As the title states really. I need to refer to this diverse group of people, who somehow have gotten put in the same box labeled “sexual minorites”.
I’m a boring CISHET vanilla white male, so I don’t really know. I want to include as many as I can when I refer to “lgbtq+ people”. I’ve been studying various flags, trying to find the one flag I need. But I can’t really figure it out.
Is lgbtq+ the preferred term, or what should I use? Is a flag better? I don’t want to hurt someone by not including them.
Strong no to rainbow people or alphabet people from me - it’s the sort of thing a homophobic person would say to be dismissive of us. I use “queer”, but I think this is location dependent. Where I’m from in the UK, people don’t use “queer” as an insult (but rather they use “fag” or “gay”) but in other places it has a different history.
I think the main thing is that you are being polite and specifically asking for input so your heart is in the right place. If you are speaking (rather than typing), I believe people will hear that you are being sincere and not dismissive even if you use the ‘wrong’ word.
Final suggestion: LGBTeeple (contraction of LGBT people) because it’s funny.
Copy that, is it the rainbow or the people part? Because “people” was just a placeholder to avoid having this thread pop up if someone googles my future message.
I like your portmanteau, but I think that my target audience is either without the English literacy level to decode it, or with just enough to recognize it as “LGBT sheeple”.
While realizing that I will never find the perfect term that will convey my message, while not rubbing someone the wrong way, I will continue my search.
I don’t really know what it is about “rainbow people” that I don’t like. To me, it makes an image in my head of a hillbilly shouting “dang nabbit, these god-darn rainbow people are invadin our schools and touchin our childun!”. Maybe it sounds like they didn’t want to dignify with a proper name and so described us as rainbow people because we all wear rainbows. But also it could just be my brain making weird connections