Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Is it time to drop the alphabet soup and embrace the word QUEER?

http://instinctmagazine.com/post/it-time-drop-alphabet-soup-and-embrace-word-queer

Adam Dupuis | July 2, 2015

I don't know if it is time to embrace the word Queer, but you have to admit, it is a powerful and unifying term.  Who has yelled, "we're here, we're GLBTIQ, get use to it."  But sometimes I wonder if all of our letters and all of our separate flags do more to divide us than unify us.

How proud were we all to see the Rainbow Flag flying high, being plastered all over everything that didn't move.  It was such a unifying moment for us all. Would QUEER do the same?

I feel like having the lgbtqia acronym actually highlights the existence of the less visible groups of people. I feel like just calling it queer makes people just think LGB. Adding a letter to the acronym always opens the door to discussion when people are not sure about what some of the letters mean.

Can't say I'm a fan of the idea. I just don't identify as queer. :-\

I'm not a fan of the LGBTIQ acronym. I'm certainly not fond of QUEER. I prefer woman.

I don't think I'd ever call myself queer. "LGBT" and all its variants actually (imho) creates an "us vs them" atmosphere.

Currently, I am a woman with a male body, and transitioning to a female body. That works for me, but it may not work for others.

 Is it time to drop the alphabet soup  

No, that would say "We're not accepting your type to the club.

and embrace the word QUEER?

Sure, if that's what you embrace. Each of us has their own perspective. There's no universal fit to this.

Hugs, Devlyn

Quote from: Beth Andrea on July 07, 2015, 06:51:29 AM
Currently, I am a woman with a male body, and transitioning to a female body. That works for me, but it may not work for others.

That just works for me....

Katy xx

At this point I find gender and sexuality pretty fluid like water.

People never tend to agree and that is fine. I guess the acronym will only grow though haha. :laugh:

Quote from: Swayallday on July 07, 2015, 08:16:25 AM
At this point I find gender and sexuality pretty fluid like water.

People never tend to agree and that is fine. I guess the acronym will only grow though haha. :laugh:

Grouping the lgbtqiia is a bit like herding cats....LOL

there isn't a single definition that would fit all of us, except "human", and some of us would challenge even that! ;)

I do want to say I identity as queer. I use that to describe my sexuality because I honestly don't think I'm a perfect fit in the lesbian or bisexual category.

I just don't think that it is a good word to describe the whole community. You could say queer/trans but that still leaves out intersex people. So I think the acronym works better.

I am simply 'a Woman' or 'a Person'.........Socio-political communities can call themselves what they will; but in my personal experience, labels often demean and serve to identify and magnify perceived 'difference' in the eyes of those whom ordinarily struggle to be open to what is {simple} human variance.

Quote from: Cindy on July 07, 2015, 06:29:03 AM
I'm not a fan of the LGBTIQ acronym. I'm certainly not fond of QUEER. I prefer woman.

The same here.

Joelene

Queer? Sorry, but I'm not feeling it.

I like Stephanie, sorry your going to have to find your own names, but you can use Stephanie too.

Not totally relevant but my therapist once used the term SOGI for sexual orientation and gender identity.

Quote from: Cindy on July 07, 2015, 06:29:03 AM
I'm not a fan of the LGBTIQ acronym. I'm certainly not fond of QUEER.

Ditto

I remember when I was early into transition there was an event called the 'Freaks ball' in the town where I was living at the time.  Someone asked me if I was going and I replied, 'No, because I'm not a freak.'  I feel the same way about the word 'queer', - I'm not queer, I'm me.  Being an intersex transwoman I don't give a fig for efforts to stuff all manner of letters after LGB in an effort to fit everybody in under the same umbrella.  Human being is a good umbrella for me to stand under, - I like that one.

I'm as out-loud and proud a queerling as they come. I love the term but even I would hesitate to use it as a blanket statement with respect to transgender issues and people. Simply because queer does not and should not imply a physiological or psychological medical problem, which being transgender I believe is. We have corrective surgery and hormone therapy or regular therapy or for non-ops, we still 'correct' the issue however we psychologically can. Queer to me is a sexual and preferential thing, meaning anyone who has a sexuality outside the norms. I'm proudly queer because I'm in a lesbian marriage, because I'm open to males occasionally, because I firmly believe in polyamory and multiple consenting partners for both myself and my wife, but not because of my SRS surgery (because that was only correcting a physical problem that wasn't my choice to have) anymore than I am queer because I am somewhat tall and most aren't.

 I think your post stats something that is forgotten. Trans* is to do with gender. LGBTI QUEER is to do with sexuality.

They are different.

I like the term queer because it doesn't tell the story. Saying I'm "pansexual" or "lesbian" or "trans" is telling more about myself than I want to tell.

Saying I'm "queer" (usually said when someone asks about my ex-spouse and I use a female pronoun) doesn't tell more of my story than I want to tell.

I don't like LGBTQQIAAA. It's turning people off to our cause, at the very time we want to win people over.

I've said it over and over again. Language is powerful. If you don't have a term people can use, they won't want to talk about LGBT rights, and if people don't talk about LGBT rights, they won't happen.

Non-queer people are reluctant to use the ever expanding alphabet soup because they're getting harder and harder and harder to remember.

I also think it marginalizes people who are not clued in (which, face it, is most people). They don't know what the second Q means or the third A and it makes them feel out of the loop. It shuts them out. These are the people we *want* on our side - people who don't pay a lot of attention, but who vote and have influence.

Quote from: suzifrommd on July 07, 2015, 06:11:45 AM
Is it time to drop the alphabet soup and embrace the word QUEER?

http://instinctmagazine.com/post/it-time-drop-alphabet-soup-and-embrace-word-queer

Adam Dupuis | July 2, 2015

I don't know if it is time to embrace the word Queer, but you have to admit, it is a powerful and unifying term.  Who has yelled, "we're here, we're GLBTIQ, get use to it."  But sometimes I wonder if all of our letters and all of our separate flags do more to divide us than unify us.

How proud were we all to see the Rainbow Flag flying high, being plastered all over everything that didn't move.  It was such a unifying moment for us all. Would QUEER do the same?

I think all labels should be dropped. We are not queers, lesbians, transsexuals are what ever. We are people the same as anyone else.  Labeling people singled them out as being somthing other than human in a sense and that's a problem.

Yeah, I neither self-define as "queer" nor find it inclusive. I obviously think people get to define as they see fit, but I (and my wife) wonder if we're included every time we simply see a "queer" event, because some people think that means bisexual [and trans] people are welcome... and some think it doesn't. So I don't believe it's a fully inclusive term solely because I know of quite a few people who aren't - or don't want to be - included under it.

Quote from: Amy1988 on July 08, 2015, 07:39:57 AM
I think all labels should be dropped. We are not queers, lesbians, transsexuals are what ever. We are people the same as anyone else.  Labeling people singled them out as being somthing other than human in a sense and that's a problem.

I feel like this not having any labels is ideal, but it is unrealistic. As language gets older it evolves. The words, homosexual and transgender and all the other words, are relatively new words used to describe certain experiences (liking the same-sex, or being a different gender then you are assigned at birth). The words seem othering to the people outside of the community, but the words can be empowering to people who are part of the community. Having a word to describe a uncommon experience such as being trans can help us feel less isolated. It helps us build community do to the fact that there is a big part of our identities that we all share.

Also we can't forego the lgbtq labels until we are treated to the same level of privilege that cis/het people receive.  Could you imagine advocating for rights and equal treatment without having words to describe our experiences? 

The partial alphabet soup of "LGBT" or "LGBTQ" is not fully inclusive,and the fully inclusive initialism is way to be long to be easily used in casual conversation. I think "queer" is fine, most people know it what it means (not cis-het) and can easily be used in conversation. GSM or a similar term (Gender and Sexual Minorities) also works.

Quote from: amber roskamp on July 08, 2015, 09:15:48 AM
I feel like this not having any labels is ideal, but it is unrealistic. As language gets older it evolves. The words, homosexual and transgender and all the other words, are relatively new words used to describe certain experiences (liking the same-sex, or being a different gender then you are assigned at birth). The words seem othering to the people outside of the community, but the words can be empowering to people who are part of the community. Having a word to describe a uncommon experience such as being trans can help us feel less isolated. It helps us build community do to the fact that there is a big part of our identities that we all share.

Also we can't forego the lgbtq labels until we are treated to the same level of privilege that cis/het people receive.  Could you imagine advocating for rights and equal treatment without having words to describe our experiences?

^this

Quote from: rachel89 on July 09, 2015, 03:29:41 PM
The partial alphabet soup of "LGBT" or "LGBTQ" is not fully inclusive,and the fully inclusive initialism is way to be long to be easily used in casual conversation. I think "queer" is fine, most people know it what it means (not cis-het) and can easily be used in conversation. GSM or a similar term (Gender and Sexual Minorities) also works.

I would agree that many if not most people know that queer means not het, but I doubt they equate it with not cis. I think any contraction or homogenation of terms would simply cause us to fade out of view just as we're finally becoming visible. I've only recently started feeling comfortable calling myself a lesbian. Before that I just said I was "gyno-focal". I felt that calling myself lesbian was appropriating their word and confusing until I started really identifying as a woman and looking the part.

Ten years ago or more, before I realized I was trans I used to say I was a lesbian in a man's body. I thought I was joking.

I was gonna say "nah, let's just plan to cut off acceptance once we hit 26 different classifications of people."*  But then I remembered seeing LGBTIQ2S, where 2S denotes people who identify as two-spirit... so we're already up to letter pairs.  More soup!

I'd love to see the day that we can drop L, G, and B, as sexuality is increasingly a non-issue, and as those classifications stop making sense in an increasingly nonbinary world.

I'd support SGRS (sugars?) to denote sex, gender, sexuality, and romance.  I bet I forgot something, though.  More soup!

But me, I identify as transgender and pansexual, so I think that queer would fit just fine, except that "pansexual" means "lacking hangups" in my mind... straight people are the weird ones!  ;)

* to be a smartass, let's be clear.

As others have said earlier I throw my heels into the I am a woman ring and I am not a fan in the least of the label Queer. Perhaps it is a generational thing.

The problem with the acronym is that people don't take it seriously.  Most people outside the community stopped paying attention after LGBT.  So, anything after that seems superfluous to a lot of people.  You could call it LGBTQIAA or LGBTQIAAROFLMAO+ and people would react to it the same.

I think we've passed the point at which the alphabet soup has become too long.

I am simply just me.