Thread by @SecretGamerGrrl

You know what would be cool? Normalize just saying "queer" whenever you're broadly referring to queer people. It's a single syllable, it covers everyone, and it shuts down several different disinformation campaigns/bigoted dog whistles.

It's also less confusing all around.

LGBTQIA+ already has a lot of redundancy to it. Written out longform that's Lesbian, Gay (and honestly it's a little weird we have two different terms for roughly-exclusively same-gender attracted especially when only the one is really functonally gendered), Bi/Pan (into multiple

genders), Transgender (pretty straightforward), Queer (a really good catch-all that covers literally anything any of these other letters do plus a lot of other things, some of which don't really have specific terms established), Intersex (again, pretty basic), Asexual/Aromantic

(for people not into anyone), and Plus which... literally serves the same purpose as having Queer in there, covering anything that was left out.

And then you have a bunch of variatons on this. Still pretty common to see it cut down to LGBTQ+ or LGBT+ or just LGBT and it can seem

like people are thus listing stuff in descending order of importance/realness. Particularly when bigots keep giving the game away and making it real clear that's precisely why they're shortening it (aside from obvious stuff like the fascist hate group "LGB Alliance" I just saw

someone really suspiciously and repeatedly saying LGBTQI+which is not one of the standards and is sawing off a group that faces a whole lot of bigotry from other queer people).

And then you also have various efforts to extend it out even more like QUILTBAG (which is at least

easier to say out lout than a string of letters, but "queer" is still just 1 syllable/5 characters), like LGBTQQIP2SAA or LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA and we see here the obvious problem that those are just not usable, and also the less obvious problem that all these efforts to cover all the

bases still leave some bases out. And that's not even getting into people trying to slip "A is for Ally" in there, and you know, while allies are great, if you think meeting the baseline of human decency somehow makes you oppressed or gives you the right to speak over people in

queer spaces, you definitely aren't one.

So again, unless you're focused on a particular sort of person, or a specific individual, in which case you should always use the actual term(s) relevant to the matter at hand, just say queer. It's the easiest thing to say, and type, and

it covers everyone.

And to address the predictable comment I am seeing from a lot of people at once, let me again reiterate that normalizing queer as your go-to default undermines a lot of anti-queer propaganda crap.

Which aside from all the stuff dropping and adding letters

includes the big astroturf campaign bigots have been running for some time now to convince people that queer is a slur, which it most emphatically is not.

It WAS used as a slur back in the 1800s, however:
A- There was a big ol' giant push to successfully reclaim it decades ago.

B- Literally every other term that has ever been used to describe anyone under the queer umbrella has ALSO historically been used as a slur, and has been popularly used as such far more recently, if it ever fell out of favor (pretty sure kids are still calling anything they don't

like "gay" and I've never seen anyone suggest we stop using that one).
C- As I already laid out, it's the ONLY label that covers a huge chunk of people under the umbrella here.

Like if we all arbitrarily decided we don't like the word lesbian (and a lot of people actually HAVE

because they feel it's been too tainted by fascists using it as a euphemism for being a fascist), you've still got gay woman, sapphic, WLW, queer, dyke, and if you've ever thought even one non-binary person or man is hot, bi.

But if, just to pull a couple examples off the top of

my head, you are only attracted to nonbinary people, you've worked out that you aren't straight but you haven't quite worked out whether you're ace or demi or gay or maybe actually straight just repulsed by everyone who's ever shown interest in you on a personal level, or you're

similarly uncomfortable with the gender you were assigned but don't feel like you should necessarily lower that flag and raise another or you don't want to have to explain in specific detail to some strangers why it is that a bunch of fascist pieces of garbage want to exterminate

you but do want to let them know that's something you're dealing with, queer is the only term in the bundle you can apply to yourself without any stress and I care way more that you still have that than whether it reminds someone of a bullying incident they suffered half a decade

ago.

I mean, "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!" has kind of been THE #1 marching slogan for 32 years. There's no real excuse not to have gotten around to the bit where you get used to it by now.

Also everyone DID catch that I said I'd like people to default to queer instead of LGBTQIA+ and variations thereof, yes? Because I'm seeing a lot of people going "well what if one specific individual doesn't like to be called queer?"

I mean, yeah, obviously don't call that one

specific person queer then, but how is that at all relevant to the topic at hand? I WISH I could say "nobody refers to a single individual person as LGBTQIA+ after all" but... news articles actually do that all the time. It's just pure gibberish. ANOTHER reason to depreciate it.