I'm guilty of using queer without considering who I'm talking to.

When I talk to boomer gays and use queer as a catchall term I've seen visible recoil.

To them queer was a slur similar to foxtrot-Oscar-gay-gay-oscar-triceratops (I can't remember the phonetic alphabet) and was used to oppress and attack them at least in the UK.

And like yeaaah, it was even when I was in school up until like 2010s so its not as reclaimed with the older generation as we'd like to hope because of lived experience from what I've seen which is fair.

So as a result I don't use it around older gay men and use the acronym since queer genuinely seems to bring back a lot of the 80s gay panic trauma for them I guess.

I'd liken it to when a cis friend called me triceratops-rain-alpha-november-november-yacht as a in-joke he assumed i knew since he knows a fair few trans people who are reclaiming that term on twitter but for me that word is full of trauma and I was like "nope, I'm not in that community please don't ever say that again".

I called him a chaser cos he has a trans gf and said it was reclaimed by friends of mine with trans gfs and he got the message why you can't assume reclaimed words have the same gravity with each individual.

I guess I see queer in a similar vein, I guess the difference is the time since it was reclaimed is the big difference.

I don't think we need a new umbrella term but I think it's important for us to remember others experiences with reclaimed words before we assume them to be gospel (despite most gay publications I've seen using it fine).

I dunno, I'm trying to be mature and empathic 😭😭😭