Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-188432-20190324211646/@comment-5918438-20190329000433

To be fair, Ianto's response can also be read as "It's not the 1960s. That word doesn't have the sting you think it does, but nice try."

What's nice about LGBTQ in my mind is that it sort of allows people to opt in or opt out of calling themselves queer. So if I don't fit neatly into the first four letters, I can still point at the Q and say "that's me", but someone who doesn't want that word applied to them can also point to the other letters.

That said, your take does matter. Personally, I love being queer; it describes my own identity better than any other word. Just hearing the word can fill me with such happiness, because it means so much to me. I just know not everyone feels that way, especially those in the community from older generations.

[Side note: I think you're looking for a term like cishet, as in cisgender and completely heterosexual. A straight trans man is still straight, though he's not a cishet, or in other words he's still definitely queer, if he claims that word / LGBTQ.]