Q - what is it exactly,

[WelshMoth]

Can someone please explain what the Q is in LGBTQ?

Thanks.

Sorry - missing my ? From the title.

I do know women who used to say they were lesbians but now say they are “Queer”.
I am not sure when that happened.

Queer, meaning anyone who 'identifies' as queer. It has no more explanation than that I'm afraid.

‘Queer’ also encompasses heterosexuals meaning they are also vulnerable and oppressed, can do no wrong and must be treated with reverence.

Identity Politics

Kennan Malik describes how over a period of twenty years people informed him that he was Indian, then Pakistani, then Black, then Asian, then Muslim.

Are Lesbians "Gay"? Are gays and lesbians queer? If you are Bi, are you also gay, or are you B instead of rather than as well as G? Is Q inclusive of anything that isn't straight, or is it an addendum to L, G, and/or B, denoting anything we left out. In which case + is anything we left out when we added anything we left out.

The words of Sir William Bragg echo in my head: Sexuality. Your rules do not apply to me.

Someone, don't know who, said it stood for questioning. Think it was when people objected to the word 'queer'

Sometimes there’s a double q, one being for questioning. Usually there’s a + for the ones that were missed. But no, I’ve never seen a universally agreed definition for the q.

It stands for Queer, although some people include another Q for Questioning.
Queer seems to be used by people, especially heterosexuals, who want a trendy label to show the world they are special and different from everyone else. Lesbian, gay and bisexual are boring old-fashioned terms.
Queer is cool and they imagine it defies any definition other than it exists as some sort of powerful opposition to 'cis, white, heteronormative, patriarchy'.

Remember, Queer Theory and postmodernism etc say that if you name something, you bring it into existence, and if you stop naming something or framing it in a particular way, its power goes away.
So I guess they think by identifying as Queer, the horrible cis, white, heteronormative, patriarchy will automatically disappear into the dim and distant past. Such revolutionaries.

Because Q hasn’t actually been defined it would also cover “polysexual”. It apparently can be phobic to only be attracted to males and females because that would be discriminatory towards all the other genders. Veronica Ivy wrote quite a lot on this, possibly under the Rachel McKinnon previous name.

It apparently can be phobic to only be attracted to males and females because that would be discriminatory towards all the other genders.

Lol a new way for males to guilt females into shagging them.

Sorry, typo. It’s “pansexual” that Veronica argues for as the only identity that is not immoral and transphobic.

Remember, Queer Theory and postmodernism etc say that if you name something, you bring it into existence, and if you stop naming something or framing it in a particular way, its power goes away.

I didn't know that. I have no idea what queer theory really is, except it's as opaque as my bathroom window.

I know that transgressions are generally viewed as a positive thing, in order to promote progression?

So added to the fact that you can pop things in and out of existence merely by saying some magic words, that's very interesting.

And I'm guessing accounts for the illogical acceptance of the basis for transgenderism. I am whatever I say I am. Plus stripping women of the power to name themselves women, now makes a lot more sense.

Queer is for gender non conforming people, whatever their sexual orientation.

I don’t think everyone who says they are queer has read queer theory. Because queer is another one of those “umbrella terms” which means it can mean anything someone wants it it mean. So can be used to get a lesbian to have sex with a penis-haver who reads poems for instance.
I have been over on Wikipedia and apparently there is something called homonormativity in queer theory, and it’s a bad thing.
“According to Penny Griffin, Politics and International Relations lecturer at the University of New South Wales, homonormativity upholds neoliberalism rather than critiquing monogamy, procreation, and binary gender roles as inherently heterosexist and racist.”
I can almost understand some of that but some of it is

I have a degree in Politics and International Relations and I'm blowed if I know what any of that means. The only connection is that so much of this Queer Theory stuff is reminiscent of old school Marxism in its inability to pass a Popperite Falsifiability Test.

Procreation is racist?

That's the best yet.

in its inability to pass a Popperite Falsifiability Test

And if it can't pass the esteemed Professor's test, it's BS. It strikes me that many of the 'academics' peddling this have never read Popper. Nor Hayek.

Douglas Murray has an interesting chapter in his book called 'The Marxist Foundations' which is scathing about the roots of the incoherent post modernist claptrap which has evolved after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Anybody hoping that intersectionality would dissolve amid its own inherent contradictions cannot have seen the myriad of contradictions a Marxist can hold in their head at any one time

He is also scathing about the ludicrously 'obstructive' style of the writing by Judith Butler et al and concludes

Prose this bad can only occur when the author is trying to hide something

for clarity, The Marxist Foundations is a chapter in The Madness of Crowds*....

Procreation is racist now ?

Lordy these people are insane.

I disagree with the people saying 'queer' is a trendy label. It can be helpful to some people - there's a lot of gatekeeping in the community, people saying you can't be gay unless you've done a certain thing, bi people settle and it's 'choosing a side' etc. and I think having a label like queer can help with that. It's not a definitive label. Though I do understand that it obviously was used as a pejorative in the past and that not all LGBTQ+ people are like that, it's just something I've experienced and I know other people have too

Great, ACat what does “queer” mean now?

Queer is for gender non conforming people, whatever their sexual orientation.

Ah! Right.

But could you say what a gender non conforming person is? (I think I might be one.)

Thanking you in advance, fiestar.

Thanks to everyone who has posted and this isn't a reflection on your powers of explanation, but am still none the wiser.

@OneEpisode I define queer as someone who isn't 100% straight - they might be bi/gay/pan - and feel that better defines them than specific labels or someone who's enby/doesn't identify with their gender. I think it's a label for people who don't feel 100% hetero or c*s (for want of a better word)
Hope this helps 🧡