LGTB – but Q?

John Delancey did a great job of playing a terribly annoying character and plot device on Star Trek, The Next Generation.  I always groaned when watching the shows.  If he showed up it inevitably led to wild west shootouts or trials for humanity or other nonsense.  He called himself Q, everyone called him Q, he was, in fact, Q.  

Not true of all Q’s though.  Some are even more annoying.  I’d like to talk about one of them.  The Q to talk about here today is queer.  Queer used to be a pejorative insult for gay men, particularly in the 70s.  Gay men proudly took up the epithet and used it loudly in Gay Rights parades and effectively removed the sting that the bad people were intending to cause – so the term faded in use.  It has come back but now referring to a poorly defined group of individuals with fluctuating sexual desires and gender definitions.  The world in its “wokeness” has insisted on LGBT rights and protections – and now more and more letters are insisting theirs be added to the LGBT pantheon of letters.  Q has been most successful, but de jour readers are looking for LGBTQIA.  Nope, not from me, not with my blessing.  

I have patients that I treat and love and care for that are L, G, B, and T.  I am extremely LGBT friendly and up to date on those aspects of care.

So then, about 5 or so years ago, I went to the AAFP FMX – what used to be called the AAFP Scientific Assembly before the AAFP decided to eliminate all mention of family medicine and scientific rigor.  This was in Washington DC.  One of the lectures was on LGBTQ issues in health care.  I felt I was above average on information on this topic, but I was eager to add more as it had become a significant part of my practice.  

The lecturer was a family physician and was relatively young.  She (she did not ask to be referred to as they or other pronouns) started with simple definitions of the initialism LGBTQ.  She was pleasant and teaching and all was calm.  I want to paint the picture well here – a convention center room well attended by only physicians that are all there to better learn how to better help this population.  These were the good guys – the ones trying to be better, act better, help better.  All nice people.

Then that idiot lecturer got to the letter Q.  They identified that they were Q.  They then instantly got uncomfortably loud and yelled at everyone in the audience.  Yelling, she said, “I am Q, I am queer!  I can call myself that.  You can’t call me that! I’m Queer but only I can say that!”

I was, and to some extent still am, taken aback.  In the intervening years, I have thought she must have been yelling at us as some surrogate parents that didn’t accept her choices, or some other deeply rooted psychopathy caused her anger transference.  But mostly, I wish I had stood up and yelled at her, something to the tune of, “Shut up! I am not here to learn what words NOT to call you.  If you don’t want me to I won’t call you the N word or the Q word or literally any other letter in the alphabet word.  Moron, I and all these nice people are here to find out the word TO call you.  If you identify as a mushroom and want to be called Bob or Larry or Sally or some Prince like symbol, I will support you and care.  But don’t yell at me little one. 

For this reason, I never say the Q.  LGBT is enough.  If any queers want to educate me and tell me I can use that word, I will.  But then if you ask to be called Bob, Larry, or Sally I would be fine with that too.