Queer is a strange one for me, growing up it was a straight up offensive slur for gay people but now the LGBTQ community has embraced it hard enough to give it its own letter.
I thought Q was for questioning.
Maybe i’m too old, but when I was a kid it just meant different, like the family down the street is rather queer, or we played a game where someobody in the classroom would change one thing, like take off their sweater and when you opened your eyes you had to identify which kid was queer
I’ve always heard it as “queer”, and the definition of queer has morphed since then from simply “gay” to “someone whose gender is not easy to define”, or sometimes as an umbrella term for anyone covered by the other letters. The whole thing is rather confusing. I’m content to just treat them like any other people.
But my best gay friend prefers “GSM” for gay and sexual minorities. I don’t like GSM because that is already the Global Standard Man, but I’m a cis-gendered straight white Christian male, so my opinion don’t matter.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
As a Gen Xer, same. I still don’t like using the word due to the negative connotation it used to have.
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 hours ago
I’m 40; “queer” was definitely off-limits and felt very wrong when I was young and absolutely, unquestionably straight. I don’t know when it changed for me, maybe the 2010s?… but now it has zero negative vibes in my mind.
Perhaps my acceptance around that time that I am, and have always been, quite queer was responsible for that change in my life.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 19 hours ago
I don’t identify with the label, which definitely makes a difference! It was (very successfully) reclaimed from the bigots to empower LGBTQ people.
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the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
“Dad, why did you bring me to a gay steel mill?” was a top 10 Simpsons moment
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 hours ago
Addendum: when “Homer’s Phobia” was first aired (I think it’s called?) I was quite young and still felt that being gay is bad and wrong (badong), as I was indoctrinated to believe. I still loved the episode and Homer’s emotional maturation (is that a word?) made me feel good to see, yet it didn’t really affect how I viewed being gay at the time.
Indoctrination is a powerful thing!
Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 hours ago
Ahhhh one of my favorite episodes!
It’s funny—when I was “straight”, I would never have used the word “queer”, even to describe things using its non-sexuality-meaning way. It just kinda… tasted vile to say, or hear, if that makes sense?
Nowadays, no matter who says it; be they straight, queer, or… a third thing, it doesn’t taste bad anymore to me. I haven’t heard it used in a derogatory manner since I was much younger (probably due to the reclamation like you said!) but when I imagine someone trying to use it to put someone down, it just seems silly now… like “mhm, sure am, lawl”
the_crotch@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
Yeah, same. It still feels as weird and wrong as the f word or the n word.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 20 hours ago
I’ve slowly gotten more used to it because it see it used so much in a non-bigoted way, but I think there will always be a bit of cringe on my part with the term.