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.
I also use queer. I’m agender, I don’t indentify with any gender and I’ve given up figuring out whether the term “trans” applies to me or not. But I’m queer. That’s nice and easy to use in conversation.
If it helps I also was firmly over 30 when I figured it out.
I don’t fully know where I am atm but I’ve heard trans can be as broad as “not cis”, which does encapsulate me, so I (eventually) accepted it.
Yeah there’s certainly a lot of trans related things I discuss with my binary trans friend. Dysphoria most notably. But he wants to be seen as a gender that already exists (and is exposed to more danger for it) while I want to be seen as a category people don’t have in their minds at all which brings it’s own issues.
Figuring these kind of things out mid life certainly is a process isn’t it? I’m glad I also have younger cis friends who are just much more open to all sorts of queer identities. But it’s still hard for me the discuss at all IRL.