As the title states really. I need to refer to this diverse group of people, who somehow have gotten put in the same box labeled “sexual minorites”.
I’m a boring CISHET vanilla white male, so I don’t really know. I want to include as many as I can when I refer to “lgbtq+ people”. I’ve been studying various flags, trying to find the one flag I need. But I can’t really figure it out.
Is lgbtq+ the preferred term, or what should I use? Is a flag better? I don’t want to hurt someone by not including them.
I just use “the LGBTQ community”
If that offends anyone, they’re that 0.00000001% of attention-seeking twats that get upset about anything for the sole reason of making any issue about themselves, no matter what
They are also the loudest, mind you
Like I give a fuck
I hear you loud and clear. I’m probably adding the “+” as well, but I also realize that some people just want to be offended. If I can get people to be offended that I don’t oppress lgbtq+ people, then that’s fine. But I don want to accidentally hurt people by being ignorant.
Hey OP, can you elaborate on the context for which you are looking to talk about the queer community? I think that matters a bit. There are more formal and more casual descriptions that I do think are important to discuss the differences of use.
For instance, Gender and Sexual Minorities or GSM is probably the most formal you can go with. This might be appropriate for corporate DEI, but you will get absolutely roasted on social media if you refer to gay people that way. (It’s very clinical, not really something the community uses, but it’s a wide umbrella)
LGBT(QIA+) is a little old school nowadays, a mouthful, and always feels a bit like you’re always going to be missing some letters. If a cishet ally used any variety this, I’m not going to be offended and I’d appreciate that they’re trying- it’s clear that the intention is there and it’s better to signal support imperfectly that be silent imo. This one usually comes up most frequently around Pride Month as there’s a lot more visibility on our community from those who are not in it.
The queer community is probably your best all-purpose use but may not work 100% in formal situations as “queer” has historically been a pejorative. Boomers tend to look at you funny when you use it, and some younger folks who don’t think that slurs can ever be reclaimed can sometimes be put off as well. That said, it’s probably what the majority of the community uses as an umbrella term. This is the one I’d use when chatting with friends. “Gay” can also be used as a substitute for “queer” in this context as many folks will also use that as an umbrella term, but this can be confused with discussing just gay men, so you may have to know your audience.
I had a presumed cishet friend in high school who just used “homosexual”. I wouldn’t recommend. All of the formality of GSM, none of the inclusion.
Other things I would not recommend: alphabet mafia (unless you’re on tiktok), anything that is still generally considered a slur (some folks are reclaiming the f-slur, t-slur and d-slur but I would consider that a deeply personal choice of self expression and not something for cishet folks to use at this time, unless personally invited to use to describe only that person), and lastly, using any of these broad identifiers to refer to specific people who have shared their specific label with you (ie don’t call someone a queer woman when they have told you they identify as bisexual, or a queer man if they said they are a trans man, etc. Some people do identify as queer though, so if they have said as much you can use that specifically then).
That’s a lot of minutia but I think the important thing is, the community generally knows when you are trying your best. Even if you accidentally offend someone, just asking what they would like to be referred to in the future is probably all you need to worry about.
Thanks for your elaborate reply, of which I disagree with nothing!
I have been editing my post for the entire day, and one thing I was debating with my self was how much context to provide. One thing is I want to solicit replies, not bore people to death. Another thing is that if I go through with my idea, some may be able to doxx me.
But “on with the context” I hear you think :-) I work with young people mainly. We’re talking 16-25 year olds primarily. Lately I’ve become aware of how my older coworkers (not that I’m young either, but the others are older) approach especially trans people. Some of the other young people we work with will echo this. And I’ve had it! I’ve decided to become a bit more aggressive in my opposition to this “oppression light” that I see. I wanted to get those “respect my trans homies, or I’ll identify as a fucking problem”. I like the message and the trans people I’ve consulted seem to agree that it’s pretty funny … BUT! I can’t wear the word “fucking” on my clothing, and I don’t want to limit the message to only include trans people.
So I’m trying to figure out, how to display something to the same effect, but with more minorities included. Being the dumb fuck I am, I wanted to make sure that I don’t hurt people, by being ignorant of the meaning of some term or excluding someone. And just asking the usual lgtbq+ people in my circles would not give me a representative answer. I might get some t-shirts made, it may be badges, or something entirely different IDK, I’m working on it.
It seems like in this situation, it’s reasonable to just use the word “trans”. I really appreciate how much thought you’re putting in to inclusiveness, but it seems like it isn’t the queer community at large who your older coworkers are struggling to accept, but specifically trans people.
I don’t know all the details, but I would recommend two things:
First, you need to help trans people feel safe while they’re in your place of work. They are the people who are at the center of this conversation, not you and not your older coworkers. Get a small Progress Flag and put it somewhere in your workspace where it is visible to the public and also clearly associated with you. Your goal here is to put up a little flag that says “if you’re in the queer community, come to me and I will make you comfortable”. These statements of inclusiveness are aimed to the public, not your coworkers–your coworkers already know that you’re an ally because they know who you are and what kind of actions you do, but the general public doesn’t have that luxury so this is where your efforts for inclusiveness should be focused.
Second, if you do want to buy clothes or accessories to show your older coworkers that you support trans identities and try to change their minds about doing the same, make sure you support trans artists when you do so :) don’t “get them made”, buy them from a trans artist who has already made them. Not only will you be financially supporting the people you want to support, but you’ll also be elevating the voice of an actual trans person–which I think is what you wanted to do when you made this post.
That being said, hostile phrasing like “I’ll identify as a problem” may not be the best way to change someone’s mind. I don’t know a lot about your coworkers, but you might be the only person to ever speak to them with empathy about empathy for trans people. You’ve got an opportunity here to prove wrong the stereotypes about “screaming SJWs”, stereotypes that are so baked in to our society that they have even managed to enter the discussion we’re having here. In a world like the one that we live in, kindness and patience are radical and powerful tools, if we choose to use them.
tldr: I want to come off as a little aggressive - not enough to start a fight necessarily, but enough to catch coworkers attention. In the meantime the pride colors are already flying in a prominent position.
I see what you mean about the hostility. But to be honest, I’m aiming at being a bit aggressive. The people I want to influence are so used to hear soft messages, that they pay no attention if you don’t force a slight edge in their faces. Besides, I’m done seeing trans kids, who have done nothing wrong, be met with dead sexing by boomers who are so frigging well aware of the kid’s gender identity. It’s like that episode of Fawlty Towers, except it’s actually happening in front of you and instead of being funny it’s incredibly cringy and you start to feel sorry for the kid.
Hello, I’m one of those queer people.
For my two cents, I find in conversations it’s easiest to refer to it as the “queer community” or “gay community.” If I’m feeling an acronym, the first one I reach for is LGBT. And that’s me speaking as one of those q+ folks.
Now for me, I prefer to use Queer because it’s sort of an umbrella term. For instance, all lesbians are queer, but not all queer people are lesbians. It’s also great for people who don’t like labels, because it doesn’t pigeonhole someone into a specific box.
The term “queer” has a little history behind it too. When I was in middle school, being called queer was like, the ultimate insult. It was used pejoratively, and it felt bad to hear it. Nowadays we’re reclaiming the word, and it loses its evilness. That all said, you can call people “queer,” but don’t call a person “a queer” or else you’re being insulting. It’s to be used like an adjective, not a noun.
For my money, this is the most inclusive flag without singling out a particular community.
Generally speaking, I don’t like an overly verbose acronym. It’s part of why I stop at LGBT or LGBTQ instead of going all the way to LGBTQ+, or as my government seems to want to say, LGBTQ2IA+. In my opinion, the effort to make the community more inclusive by adding more sub-communities to the acronym has the opposite effect.
I’m a bi guy and I’ve never used LGBTQ2IA+ in my life. But I like it when the government does. I like to see them falling over themselves trying to be inclusive. Struggle, bitch, it’s about time something was even a tiny bit difficult for those fucks.
I don’t think OP needs to do the same, though. Queer community, gay community, LGBT, that all seems fine to me.
I’ve never seen/heard the 2 before, what is the 2?
The 2 or sometimes characterized 2S refers to the Two-Spirit community.
I’m realizing now this may only be a thing in my part of the world, which may go to show that an overly inclusive acronym is actually divisive.
I would not consider that divisive, I would say I need to do better. But also, we all have life to learn and some knowledge travels faster than others. Please don’t change.
Seconded! Don’t change, just because a term used by the North American first nations people is unknown to me, as a Scandinavian, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use it in an everyday context. Just that I probably won’t, because … because what actually? I mean I’m Danish, we colonized Greenland, Iceland, and the Faeroe Islands. As a culture we really wrecked the native Greenlandic culture. I should probably look into how to include the Inuits in the future then.
Writing that sentence I wanted to make sure, that Inuit is the preferred term. And in 5 minutes I learned that there’s not just one Greenlandic language, there’s actually three. I’m in my 40s, I’ve lived in Denmark my entire life, and received an average Danish education - WTF? why haven’t I learned something as basic as this about my fellow countrymen? Danish is taught in Greenlandic schools, but we can’t bother to know that there’s three Greenlandic languages?!?
Now I really need to figure out, how to include Greenlanders, like the Two-Spirit community, but in a localized version.
“Divisive” might not have been the right word here. I just meant that it can add to the confusion :)
Generally speaking, I don’t like an overly verbose acronym. It’s part of why I stop at LGBT or LGBTQ instead of going all the way to LGBTQ+, or as my government seems to want to say, LGBTQ2IA+. In my opinion, the effort to make the community more inclusive by adding more sub-communities to the acronym has the opposite effect.
The other question/issue I have with the long abbreviation is does the order of the letters matter? It’s currently settled on L->G->B […] but is that just by tradition or does it signify some other importance [order added? relative size of community? etc]. If you remembered all the characters but couldn’t remember the sequence is it disrespectful to list them alphabetically or try to use the typical order and possibly transpose a couple? I would assume there’s a process for deciding when to add a designation to the abbreviation, how do things get decided against and what does that mean if you feel there’s something that should be included but isn’t? You wouldn’t want to gatekeep someone’s genuinely held identity, but you can’t list everything, and if you add a “everything else” then what’s the point of a list in the first place other than increased prominence in relation to “everything else”?
It definitely feels like a more conversation-friendly catch-all (such as “queer”) is more tenable instead of constantly adding or changing designations to refer to a nebulous collective group. At its core, basically that group is anyone that considers themself not CISHET, and any extra specificity is certainly important for identity and community building but probably not needed in typical conversations/references.
Another thought just occurred to me, how does screen reading assistive tech. deal with seeing
LGBTQ2IA+– does it just read out every character or will it try to pronounce it like a word? Either would be varying levels of jarring to the user I’d think.Sorry for dropping this kinda stream of consciousness rant on your comment, and I don’t consider myself part of the community so it’s really not for me to say anyway, but I was glad to see a similar sentiment against the abbreviation reflected throughout this post and particularly from your comment.
I have a couple different opinions on the order of the letters. Normally, I’d say that order doesn’t matter because it’s a collective, and the order comes from the point that communities merged together. For instance, there were originally alliances of Lesbians and Gays in the 70’s, but Trans often wasn’t considered its own thing until sometime in the 90’s. And since Queer was originally used as a slur, it didn’t make sense to add it until even later when sentiment had changed.
So usually what you see happening is more letters getting added on to the end at the point of adoption. However, and I just learned this today, the government of Canada today is now using 2SLGBTQI+ as their official acronym. This breaks convention for a couple of reasons, in that Two-Spirit is represented with ‘2S’, which means that it now has precedence and more symbols than the other communities in the group.
They say this is to represent that the Two Spirit community would be the historically oldest group in the collective. I’m not sure if I really believe that though, since these labels are about human sexuality, and that’s been around as long as there have been humans. There was no ‘first’ sexual or gender minority in my opinion. This feels more like a do-nothing feelgood thing where a government that’s failed to do right by its indigenous people pats itself on its back for being inclusive. Which doesn’t mean I’m not happy to see it, it just also feels jarring and weird, and I doubt that the acronym will actually see much practical use when people are talking to each other.
Mm, problem is op is a cishet. We can use words like queer and alphabet mafia, but they are…different from the mouth of an outsider (for want of a better word)
I think there are ways OP can use queer respectfully, and there are ways they may accidentally slip into something that can sound homophobic, so, tread with caution. “The queer community” is fine, that reads to me with the same respect as “queer theory” in an academic setting. “The queers” =homophobic (unless you are part of that community and are being ironic), “are you queer?” =also bad, “my queer colleague” =not good unless that is the specific label they identify with, etc.
Alphabet mafia is best left to the Gen Z kids on TikTok, even as one of them queers myself I’d never use that in a serious setting.
Yeah it’s a prickly one.
It seems that people disagree with you, based on your votes. I don’t get it, I am an outsider, I’m going to stay an outsider. No matter how many black friends I had, I would never consider using the N-word either, because I’m not black, I’m not a member of the community, and I don’t know how it is to live your life under those circumstances.
So as OP I can honestly say that I’m not really considering “queer”. One thing, as I’ve already ranted above, is that an English context its history is in a derogatory usage, and shaking that past is difficult, and impossible for me to comfortably pull off. But in a Danish context the word makes no sense. “Trans” and the various permutations of the letters are used in Danish, but “queer” never has been. I believe the closest word would be “bøsse”, but that is strictly used to describe homosexual men.
Eh, it’s the internet, we’re talking about queer matters and I intimated there may be something the cishet can’t have. I wouldn’t read into the downvotes lol.
Identifying as Queer or using the word Queer can even be contentious among certain circles within the community itself these days, depending on your generation and terf/tumblr exposure. i wouldn’t stick my foot in that beartrap if I were in your shoes. Generally referring to it as The Community is good though.
I find that take very problematic. Not because of your opinion on who can or cannot use words like queer, but because you aren’t giving a meaningful alternative. What language should an ally use to avoid stepping on someone’s toes?
Personally, I think intent is very important in this sort of context, so I don’t see issue with words like queer when used earnestly in support. Though I know my experience isn’t universal, and I think OP sees that and is trying to be mindful.
They do have options though - lgbt, lgbtqa, lgbtqa+, even ‘gay community’ are all widely used .
Although i saw an auto-transcriber turn lgbtqa into 'legittabittaque-ah" once, which i feel we all desperately need to add to our lexicon.
Perfect! I assumed those were the alternatives you’d meant, but without saying them I wasn’t sure.
My two cents as a trans person: The Q (queer) is an umbrella term for everyone who didn’t fall under L G B or T, so adding anything after that is just unnecessary and begging for right wingers to make a joke out of it.
So “LGBTQ” is safest, but most of the time I just say “LGBT” tbh
I get where you’re coming from, but what about the wide swath of people in this post, who are not covered by the term? Like aromantics and asexuals?
begging for right wingers to make a joke out of it
Who’s to say I’m not kinda looking for it? Come at me, I’m angry, I sorta want a fight. I can hold my own in a debate, and if I can get you to expose your obsolete and inhumane views by attacking me, then YOU are the one who’s outed.
aromantics and asexuals
They’re covered by the term “queer” too because they’re not heterosexual. And if anyone identifies as “agender” they’d be covered by the Q too, since they’re not cisgender.
I’m angry, I sorta want a fight
I don’t think we have anything to fight about lol
I’m not looking to fight anyone here. I’m sorry if I came across way. I want to stop my boomer coworkers from hurting LGTBQ people in our organization, and if that resolves in me debating my coworkers then that’s a fight I’m not gonna back down from… #imactuallynotverybadassjustextremelytired
Oooh I see what you meant now lol. But yeah, I feel you.
What’s funny is that a lot of my coworkers would shit-talk trans people until they learned I was transitioning. Now all of the sudden they’re more nuanced and understanding 🤔
Do you call them boomers to their faces?
Last time I did was today, but that was in a teasing funny setting, and to a person I hold a great deal of respect for.
I wouldn’t in a discussion, I hate name calling, it’s counter productive. But in my mind…
But it exists in your head, right? Like you have mentally categorised an age of people as boomers, and you’re associating a behaviour with that category?
The reason I say is that age is also a protected category…
Hmm I guess you’re right… I hadn’t thought of it that way before.
I think I describe the behavior more than the age group, but I still see what you’re saying. Thanks for call me out on it.
I’m aro/ace and I don’t really say anything more than LGBT or LGBT+ myself. I’m not really a fan of the whole alphabet soup acronym, it doesn’t make conversation any easier. I don’t speak for everyone though, some people clearly like the name including everyone. Personally I tend to even omit the + or Q after the first time of saying because otherwise it’s still a mouthful.
I go with lgbt. Those who know all the letters, know all the letters. Those who don’t will make fun of you for listing out more letters.
I’m not saying lgbtqia2s+ fuck no. It’s cringe af
I agree that in an effort to be as inclusive as possible we have created a completely unmarketable acronym. That matters because we are still having to defend our very existence to a lot of people whose bigotry is being gathered up and weaponized politically against us.
As an lgbtqia+ person, I say screw 2S. That’s so silly.
What about “rainbow people”? I kinda like it, the letters can quickly become unmarketable cringe while still not include everyone.
The best term you can use is just “the queer community”. It’s a broad and vague word that asks no questions and offers no answers beyond “these people have sexual orientations and/or gender identities that are not exclusively heterosexual and/or cisgender”. It’s gender-neutral unlike the previous catch-all term “gay”. It includes people who were originally excluded and unrepresented by the original LGBT acronym, such as intersex and third-gendered people. It also includes people who find it culturally difficult to put a label on what they do, such as same-gender-loving Black people who don’t call themselves “gay”.
That being said, it is not always the perfect, use-it-all-the-time panacea that you’re looking for. “Queer” was originally a pejorative term, and although it has been reclaimed as positive terminology since the Stonewall Riot days (think of the chant, “We’re here! We’re queer! Get used to it!”), some older members of the queer community remember it as hurtful.
In addition, sometimes it’s important to be specific. Exclusively using the word “queer” to refer to the queer community flattens the queer experience to one single uniform word, when reality is anything but uniform. For example, when trans people are targeted by executive orders and bathroom bills, it’s important to be specific about who those actions harm: trans people, intersex people, and so on.
For these reasons, while it is safe to use “queer” as a blanket term, some individual people don’t like the term and some individual circumstances call for a more specific word.
As far as your flag question goes, if you’re looking for a visible signal to signpost that you’re a queer ally, you’re probably looking for the Progress Flag. It’s the original rainbow pride flag, but with added representation for trans people, intersex people, people of color, and those who died during the AIDS crisis.
It’s gender-neutral unlike the previous catch-all term “gay”.
Exposing my own ignorance here, but is “gay” necessarily gendered? I had thought that lesbian women sometimes identified as “gay”, is that not the case? No offence meant, genuinely interested.
I don’t think there’s a contradiction there, a term being gendered isn’t all-or-nothing. Certainly, some men attracted to men identify as gay, as well as some lesbian women, and even some bisexual folks of any gender. In that way it isn’t exclusively gendered.
But if I say “the gay community”, I’m guessing the image that evokes in your mind leans heavily towards gay men, compared to a phrase like “the LGBTQ+ community”. Even if the speaker means the same thing by those phrases, the listener likely interprets them differently.
Fair point, I agree a lot of people probably would think that way, although on a personal level, I would say that if I heard “the gay community” my reaction would be to consider it to mean both gay men and lesbian women. Not sure if it’s different in different places though (UK here), maybe there are geographic differences too?
Anyway, thanks for the good answer :-)
Exposing my own ignorance here, but is “gay” necessarily gendered?
The difficulty of answering that question, and the fact that both “yes” and “no” are both valid answers that individual people of every gender could sincerely give, are two of the reasons why “queer” has become more popular than “gay” as an umbrella term. The people who do think “gay” as an umbrella term is gendered prefer the word “queer”, while the people who don’t think “gay” as an umbrella term is gendered are not upset by the word “queer”.
Another reason that “gay” isn’t used as an umbrella term is because it’s also a specific term. Imagine being a man and saying “I’m gay” and having someone ask you, “ok but are you gay or are you gay gay?”. Sexuality and gender are already sensitive and difficult things to explore, so removing ambiguity from the language surrounding those topics will make things clearer and easier for everyone involved.
That being said, you should always respect the way that people want to be identified. If you know a lesbian woman that identifies as “gay”, then just accept it and use it while understanding that not every lesbian woman will feel the same way.
All really good points - thank you :-)
Noticed that flag on several occasions but never knew what it was called - thanks for sharing!
I personally use “queer folks” as a general catch-all. It used to be a pejorative, but has largely been reclaimed with the whole “we’re here, we’re queer” type messages.
Bunch o puffs, lezzas and scallywags.
I tried “you people” but for some reason it didn’t go too well.
I find the full abbreviation to be a bit of a mouthful when speaking, so I sometimes prefer use “rainbow”, for example in the context of “rainbow rights” instead. I consider it as inclusive as can be, and people understand what I mean.
I’m a cis straight man, so I may have missed something.
I liked rainbow too. But it would seem that some of the other commenters have a strong issue with “rainbow people” as it have been used dismissive towards them.
A one size fits all label seems impossible to find for this diverse group of fellow humans.
The LBGTQ : pronounced The luh-buh-guh-tuh-quah
The alphabet mafia
Or the southern version : all y’all
I’ve always thought we should use “plus” as in the + at the end of lgbt. It’s short, easy, all inclusive and has a built in positive association.
Not being part of that community myself, I don’t carry any weight in this debate, but I do like this suggestion a lot - the Plus community sounds kinda cool.
Only problem is that if it were written as “+”, that might also be read as “positive”, which might then lead to ‘hilarious’ jokes about HIV.
Nonetheless, I think it’s a good idea, if that was what the people involved wanted of course.
I largely say queers, queer folk, queer people when talking with other queer people. Or sometimes even just gay. Like “Hey, are we gonna be the only gays at the event?” But I use LGBT when trying to communicate to a broader group of people, such as saying “This event is LGBT friendly”.
Your milage may vary, but I haven’t been accused of excluding anyone.
GSRM
Gender, sexual, romantic minority.
deleted by creator
GRRM
A Song of Inclusion and Diversity
Am also a boring, (getting) old white bloke: is something like “rainbow folk” not appropriate?
I know the Wear It Purple day organisers refer to kids who are questioning/curious as “rainbow kids” (at least, that’s what a trans coworker told me they called them).
Edit: honestly, it’d just be nice if we didn’t have to label people at all. Y’know - everyone’s a human deserving of dignity and respect, no matter where they come from, how they look, what they believe in, and who they love.
But, again, I get that I’m a boring old white bloke, and it’s probably a lot easier for me to say this than it is for those folks who feel oppressed/suppressed in some way. I just wish it weren’t the case.
“Queer” works.
Everyone between age 30 and 60 will accept the label immediately.
Some people under the age of 30 will get offended but they’re the kind of people who like getting offended so you can safely ignore them.
Some people over the age of 60 will get offended but who cares, they’re about to get dementia anyway.
Can I respectfully ask, what’s the definition of queer as opposed to lesbian, gay, bi, trans or intersex? As in, why is it included in the acronym? Does it have a specific meaning that isn’t covered by the other terms?
I use the term “queer” to describe myself because my sexual identity (which is something like bisexual or pansexual) and my neurodivergence have made me something of a cultural outcast throughout most of my life. I don’t really “fit in” with most people, and “queer” describes that experience pretty succinctly.
To the person you are responding to, I am cautious about using this word too broadly because some people have specific trauma around this word. Bigots often wield the word like a weapon, so people who are subjected to that and don’t have adequate supports to deal with that trauma can get offended by it. I don’t think we should so flippantly dismiss that. It works for me. It doesn’t work for others.
I think there’s something to be said for not self-censoring due to the potential of someone’s personal trauma. Respectfully, some random person’s issues are not my problem and should not affect my ability to identify myself or others, as long as I’m not doing so in a mean spirited way. If words cause you mental issues, you should work on that with a therapist. I will not coddle you.
“Queer” is a catchall term. It specifically does not have a specific meaning. It’s meant for people who do not fit into the cishet idea of gender, but also don’t fall neatly into the L, G, or B of LGBT.
“Queer” technically encompasses the L, G, and B too. Anything outside of cishet “norm”. A fully straight metrosexual could consider himself queer.
Plus its one of the letters in the growing acronym.
honestly, it’d just be nice if we didn’t have to label people at all.
Hear hear!
To be totally honest, that’s somewhat my sentiment for wanting to do something. Some other commenter thanked me for my attitude … I feel weird about that, because I think of it as respectful common decency towards my fellow humans.
I really like the rainbow word though, it’s not as gringe as the letter combinations, not as potentially offensive as some of the words rainbow folks self apply, and it still get the meaning across while being inclusive of all.
