Yeah, thanks, I am included in "LGBTQ+"!
Practically speaking, however, it's not the best word to use for the community at large. That's why it generally isn't. It's a mouthful, there are a ton of variations that there is no good consensus on appropriate use of, and the acronym itself has a history of rearrangement in order to "fix" the hierarchy widely considered inherent to the order of letters (the acronym started as "GL" until lesbians fought to put their letter first, for example).
Practically speaking, it isn't all-inclusive. People frequently leave certain letters out to indicate who they do and do not consider Queer Enough. "Q" is frequently changed to "questioning" to avoid including all queer people. "LGBT", or even "LGB", is frequently used in order to indicate that nobody else is welcome, and an entire movement exists for the express purpose of removing trans people from the acronym entirely ("drop the T").
There isn't widespread consensus on who is and is not included, and setting those parameters is a clunky conversation to have, especially when you need to do it every single time you begin a study, write proposals, pitch it, search for subjects, explain the premise to subjects, write notes and papers and do evaluations and check ins as you conduct it, and write about the study afterwards. Not to mention all the opportunities for extremely basic misunderstandings along the way.
Queer doesn't have this problem; it's easy to say, it's all-inclusive, and any bickering about who "counts" is significantly harder to do under a term that isn't just a definition turned into an infinite acronym, with a "who must always be included" shortlist and a "who its okay to just kind of suggest might be there, but will probably need to be listed specifically for the sake of clarity later" much longer list. In academic spaces, the ambiguity of "queer" to mean "anyone who doesn't really fit society's standards of gender and orientation" serves the purpose of keeping conversations on track from the get go.
"Don't call me a slur" doesn't really work as an argument here, either. "LGBTQ+" (and variations) includes slurs, and there are and will always be people who do not, cannot, personally identify with certain terms- including the acronym itself ("LGBPRQHFUEJwhatever"). Those people do not matter less than you do.
The solution is to respect their individual wishes to not be called those words. The solution is not to shoot down every word for every person that makes anyone at all uncomfortable, therefore trapping us in a perpetual cycle of bickering over hyperspecific word choice & inventing new words for bigots to ruin, then moving on and bickering again, before anyone is allowed to have a conversation about anything meaningful.
"Queer" is the word we have already settled on. We've been settled on it for decades. You do not have to describe yourself that way, and if there's widespread agreement that there's a functionally better term to use, then sure, whatever 🤷♂️ my point here is just that there's a separation between what you identify as personally, and what groups you belong to socially.
"It doesn't include everyone" is a nothing argument. Yes it does. "TIF" also includes me, as a trans man; the reason we don't use it is because there are better terms, it's not widely known, and it's confusing and counterintuitive in construction. We also moved on from "FTM" to "trans man" for similar reasons. I'm still "FTM" in conversations about it, though, even though I prefer not to be called that personally.
There's a practical element here that you are apparently refusing to see, and it's counterproductive to the conversation everyone else is trying to have.
dailybridgerton
romaincrisis
2087
dededos
