Tumblr

I was looking at a tumblr site this morning that is oriented toward lesbians. After I got through the reaction of All these attractive women, and not a one of them interested in me! (mostly because of their sexual orientation, but not a little because, well, I'm not someone to be sought out, yearned for, any of that. Never -- almost never -- have been. Though, there was that one time..and it has been going on for twenty-seven plus years.....) -- but after I got through that glum realization, I noticed that the person referred to herself and her friends as queer.

I'm old enough to remember when that was considered the normal phrase for heterosexuals to use when referring to people who weren't, and then when it was considered rude and offensive to say that. (They're not lesbians, they're women in comfortable shoes -- thank you very much!) It's become yet another Voldemort -- the word that must not be uttered, at least by heterosexuals. The Q-word. (I really hate that kind of euphremism, by the way. The Q-word. The N-word. The R-word. Say it or don't say it, but don't use circumlocutions. And in case you're wondering, I made up that r-word reference.)

I wondered how they'd feel if people like me used that word to describe people like them. Amused, irritated, offended? But as I only know three people who are Q, G, or whatever the current phrase is, and two of them don't live here and one I rarely see -- I guess that I won't ask. Which is probably just as well. I don't really have the self-confidence to do it anyway.