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.
Sort of equivalent. “Queer” was once used as a sharp slur by many homophobes, but it’s been actively reclaimed by the community and used as a badge of honor instead to remove its power as a slur. Some older members may still take offense to it just because of the historical context that they lived through, but I imagine anyone of your age or younger has zero problem with the word and probably use it themselves.
In definition, “queer” is meant to describe someone deviating from the norm. As your therapist described, in this community its often used as a catch-all for people who don’t fit cleanly into the lesbian/gay/trans labeled bins. Its also frequently used when someone has more than one gender/sexuality identifications. But you’re welcome to use it with only just one.
Technically, the acronym “LGBTQ+” includes Queer in itself, as the Q. But we all know that acronym sucks to use in conversation a lot lol.
Huh, I’ve always thought “queer” encompasses both those who fit neatly into the gay, lesbian, bi, or trans bins as well as those who don’t. In other words, I thought it meant
a person who is at least one of:
- not cisgender
- not heterosexual
- not heteroromantic
So basically the same as LGBTQ+ except that 1) it’s easier to say than LGBTQ+ and 2) it’s a reclaimed word that not all people in the community have reclaimed so it will make more of the people it describes uncomfortable than “LGBTQ+” will.
I definitely remember hearing my dad use it that way as a kid. Although, back then It was probably used for gay, I don’t know who else was really know about existing in the sticks in the 90s.
I have understood it to mean anything non-cis/het, which is at the very least what I know about myself. I suppose depending how the trans journey goes I may not be able to consider myself straight either 😂 that’d be a trip! That has been in my head when fantasizing about being brave or comfortable enough to know who I am and come out, “I used to think I was straight and cis, turns out, I’m neither 🤷♀️”
I have understood it to mean anything non-cis/het, which is at the very least what I know about myself.
you understand the broad value of using a single, all-encompassing word, then. You’re in good company - many queer folks find that it takes them years to really solidify their gender and sexuality after they come out for the first time, and even then there are always surprises about who you find yourself attracted to or what you feel comfortable wearing. drawing sharp boundaries isn’t productive when the boundaries are so fluid - for many, it makes more sense to just call yourself “queer” and define your gender and sexuality for yourself as you go.
Plus, I feel like we don’t even really have words for all the different ways that one can be attracted to other people, and so sometimes the long acronym feels like a limiting concept made up by straight people. Am I even allowed to feel a form of attraction or express a gender identity that isn’t one of the pre-existing letters in the acronym? If i’m sometimes attracted to androgynous people specifically with long legs and a short torso, are we going to add another letter to the acronym for that? Or can we just agree that it’s all part of the beautiful queer rainbow and move on?
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
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+
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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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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.
I like rainbow mafia 😂
I’m not sure if coined it or not, but I also like gender-spicy
Rainbow Mafia sounds punk as fuck and I’m here for it
The way I use it is that Queer is an opt in label that in some way is embracing the idea of rejecting societal cishet norms.
There are many LGBT folk that don’t identify with the word queer, and they are mostly folk who just want to blend in, live their life, and have people forget that they exist.
People who self label as queer though tend to want society to change to better fit us, they tend to be more vocal and open about rejecting the bullshit that society puts on us.
Geez, I should’ve expected to see you here but I didn’t! I love how active you are!
Definitely I want society to accept me for me, but/and I want to blend in.
I want to be able to be me(whoever that is) and nobody to give a shit!
Slightly off topic, but do you know of any other queer or queer friendly or themed comminuties or whatever? I’m obvious from the blåhaj, but o ly subscribe to like 5 other places. I definitely want to find more queer/lgbtq… + friendly spaces to hang!
It’s been great! I have a few accounts across the fediverse, but have spent a lot of time in this zone lately.
The whole instance basically exists because I wanted a way of accessing lemmy communities back when lemmy was barely a thing. I’ve been active for a while now, and it just so happens that 6000 of my closest friends have joined the instance since then :P
As for other communities, the only other one I use is !transgender@lemmy.ml. There are more out there, lots of them memey, like egg_irl etc, but I’ve never really been part of those spaces.
Agreed. I identify with queer right now because I dress loudly and mix the gender of my clothing.
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.
Depending on the usage, yes.
Adding more and more letters isn’t just a problem for others, but as you carve GSM (gender and sexual minorities) into smaller and smaller buckets, then it becomes more obvious when one is excluded.
THAT being said, LGBTQ is sufficient for some people and not for others. Queer is often used in a derogatory way, and makes some people uncomfortable.
Language is tricky, and forcing a society to use specific words can also cause significant backlash. Should focus on fixing intent and not specific wording.
I always found LGBT to be pretty exclusionary personally.
I’d much prefer something like gender, sexually or romantically queer.
Echoing everyone else’s sentiment, queer is a fine catch all as long as you know your audience. Remember not only might it offend someone in the community who has had that word used against them, it might incite violence or retaliation from someone who is not supportive of the community and might hear you use that descriptor and feel it’s okay to pile on with more unkind language.
Personally, I like using it because I struggle with identifying which word best describes my sexuality, so I like being able to just say “I’m queer”. Admittedly, because of my environment, I sometimes over generalize and just say “I’m gay” when in fact bisexual or pansexual would be closer to accurate, because the people around me at least have an idea what “gay” means, but would not be open to learning more inclusive language.
Edit : I wanted to add a silly comparison. In the south, particularly among older folk, some people use the term “coke” to describe all carbonated beverages, where many would say “soda” or “pop”. An example I don’t hear as much anymore, but still enjoy, is :
Waiter : What can I get you to drink?
Customer : I’ll take a coke!
Waiter : What kind?
Customer : Ehhh, a Doctor Pepper, please.
I feel like I barely know what pansexual is, I totally get that others may not have heard about it at all. I’m still amazed how much struggle bi people face when gay has been more or less accepted or at least tolerated for a little bit.
As someone also from the south, I am very familiar with that exchange! I also don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve heard it
Yeah, I have to confess that I don’t fully understand the difference between bi and pan. I’ve had some people tell me that pan is simply a more inclusive way of saying the same thing, and others tell me that there are distinct differences in how the two approach their sexuality, so the whole thing just leaves me a bit confused.
The way I understand bi and pan is the following:
- pansexual is attraction that is unaffected by the other person’s gender
- bisexual is attraction to similar and different genders, but the attraction may be distinct (in terms of what is found attractive or the actual feeling of attraction) for different gender identities - and lots of bi people experience different amounts of attraction to different gendered people .
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An important note is that the bisexual community has not historically been, and mostly is not currently, exclusionary of trans and nonbinary folks.
A lot of people (including me, as a trans-nonbinary demi-ish+sorta-bi/ace person, not gonna write a whole essay, I just say queer usually) dislike when people claim bisexuality is trans-exclusionary and/or nonbinary-exclusionary :/
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These are of course personal labels, so some people use them differently and respecting people’s self labelling is important.
Some people use bi to mean attraction to people of any two gender identities, or two-or-more gender identities.
Pan probably has similar things but afaik it’s a less common label so I haven’t seen as much discussion on the different meanings people use, or maybe it’s less prone to that because the prefix “bi” means “two” which results in weird etymological nitpicking ;p
Queer is great. It’s one syllable rather than four plus. And honestly, I think it comes off as a little more down to Earth.
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It varies from person to person. I personally like queer because it’s super “catch all” and I’m always confused asf.
That being said if you present yourself as an LGBT positive person I don’t think you’ll run into any trouble with it. I haven’t at least
I’m also confused af 🤣
I sure hope I come across positively!
I like the idea of getting pride flag stuff, but also a little afraid of willingly putting a target on myself as well.
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This one is a sort of personal preference. There are people who have a problem with the word queer, and it’s understandable. I personally cannot stand the f-slur, have far too many negative memories related to it, and have no interest in reclaiming it. But queer feels fine to me. My gender and sexuality are a nebulous mess so queer feels like a good descriptor. It feels like a good way to say "not cis, not het, but no single label works so ¯_(ツ)_/¯ "
It’s also easier to say when referring to the whole group instead of LGBTQIA+. But I would only use it that way if I know the people I’m talking to are also ok with the term.
So basically: nothing formal. It’s just a personal preference. Only you can know if it feels right for you. But know your audience when using it around others.
F-slur can stay buried, queer is simple and sweet.
If they want more info after “queer,” it’s an opportunity to change somebody’s mindset to be more inclusive
I like to see it that way, as an easy way to refer to everyone who doesn’t fit within the cishet norm.
As others have mentioned, this used to be a derogatory term, so some people may still feel uncomfortable with it, but it has been reclaimed since then and I think nowadays we have long past the point where most people still see it as a derogatory word.
Also, it seems it annoys Graham Linehan, which is always a bonus: https://twitter.com/Glinner/status/1681657946529202182Yes, “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…
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.
I love it honestly! Though, I do feel for the people that spent their lives hearing hurled as a slur. 😕
