The Canadian government warns that some US states have enacted laws that may affect LBGT people.
  • DADDYCHILL [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    disagree, queer is not all encompassing. if you dont identify as queer but you still want to identify with the community the acronym is still the best descriptor. as for the order, i do support updating it by putting trans first and pushing bisexuals down the list in favor of pansexuals.

      • DADDYCHILL [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        im not trying to do a bi erasure, bi people are valid. im just saying as someone who was bi sexual who later became pan sexual after learning about the term i just think changing some of the letters around would be good ways to raise awareness about different genders and sexualities in the acronym. so many people know what lgbt is but they dont really know the plus part. the first four are really important to the broader conception of gender and sexual identity as a whole. look if we can change the flag i dont think the acronym is sacrosanct either, i do however think we need an acronym.

        i think lesbian, gay, and bisexual should be lower on the acronym. i think trans people should be first since they are receiving most of the targeting and attacks out of any group in the community right now, i think pansexuals, asexuals, and nonbinaries could really benefit from a representation bump. TPAN, rolls off the tongue. we can keep lgbt too. nobody got rid of the pride flag after the progress flag. both can exist at the same time. i just think its a representation issue.

    • Tastysnack [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      19·
      1 year ago

      Why would you change the order? It implies some level of arbitary importance to certain unique struggles over others which I don’t think is healthy while we all share the same acronym.

      Also L should stay at the front because that relates more to gay history and the allyship shown by women during the AIDS epidemic to provide blood to sufferers and L comes first to honor that.

    • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      19·
      1 year ago

      queer is not all encompassing

      It’s literally a catchall term for anybody who’s not het, cis or endo.

      pushing bisexuals down the list in favor of pansexuals

      As a bisexual trans woman exclusively dating t4t, let’s NOT start the “bi is actually transphobic, you should call yourself pan” nonsense debate. It always leads to awful bad faith discussions, pushes bi erasure and completely ignores any and all actually transphobic dating behavior, of which there is plenty, none of which is connected to calling yourself bisexual.

    • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      17·
      1 year ago

      I don’t follow - my understanding of the term is that it encompasses everyone who fits under the umbrella. if you’re not under the umbrella, the acronym isn’t going to fit either, no? can you give me an example of who you mean?

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        9·
        1 year ago

        I’ve seen/heard of people specifically disavowed the term “queer” for their personal identity, but only a couple times and I, like others here, much prefer “queer” as a catchall term for brevity in all cases where there isn’t someone objecting to it being applied to them.

        • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          9·
          1 year ago

          yeah, I’d be curious to learn why. like I’m all for a different umbrella term but it’s hard to pick one without understanding the complaint.

          • Tastysnack [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
            9·
            1 year ago

            I’m guilty of using queer without considering who I’m talking to.

            When I talk to boomer gays and use queer as a catchall term I’ve seen visible recoil.

            To them queer was a slur similar to foxtrot-Oscar-gay-gay-oscar-triceratops (I can’t remember the phonetic alphabet) and was used to oppress and attack them at least in the UK.

            And like yeaaah, it was even when I was in school up until like 2010s so its not as reclaimed with the older generation as we’d like to hope because of lived experience from what I’ve seen which is fair.

            So as a result I don’t use it around older gay men and use the acronym since queer genuinely seems to bring back a lot of the 80s gay panic trauma for them I guess.

            I’d liken it to when a cis friend called me triceratops-rain-alpha-november-november-yacht as a in-joke he assumed i knew since he knows a fair few trans people who are reclaiming that term on twitter but for me that word is full of trauma and I was like “nope, I’m not in that community please don’t ever say that again”.

            I called him a chaser cos he has a trans gf and said it was reclaimed by friends of mine with trans gfs and he got the message why you can’t assume reclaimed words have the same gravity with each individual.

            I guess I see queer in a similar vein, I guess the difference is the time since it was reclaimed is the big difference.

            I don’t think we need a new umbrella term but I think it’s important for us to remember others experiences with reclaimed words before we assume them to be gospel (despite most gay publications I’ve seen using it fine).

            I dunno, I’m trying to be mature and empathic 😭😭😭

            • silent_water [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
              7·
              1 year ago

              yep totally fair. I mostly interact with younger trans people - a lot of the boomers are just straight up dead here because of how the government handled AIDS. so there isn’t the same kind of memory. like 40 is unfortunately the oldest I’ve met. it’s rage inducing to think about - I transitioned with literally zero wise elders around to provide guidance.

              • Tastysnack [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
                6·
                1 year ago

                I transitioned with literally zero wise elders around to provide guidance.

                Mood

                I have however had enough moments of speaking to older gays in our cities gay town and was asked to be aware of the history of that term and it deffo made me go “ah m’bad”.

            • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
              4·
              1 year ago

              I get that for older gay people in English-speaking countries and i appreciate that you shared this. My perspective on this is rather different, as i’m from Germany and completely out-of-date English slurs are obviously not something people here normally have a personal trauma from. On this side of the North Sea, the people who take objection to the term queer are mainly assimilationists who don’t want to be lumped in with anybody who is too flamboyant, loud and gender-nonconforming for their straight friends and business partners, or they’re outright terfs who love to make up stuff about how lesbianism is erased by the queer agenda (ofc most of the time these aren’t even lesbians, and if you see them at a counterprotest to a Dyke* March, odds are they are paid to be there by one of the European fronts for the Heritage Foundation). So i’m not used to needing to pay attention to who i piss off with the term, because my experience is that it reliably pisses off people i want to piss off.

              • Tastysnack [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
                3·
                1 year ago

                That’s really interesting, I guess my perspective is shaped by my material conditions niko-dunk

                Lmao but genuinely that’s really interesting. Admittedly this thread is the first time I’ve heard it’s not pecieved in the same way which says to me I’ve fallen for a British (but positioning itself as the “International community”) position so it’s given me some things to think about as hearing its being weaponised by reactionaries makes me feel the ick now.

                • AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
                  2·
                  1 year ago

                  Likewise, i’m feeling kinda icky because my previous opinion towards the term kind of brushed over the trauma queer elders had to endure. Because it originally wasn’t the international term it is now, it was something that gay people abroad probably knew about, but definitely not something your average bigot in a rural central-European village yelled at you when he thought your pants where too fancy to make him feel secure in his fragile masculinity. So i was under the impression that people still alive today just had no direct, hurtful experience with it like with other slurs.

                  • Tastysnack [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
                    3·
                    1 year ago

                    We live and learn. I still find myself having to catch myself in situations where maybe its better to just use the full acronym to not trigger anyone.

              • Historical_General@lemm.ee
                1·
                1 year ago

                assimilationists

                I’m sure you’ll find them in the anglosphere too. I’ve seen a few threads of twitter. Possibly just Germans though, since they tend to have good English.