Hello!
I am new here, and new to the LGBT community in general. Around 6-7 weeks ago I realized I was trans(htf do you make it to 30 and not realize?)
In talking to my therapist, they said they(belonging to the community themselves) like to use queer as shorthand since it includes everyone and isn’t an unending acronym that is constantly getting new letters. I also like that and would use it, but being new, I’m not sure how others who’ve been here longer feel.
Are they equivalent?
I don’t like how the acronym keeps changing and accidentally leaving out a letter could be taken as an intentional slight.
Echoing everyone else’s sentiment, queer is a fine catch all as long as you know your audience. Remember not only might it offend someone in the community who has had that word used against them, it might incite violence or retaliation from someone who is not supportive of the community and might hear you use that descriptor and feel it’s okay to pile on with more unkind language.
Personally, I like using it because I struggle with identifying which word best describes my sexuality, so I like being able to just say “I’m queer”. Admittedly, because of my environment, I sometimes over generalize and just say “I’m gay” when in fact bisexual or pansexual would be closer to accurate, because the people around me at least have an idea what “gay” means, but would not be open to learning more inclusive language.
Edit : I wanted to add a silly comparison. In the south, particularly among older folk, some people use the term “coke” to describe all carbonated beverages, where many would say “soda” or “pop”. An example I don’t hear as much anymore, but still enjoy, is :
Waiter : What can I get you to drink?
Customer : I’ll take a coke!
Waiter : What kind?
Customer : Ehhh, a Doctor Pepper, please.
I feel like I barely know what pansexual is, I totally get that others may not have heard about it at all. I’m still amazed how much struggle bi people face when gay has been more or less accepted or at least tolerated for a little bit.
As someone also from the south, I am very familiar with that exchange! I also don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve heard it
Yeah, I have to confess that I don’t fully understand the difference between bi and pan. I’ve had some people tell me that pan is simply a more inclusive way of saying the same thing, and others tell me that there are distinct differences in how the two approach their sexuality, so the whole thing just leaves me a bit confused.
The way I understand bi and pan is the following:
An important note is that the bisexual community has not historically been, and mostly is not currently, exclusionary of trans and nonbinary folks.
A lot of people (including me, as a trans-nonbinary demi-ish+sorta-bi/ace person, not gonna write a whole essay, I just say queer usually) dislike when people claim bisexuality is trans-exclusionary and/or nonbinary-exclusionary :/
These are of course personal labels, so some people use them differently and respecting people’s self labelling is important.
Some people use bi to mean attraction to people of any two gender identities, or two-or-more gender identities.
Pan probably has similar things but afaik it’s a less common label so I haven’t seen as much discussion on the different meanings people use, or maybe it’s less prone to that because the prefix “bi” means “two” which results in weird etymological nitpicking ;p