, we’re queer
Ally, not queer myself but I am continually disappointed “Gender, Sexual, and Romantic Minorities” (GSRM) has not caught on.
I think it
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gets right to the heart of the issue
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already communicates intersectionality
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doesn’t require new letters to keep being added
I don’t like being defined as inherently a minority, which means I’ll never use that term to self describe
So does queer though.
i think the issue with this is that it doesn’t carry the broadness of ‘queer.’ it lists gender, sexuality, romantic minorities… and nothing else. there are things typically thought of as ‘queer’ that are not strictly one of those three things.
I definitely think queer is the only choice for a single broad word meant to convey EVERYTHING, and it’s pretty much what we already all use when we don’t want to say deep breath LGBTQIA+
I like it too, but I’m already seeing GSM & GSRM in this thread so, maybe we haven’t got all the letters on this one yet either 😂
But yeah it seems better in a lot of ways. Thanks ally!
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Where I grew up ‘queer’ was used as an insult. But I use ‘queer’ to self-identify, and like you say it’s a catch-all for everything under the umbrella.
Context matters, I think. If someone’s talking about the queer community, it seems okay. If someone says, “You’re one of them queers, aintcha?” then it’s probably not okay.
At the end of the day, I guess I’ve always thought of it as a slur that we’ve taken back, y’know?
I love that some groups have been able to do that! I know I’ve heard of others, but I can’t recall at the moment.
It really is brave for the first generation to do that. I can’t imagine.
I also use queer. I’m agender, I don’t indentify with any gender and I’ve given up figuring out whether the term “trans” applies to me or not. But I’m queer. That’s nice and easy to use in conversation.
If it helps I also was firmly over 30 when I figured it out.
I don’t fully know where I am atm but I’ve heard trans can be as broad as “not cis”, which does encapsulate me, so I (eventually) accepted it.
Yeah there’s certainly a lot of trans related things I discuss with my binary trans friend. Dysphoria most notably. But he wants to be seen as a gender that already exists (and is exposed to more danger for it) while I want to be seen as a category people don’t have in their minds at all which brings it’s own issues.
Figuring these kind of things out mid life certainly is a process isn’t it? I’m glad I also have younger cis friends who are just much more open to all sorts of queer identities. But it’s still hard for me the discuss at all IRL.
It depends on where you’re from and more so what you feel.
If you feel it’s an equivalent substitute, then it is for you and whoever else feels that way.
Personally I was brought up in the UK where queer in reference to LBGT (either as an insult or not) is largely an American loanword and if you asked the majority of people to define it they’d give you something along the lines of nauseas/slightly unwell or peculiar. That said, there are many Brits who identify as queer which is just as fine as people who identify as gay, which can mean either a masculine homosexual or a catch all LGBT+ term in British English but AFAIK is pretty much exclusively the former in the US?
I’m trans and work in Healthcare, and I often just queer as a catch all phrase instead of using the whole acronym. It’s easier to say and most queer folk are not offended by it.
That being said, I try to use the specific group names when I am personally talking to patients, as I think it’s empowering to hear them in a way that doesn’t assign normative value.
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Queer is a blanket term for “none of your business” imo. If they inquire further they might be an ally, but otherwise it’s easier to disengage
I kind of like that angle. It feels a little like the original jab has been turned all the way around to jab the other way.
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I love it honestly! Though, I do feel for the people that spent their lives hearing hurled as a slur. 😕
I think we should reclaim queer as a good catch all for everyone, though I personally like 🌈 Rainbow Mafia 🌈. I also like what CyberEgg pointed out with the term ‘punk’ starting off as a slur only to be owned by the group.
Rainbow Mafia sounds punk as fuck and I’m here for it
I like rainbow mafia 😂
I’m not sure if coined it or not, but I also like gender-spicy
I’m part of the We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it generation, so for me it will always include everyone, even if fashions change.
Yes and no. LGBT and it’s variations are “neutral”, while queer has a strong anti-assimilationist meaning behind. Queer also can easily represent uncommon or complex identities/orientations that aren’t (easily) represented by the acronym
I was in college (huge transphobe) and had a gender studies major sit me and some other students down for a 1.5 hour lesson
To my knowledge, queer can be used as a blanket term for “not-cis but it’s none of your fucking business.” At least this is how I use it anyway
Edit: The term might also help reduce violence against the lgbt. The current issue with cons and some libs is that they seem to think it’s alllllllllllll about talking about sex. A term like queer implies but doesn’t explicitly give details. Should they feel comfortable being fully out? 100%. Is that the safest move in the American christofascist-hellscape? Likely not yet :(
I think because so much of it is sex-adjacent, they feel like you already brought that up as part of it instead of seeing multiple components of a topic. Definitely, they don’t think about it as much as we do so it’s a very different in their minds
“The current issue with cons and some libs is that they seem to think it’s alllllllllllll about talking about sex”
:/
I don’t disagree. Pandering to the dirtbags is dumb as fuck socially, but smart as fuck tactically. Rainbow Mafia will need to strike when they least expect it
I pretty much use it as a replacement for LGBTQIA+, but keep in mind that not everyone may consider themselves queer; it /is/ a reclaimed word after all, so people may have trauma related to it.
Yes, “queer” originated as a slur and mostly got adapted as a self describing term for the community. I use it to describe myself and the community, partly because it rolls off the tongue more easily and partly because it’s a nice and easy term to describe everyone not cis heteronormative.
The term “punk” has a similar story, btw. It came into being as a slur for people that didn’t quite behave as expected by society and punks then took it as a name for themselves, saying “Yeah, I’m a punk, there’s nothing wrong with it and you can’t do shit against it,” which is also why I like to use the term “queer”. Because there’s nothing wrong with being queer and people can’t do shit against that.
Being queer is pretty punk
🤘
Yes it is. Fun side fact: transgender is a common theme especially in cyberpunk, definitely worth looking into if you didn’t yet ;)
I did not know that!
I definitely love the anesthetic, maybe that gave me an excuse to allow myself to like some pink & purple? I do love scifi and the retrofuturistic music!
Got any recommendations?
It depends on the media you prefer. The classics would be The Matrix, 1995’s animated Ghost in the Shell (though the transgender theme is more accidentally AFAIK) or William Gibson’s 1988 book Monalisa Overdrive.
Monalisa Overdrive also inspired Janaína Overdrive, a brazilian short movie by Mozart Freire (which is still on my watchlist though).
There is then Martine Rothblatt’s From Transgender to Transhuman: A Manifesto on the Freedom of Form (again, still on my list), and the general theme of transhumanism, which is often a stand-in or expansion of transgender.
However, something you should be aware of, cyberpunk is generally dystopian and can be pretty depressing. The shiny neon aesthetic is just the sugar-coated topping. There is another world beneath it. The real world.
I am very aware of the dystopia. Maybe that’s part of the appeal for me, the contrast.i have not heard of the matrix having any trans relationship, other than the directors.
I will check those out, I have wanted to watch Ghost in the Shell for a while but never got there or it wasn’t available. The anime+trans reminded me of this video I found super interesting! It starts about “why are there so many more trans people in Japanese games?” and then goes deep into the culture differences between east and west and how they look at conformity in different ways so that homosexuality was easier to accept here and more difficult there but the reverse for trans
I am very aware of the dystopia. Maybe that’s part of the appeal for me, the contrast.
Great, I just wanted to have that set. At the latest since Cyberpunk 2077 became big, the subculture and the artistic genres are all to often reduced to the aesthetic, basically ignoring all the punk elements.
i have not heard of the matrix having any trans relationship, other than the directors.
There’s more all over the movies, but central in the first movie is Neo’s transition of Thomas Anderson, someone who builds an online persona, searching for something he cannot quite get a grasp of, taking the red pill (sad but ironic how that term is used nowadays) which symbolizes the first steps on learning the truth, waking up from the Matrix and climaxing in the death of his old persona, then being reborn his true self, Neo.
Of course, this can be interpreted in many ways, but then you see the context of who made this.That video sounds interesting, I’ll try to watch it tomorrow.
Oooooo yeah, I’ll have to give that a re-watch considering the after context! And yeah, fucking red-pillers…
As someone who actively identifies as queer, I don’t like to use it for the community as a whole. Adding a + at the end of LGBT or LGBTQ is generally sufficient to get the point across that you’re not intentionally leaving people out, if that’s a concern you have, but I don’t think it’s ever been a real concern in good faith conversations. I’ve seen people try to popularize SGM for sexual and gender minorities. I like that better as a catchall, but I think it’s probably too late in the game to switch.
My experience with the trans community leads me to believe that there are some that don’t like the othering nature of using the word queer for them. I can see how using a word that basically means not normal for a community that’s still striving to be accepted is sometimes seen as counterproductive.
I do forget that people identify just as queer. I’ve been understanding it as they’re saying they’re different but not getting into specifics. I am not so familiar with GSM, but that does sound like a far better acronym.
I suspect the difficulty with queer could be regional depending on how prevalent or recently it was a slur.
I would be interested (if you don’t mind) in hearing more about what you mean when you identify as queer.
Always happy to talk about it with people in good faith!
You are partially correct in that I like it because it makes it clear I’m not het without getting into specifics, but I choose it over other similar descriptors for a few additional reasons. I know some people who identify as pansexual and though it’s completely valid to identify with that, I like that queer does not solely refer to sexuality. There are plenty of aromantic pansexuals and asexual people looking for relationships. Because queer doesn’t end in “sexual” I feel like it’s a more wholistic view of the relationship I’m seeking and allows me to discuss it without implying any explicitly sexual feelings. I’m not aro/ace but I feel like it gives people more room in that regard. Similarly, I like that it’s not as restrictive as bisexual, though bisexuals don’t necessarily endorse a gender binary. I like that’s it’s super inclusive, but still leaves me space I feel like pansexual does not reserve for me to find gender identities or expressions that I have a preference for or against. I also like that it gives me an immediate gauge on how people feel about the community as a whole. No true ally will go “well what does that even mean?! You’re all coming up with things just to confuse us” and some trans exclusive or nonbinary exclusive people will push back on it because “bisexual” should be sufficient or some nonsense like that. It allows people to ask questions if it’s relevant to them or they are interested, while still giving people that don’t care as much or might not be interested the general idea that I’m a member of the LGBT community and I’m open about that. I am in a long term monogamous relationship at the moment but this was all relevant when I was dating.
In a more practical sense, to me it means I’m interested in a variety of sexual and gender expressions and though I cannot definitively say I would like any and all combinations of them, I’m more than likely happy to engage if I like the person.
