In case you have been living under a rock, Queer is a word that describes sexual and gender identities other than straight and cisgender.
Wait a minute, cisgender? What is it?
Most people who are assigned female at birth identify as girls or women, and most people who are assigned male at birth identify as boys or men. These are cisgender.
So, cisgender isn't queer. Is it clear?
Queer people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.
What? Transgender?
Yes, some people have a gender identity that doesn't match their sex at birth. These people are transgender (or trans).
Transgenders are the “T” in LBGTQ+. You know, the L"" is for Lesbian, "G" for gay, "B" for bisexual, and "Q" for Queer. So, transgender people are queer.
Actually, there's another more updated acronym: LGBTQIA+. Being "I" for intersex, and "A" standing for "asexual" or "aromantic." Finally, the sign + was added to encompass all spectrums of sexuality and gender.
And there's non-binary too. Some people don't neatly fit into the categories of "man" or "woman," or "male" or "female." Some people don't identify with any gender—other people's gender changes over time. They are non-binary people.
Many non-binary people use "they" while others use "he" or "she," and still others use other pronouns.
Now, you are familiar with an entirely new alphabet. But pronouns and the LGBTQ+ acronym are the most mundane expression of it. It's the tip of a more significant shift that is shaking up the world. Actually, speaking of the tip, this topic has reached the tipping point. For most of the time in the recent past, society was either simply unaware of people dealing with gender and identity issues or, in other cases, just chose to look the other way.
But, these are some of the leading topics in culture and society today. Queer or not, it’s time to get updated and get used to it. There's a new speech, an entirely new language that needs to be rewritten off of what we used to consider the norm. This new thinking claims that the norm is to be free of normatization.
But this new approach to gender and sexual identity has been getting people really anxious. Aside from learning how to use the correct pronouns – just ask; it's that simple – the anxiety comes from the unknown. If the norms that we grew up used to are changing, that makes people uneasy about themselves. And fear is the mother of anxiety, uncertainty, and intolerance.
But these societal shifts have been happening more often and increasingly fast since the early 20th century. Just think of some of the last century movements: women's lib, black power, flower power, gay lib.
These movements changed society drastically and propelled the world to a more progressive view on what people individually and as a group needed. And they haven't stopped. Instead, they have been boiling up and dynamically changing until they reached the tipping point.
Think of the causes you stood up for and felt passionate about when you were young. Maybe now we need to stop reacting defensively or judging people and reconnect with our beliefs from our more youthful days. Especially the idea that change is good.
Like Bob Dylan said: “The order is rapidly fading. And the first one now will later be last. For the times they are a-changin”.