Queer: One Perspective
[June 2026]
I am a gay trans man, and I also call myself queer.
I have been around long enough to watch LGBT discourse twist and turn, including the sharper edges of the "LGB drop the TQ" arguments. While I generally disagree with dropping the T, I also see how the anti-trans backlash picked up real speed when some maximalists started pushing hard for children to medically transition. That is a position almost no trans elders over forty actually share, even though puberty was absolute hell for many of us. The push felt reckless to a lot of people who had lived through it, and it handed critics easy ammunition.
Then there are the non-binary-without-dysphoria folks, sometimes called "theyfabs," who decide they cannot possibly be cis because they are Not Like The Other Girls. That particular flavor of identity has fueled plenty of eye-rolling and resentment. A fair amount of blowback comes from both the LGB side and some of the T side, with people saying that "the Q" now just means blue hair and a nose ring, nothing deeper.
Look, I used to have blue hair. I still sometimes wear a nose ring. But my gender identity is not about aesthetics or rebellion for its own sake. It is about dysphoria, a deep body-brain mismatch, and a straightforward desire for biological male characteristics. That is the core of it for me. So I get where some of the distaste for "the Q" comes from. The word has been watered down in places to include non-dysphoric trenders and even cishet demisexuals who figure they qualify because they sit somewhere on the ace spectrum. When everything gets tossed under the same umbrella, the signal gets lost in the noise.
At the same time, I still call myself queer.
To explain why, let's start with this: I draw a firm line at LGBTQ and usually stop there. I do not typically say LGBTQIA. First, intersex people remain divided on whether they belong in the acronym at all. Second, the A is a mess. Does it stand for Asexual and Aroace, or for Ally? If it is Ally, I think allyship is basic human decency. Letting consenting adults fuck and marry who they want, dress how they want, use the names and pronouns they want, and piss in peace in a public bathroom should not be controversial. We should welcome our allies and not take them for granted. I believe allies should feel comfortable at Pride events, for example. But I disagree with folding them into the acronym itself. That move implies cishet allies have faced the same historical discriminations that LGBT people have, and that stretches things too far.
On the aroace question, I see being aromantic or asexual as more or less valid. People experience discrimination and harassment for not wanting sex or relationships, though typically not at the same level as trans and gay people do. Still, I do not think someone who is only aro or ace, without also being lesbian, gay, bi, and/or trans, qualifies as LGBT. We should not expand the category based mainly on how much or how little sex someone has. That logic would also drag in a P for Poly, and nobody needs that headache about "is it P for Poly or Pansexual"? (I also have issues with polyamory but that's a topic for another time.) P for Pansexual feels redundant: almost everyone I know who identifies as bi or pan uses the words pretty interchangeably these days, and the old debate feels exhausted. We also avoid any P because some idiots will immediately twist it into something about p*doph*lia, and that garbage needs no encouragement.
For me, queer works as the "it's complicated" modifier attached to L, G, B, and T. It gives breathing room without forcing us to keep bolting new letters onto the acronym.
Queer comfortably includes aro or ace people who are also lesbian, gay, bi, and/or trans. No need for extra letters like A. It can include intersex people with complicated bodies if they choose to stand with us. No forced inclusion, just an open door.
Queer also covers gender nonconforming people who might not be trans. Think of singers like Boy George and Marilyn. Both have lived flamboyantly outside strict gender norms without being transgender. Queer holds space for that. It equally holds space for trans people who are gender nonconforming, like me. I am a trans guy, but I do not dress in some stereotypical macho-man style. I am flamboyant, not feminine, but definitely not trying to look like Jesse Pinkman. Queer lets me bring all of that without apology.
The word stretches further into sexual subcultures that many L, G, B, and T people participate in with other consenting adults. Kink communities, furry spaces, leather scenes. As a kinky person myself, that part includes me directly. These are not separate from our lives; they often intersect with our orientations and identities in rich, complicated ways. Queer names that overlap without forcing everyone into narrow boxes.
It also covers people whose sexuality sits somewhere between full-on gay and bi. A gay guy who once had a "make the exception" romantic or sexual experience with a woman is more common than a lot of people admit. In my own life, I am overwhelmingly attracted to men, especially masculine men. But every once in a great while my head turns toward someone whose gender I cannot immediately pin down. Calling myself bisexual feels disingenuous because the pull is not balanced or equal and I am only interested romantically and sexually in other men. Queer lets me describe the full picture without contortion.
I could keep going. Queer gathers up the edges and the in-betweens that rigid categories miss. It makes room for the ways identities shift and combine in real human lives. We do not need fifty billion new microlabels to describe every nuance. Queer already does a lot of that heavy lifting.
Yes, the word was a slur. It carried venom and pain for a long time and there are some gay elders who still recoil from the word. But before it was a slur, it simply meant weird and different. Now it is being reclaimed by many of us who feel precisely that: weird and different in ways that matter deeply. Reclamation is not erasure of the hurt. It is a deliberate act of taking something sharp and turning it into a banner we control.
I understand why some people in the LGB camp look at the current landscape and want to tighten the circle. The discourse has gotten ugly. Some corners of trans activism pushed positions that struck even many trans people as extreme. The flood of young people identifying as non-binary without clear dysphoria created skepticism that spilled over onto those of us with long-standing, undeniable dysphoria. When "queer" gets used to mean anyone with colored hair and a vague sense of not fitting in, it cheapens the word for those who use it to signal something more specific and embodied.
But pulling away entirely strikes me as a mistake. The shared history, the overlapping struggles, and the simple fact that many of us live at the intersections make separation costly.
I want a word that can hold all the legitimate variations within L, G, B, and T without collapsing into meaninglessness. Queer still does that work for me. It is imperfect. It carries baggage. But it also carries freedom. It lets us say we are different, we are complicated, and we are here together anyway. In a world that often prefers simple boxes, that feels worth holding onto.
I have been around long enough to watch LGBT discourse twist and turn, including the sharper edges of the "LGB drop the TQ" arguments. While I generally disagree with dropping the T, I also see how the anti-trans backlash picked up real speed when some maximalists started pushing hard for children to medically transition. That is a position almost no trans elders over forty actually share, even though puberty was absolute hell for many of us. The push felt reckless to a lot of people who had lived through it, and it handed critics easy ammunition.
Then there are the non-binary-without-dysphoria folks, sometimes called "theyfabs," who decide they cannot possibly be cis because they are Not Like The Other Girls. That particular flavor of identity has fueled plenty of eye-rolling and resentment. A fair amount of blowback comes from both the LGB side and some of the T side, with people saying that "the Q" now just means blue hair and a nose ring, nothing deeper.
Look, I used to have blue hair. I still sometimes wear a nose ring. But my gender identity is not about aesthetics or rebellion for its own sake. It is about dysphoria, a deep body-brain mismatch, and a straightforward desire for biological male characteristics. That is the core of it for me. So I get where some of the distaste for "the Q" comes from. The word has been watered down in places to include non-dysphoric trenders and even cishet demisexuals who figure they qualify because they sit somewhere on the ace spectrum. When everything gets tossed under the same umbrella, the signal gets lost in the noise.
At the same time, I still call myself queer.
To explain why, let's start with this: I draw a firm line at LGBTQ and usually stop there. I do not typically say LGBTQIA. First, intersex people remain divided on whether they belong in the acronym at all. Second, the A is a mess. Does it stand for Asexual and Aroace, or for Ally? If it is Ally, I think allyship is basic human decency. Letting consenting adults fuck and marry who they want, dress how they want, use the names and pronouns they want, and piss in peace in a public bathroom should not be controversial. We should welcome our allies and not take them for granted. I believe allies should feel comfortable at Pride events, for example. But I disagree with folding them into the acronym itself. That move implies cishet allies have faced the same historical discriminations that LGBT people have, and that stretches things too far.
On the aroace question, I see being aromantic or asexual as more or less valid. People experience discrimination and harassment for not wanting sex or relationships, though typically not at the same level as trans and gay people do. Still, I do not think someone who is only aro or ace, without also being lesbian, gay, bi, and/or trans, qualifies as LGBT. We should not expand the category based mainly on how much or how little sex someone has. That logic would also drag in a P for Poly, and nobody needs that headache about "is it P for Poly or Pansexual"? (I also have issues with polyamory but that's a topic for another time.) P for Pansexual feels redundant: almost everyone I know who identifies as bi or pan uses the words pretty interchangeably these days, and the old debate feels exhausted. We also avoid any P because some idiots will immediately twist it into something about p*doph*lia, and that garbage needs no encouragement.
For me, queer works as the "it's complicated" modifier attached to L, G, B, and T. It gives breathing room without forcing us to keep bolting new letters onto the acronym.
Queer comfortably includes aro or ace people who are also lesbian, gay, bi, and/or trans. No need for extra letters like A. It can include intersex people with complicated bodies if they choose to stand with us. No forced inclusion, just an open door.
Queer also covers gender nonconforming people who might not be trans. Think of singers like Boy George and Marilyn. Both have lived flamboyantly outside strict gender norms without being transgender. Queer holds space for that. It equally holds space for trans people who are gender nonconforming, like me. I am a trans guy, but I do not dress in some stereotypical macho-man style. I am flamboyant, not feminine, but definitely not trying to look like Jesse Pinkman. Queer lets me bring all of that without apology.
The word stretches further into sexual subcultures that many L, G, B, and T people participate in with other consenting adults. Kink communities, furry spaces, leather scenes. As a kinky person myself, that part includes me directly. These are not separate from our lives; they often intersect with our orientations and identities in rich, complicated ways. Queer names that overlap without forcing everyone into narrow boxes.
It also covers people whose sexuality sits somewhere between full-on gay and bi. A gay guy who once had a "make the exception" romantic or sexual experience with a woman is more common than a lot of people admit. In my own life, I am overwhelmingly attracted to men, especially masculine men. But every once in a great while my head turns toward someone whose gender I cannot immediately pin down. Calling myself bisexual feels disingenuous because the pull is not balanced or equal and I am only interested romantically and sexually in other men. Queer lets me describe the full picture without contortion.
I could keep going. Queer gathers up the edges and the in-betweens that rigid categories miss. It makes room for the ways identities shift and combine in real human lives. We do not need fifty billion new microlabels to describe every nuance. Queer already does a lot of that heavy lifting.
Yes, the word was a slur. It carried venom and pain for a long time and there are some gay elders who still recoil from the word. But before it was a slur, it simply meant weird and different. Now it is being reclaimed by many of us who feel precisely that: weird and different in ways that matter deeply. Reclamation is not erasure of the hurt. It is a deliberate act of taking something sharp and turning it into a banner we control.
I understand why some people in the LGB camp look at the current landscape and want to tighten the circle. The discourse has gotten ugly. Some corners of trans activism pushed positions that struck even many trans people as extreme. The flood of young people identifying as non-binary without clear dysphoria created skepticism that spilled over onto those of us with long-standing, undeniable dysphoria. When "queer" gets used to mean anyone with colored hair and a vague sense of not fitting in, it cheapens the word for those who use it to signal something more specific and embodied.
But pulling away entirely strikes me as a mistake. The shared history, the overlapping struggles, and the simple fact that many of us live at the intersections make separation costly.
I want a word that can hold all the legitimate variations within L, G, B, and T without collapsing into meaninglessness. Queer still does that work for me. It is imperfect. It carries baggage. But it also carries freedom. It lets us say we are different, we are complicated, and we are here together anyway. In a world that often prefers simple boxes, that feels worth holding onto.
© Finleigh (FlameAndSong), 2026.
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If you like this essay you may share the link.
