LGBTQ+

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.

Ally, not queer myself but I am continually disappointed "Gender, Sexual, and Romantic Minorities" (GSRM) has not caught on.

I think it

• gets right to the heart of the issue
• already communicates intersectionality
• doesn't require new letters to keep being added

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'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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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/1681657946529202182

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

I love it honestly! Though, I do feel for the people that spent their lives hearing hurled as a slur. 😕

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 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.

It’s really a personal thing. Most everyone I know, myself included, use the term as a playful way to refer to the LGBTQ community. But some people will take offence, and I can’t blame them either.

This is an organic development from a global community. Neither I nor anyone else speak for the community, definitions will not be universally accepted and they will change over time. Being said, "queer" was initially a term of exclusion. It meant anything other than "normal" (where normal was defined by the oppressors as cisgendered, heterosexual, and heteroromantic). I seet was, at the time, intended in a negative way. When I use it now, I keep the denotation and invert the connotation. Why yes, I am absolutely not cisgendered, heterosexual and heteroromantic. I'm something other than those three things in combination and I'm owning it. I like queer because it automatically expands to include new ways of being as they're discovered. When I was a kid I knew I wasn't straight because women turned me on and men turned me on. So i went with "bi”. Now I'm in a relationship with a trans person. That kinda means "bi" doesn't fit, or at least my understanding of it at the time didn't. I could've moved to pansexual but, frankly, I didn't feel like it and a lot of people use bi to mean "hetero and not-hetero" rather than "man or woman" or "gay or straight". So that's a second time my sexuality, or my understanding of it, has shifted. Then I discovered the concept of demisexuality. Understanding myself better is, of course, a big plus but that means I'm now a ~~straight~~bisexual because I like ~~men and women~~ anyone potentially regardless of gender but I'm also demi. It gets really complex, so I just say "queer" and then am willing to address any confusion that arises from that as well.

As far as leaving letters out of the LGBTOMFGLMAOBBQ+ acronym goes, I've not run into anyone who took that as an intentional slight other than with the Aunt Toms in the "drop the T" movement that wants to exclude gender queer people from the queer movement. Unless you're intentionally trying to divide the community by excluding people, the myriad subgenres of queer including those that haven't been discovered or popularized yet are what the q and the plus are for.

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.

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.

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?

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

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 use "queer person" and "queer folk" as I find it sounds softer than just "queer" and also serves to differentiate it from bigots use of the word.