• minyakcurry@monyet.cc
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    4 months ago

    I’m a queer person in a same sex relationship for the longest time. Honestly even hearing the term LGBT (without the plus, without anything else) makes me kinda happy. Granted I’m in a place where acceptance is barely normalised.

    I’m not even aware of the longer variants myself; I personally just use “queer” in describing myself (see above) and my friends. Even the aces I know seem to just call themselves queer and don’t really seem bothered by the lack of explicit asexual inclusion in LGBT or LGBT+ or LGBTQ+.

    I don’t think we should get really stuck on terminology, to the point where we get into arguments with strangers online. I believe labels are important for helping us understand ourselves, but only to a certain point. Either way, queerness to me is quite all-encompassing, so representation here is not an issue? Maybe you could educate me on this.

    The flipside being: I am aware that I would like to be more specific in describing myself to people, but it’s difficult to explain bisexuality to others (even queer folk!). I use queer as a shortcut. I don’t really fault them for not knowing the ins and outs of my sexuality though. I’m just queer at first glance. Wanna know more? Fantastic. Lemme tell you about the bicycle.

    I get it’s upsetting to kinda “dilute” who we are at times. But being antagonistic about it isn’t really effective in educating, imo. These people are trying. Let them try, fuck up a little, and then gently nudge them in the correct direction.

    • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      But being antagonistic about it isn’t really effective in educating, imo.

      Being antagonistic is effective in telling people that I, personally, find inclusiveness more important than listening to people who say “the acronym is too long”.

      If I want to use LGBTQIA+, or more, that’s my business.

      • minyakcurry@monyet.cc
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 months ago

        Hmm I’m gonna reply to this against my better judgement.

        I think you’re absolutely right that inclusivity is important. You’re still skirting around two issues:

        1. Queer is plenty inclusive (see my original comment). Is queer insufficient? I would love to know as well, as a queer person.
        2. Being antagonistic might allow you to express your thoughts, sure. But I doubt it will allow the other person to internalise anything meaningfully.

        You’re also right that it’s no one’s job to police how you use terminology. I think the rest here are taking issue with how you are communicating this (and ironically enough, policing others on terminology).

        Either way, I think it might be worth examining why the response to someone’s ignorance felt so visceral and rage-fuelled. Not saying it’s a bad thing, we could all use more inclusivity in our lives! But hopefully we could take a step back and ask ourselves why do we react a certain way? It’s a good exercise to understand ourselves a bit better.

        Have a nice day, yea. And have an upvote too! Sick of the downvotes in this thread.

        • Samvega@lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          Sick of the downvotes in this thread.

          My downvote button doesn’t even work on my instance of Lemmy.

          Queer is plenty inclusive (see my original comment). Is queer insufficient?

          Queer is great. Not complaining about the existence and use of long acronyms is also great. I am not two spirit, I have no qualms with 2S being part of a longer acronym.