this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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I'm guilty of using queer without considering who I'm talking to.
When I talk to boomer gays and use queer as a catchall term I've seen visible recoil.
To them queer was a slur similar to foxtrot-Oscar-gay-gay-oscar-triceratops (I can't remember the phonetic alphabet) and was used to oppress and attack them at least in the UK.
And like yeaaah, it was even when I was in school up until like 2010s so its not as reclaimed with the older generation as we'd like to hope because of lived experience from what I've seen which is fair.
So as a result I don't use it around older gay men and use the acronym since queer genuinely seems to bring back a lot of the 80s gay panic trauma for them I guess.
I'd liken it to when a cis friend called me triceratops-rain-alpha-november-november-yacht as a in-joke he assumed i knew since he knows a fair few trans people who are reclaiming that term on twitter but for me that word is full of trauma and I was like "nope, I'm not in that community please don't ever say that again".
I called him a chaser cos he has a trans gf and said it was reclaimed by friends of mine with trans gfs and he got the message why you can't assume reclaimed words have the same gravity with each individual.
I guess I see queer in a similar vein, I guess the difference is the time since it was reclaimed is the big difference.
I don't think we need a new umbrella term but I think it's important for us to remember others experiences with reclaimed words before we assume them to be gospel (despite most gay publications I've seen using it fine).
I dunno, I'm trying to be mature and empathic ๐ญ๐ญ๐ญ
yep totally fair. I mostly interact with younger trans people - a lot of the boomers are just straight up dead here because of how the government handled AIDS. so there isn't the same kind of memory. like 40 is unfortunately the oldest I've met. it's rage inducing to think about - I transitioned with literally zero wise elders around to provide guidance.
Mood
I have however had enough moments of speaking to older gays in our cities gay town and was asked to be aware of the history of that term and it deffo made me go "ah m'bad".
I get that for older gay people in English-speaking countries and i appreciate that you shared this. My perspective on this is rather different, as i'm from Germany and completely out-of-date English slurs are obviously not something people here normally have a personal trauma from. On this side of the North Sea, the people who take objection to the term queer are mainly assimilationists who don't want to be lumped in with anybody who is too flamboyant, loud and gender-nonconforming for their straight friends and business partners, or they're outright terfs who love to make up stuff about how lesbianism is erased by the queer agenda (ofc most of the time these aren't even lesbians, and if you see them at a counterprotest to a Dyke* March, odds are they are paid to be there by one of the European fronts for the Heritage Foundation). So i'm not used to needing to pay attention to who i piss off with the term, because my experience is that it reliably pisses off people i want to piss off.
That's really interesting, I guess my perspective is shaped by my material conditions
Lmao but genuinely that's really interesting. Admittedly this thread is the first time I've heard it's not pecieved in the same way which says to me I've fallen for a British (but positioning itself as the "International community") position so it's given me some things to think about as hearing its being weaponised by reactionaries makes me feel the ick now.
Likewise, i'm feeling kinda icky because my previous opinion towards the term kind of brushed over the trauma queer elders had to endure. Because it originally wasn't the international term it is now, it was something that gay people abroad probably knew about, but definitely not something your average bigot in a rural central-European village yelled at you when he thought your pants where too fancy to make him feel secure in his fragile masculinity. So i was under the impression that people still alive today just had no direct, hurtful experience with it like with other slurs.
We live and learn. I still find myself having to catch myself in situations where maybe its better to just use the full acronym to not trigger anyone.
I'm sure you'll find them in the anglosphere too. I've seen a few threads of twitter. Possibly just Germans though, since they tend to have good English.
Not even only boomer gays, I'm in my mid 20s and I don't identify with the term. If someone were to call me that I'd get flashbacks lol
Thank you for letting me know, I'd never have assumed that but I feel kinda gross now for thinking it was just a generational thing ๐
It is more of a generational divide, you're right about that. I'm definitely an outlier in terms of people my age.
It's still definitely food for thought though.