There are no stars at all for some of us

[sovay]

Hey! Internet! I've just been talking about how much it sucks when a novel kills off its queer characters. Especially when there's, like, one of them and they're the one who doesn't make it. Can someone point me toward a list of books where that doesn't happen? Spoilers, whatever.

Comments

[weirdquark]

I would have used the word "queer" for convenience in the above comments, except that I'm uncomfortable using reclaimed slurs. Mind you, I'm not saying this to shut you or anyone else down. But I feel weird about it when it comes to me using the term. On one hand, it's such a handy blanket term when "gay" would be too specific. On the other hand I don't want to sound like I'm using an insult/a slur/speech that I'm not entitled to; also, I've spent too much time around people who used it as a slur. So I'm conflicted. Do you ever feel this conflict?

Generally I only worry about this when referring to specific people, though if your audience doesn't know you well enough to know you're using it as an umbrella term for convenience, it's nice to put in a little caveat. But I'll use it to talk about the LGBT(etc.) community because it's more inclusive or when referring to a non-specific member who has an unspecified queer identity, and I'll use the more specific gay or trans or gender queer or bisexual if that's more relevant. I do like the term QUILTBAG but I don't use it because I've discovered that too many people don't know what I mean, so it's not helpful for being concise because I have to explain why QUILTBAG.

For individuals, I might say [name] is member of the queer community, but I wouldn't say [name] is queer unless I know [name] specifically identifies that way.

But other people do feel differently, so it can be tricky to navigate what's appropriate.