On the one hand, I strongly believe that each generation of activists gets to define their own terms. Every couple of decades our vocabulary shifts, and that's a good thing! That's people coming into their own as the driving force of the movement and that's how movements actually last longer than a single generation. So that's why the queer & trans vocabulary I learned in the waning days of second-wave feminism is dated at best, and a lot of it's even offensive -- and so are the words I learned to replace them. Feature, not bug.
On the other hand, history *does* matter and I dunno how to feel when I encounter (frex) "queer's a slur, don't use it." (cont'd)
@sev the segment of folk who've perennially bristled at queer folks using the word 'queer' to describe themselves (or to encapsulate a community which rejects cisnormativity & heteronormativity) have been older cis gay men, disproportionately white, and generally who bore witness to the peak of AIDS in the 1980s & early 1990s. in select locales, this group of gay men advanced a conservation of homonormativity in cis (white) gay districts in major cities going back to, well, the 1970s. not coincidentally, they've long been one of the two segments of the queer community which have never dealt well w/ the existence of folks like queer trans women & enby folk
@sev and i can remember using the word 'queer' and 'genderqueer' to describe myself around 1998 or 1999 and running into local cis white gay men, then in their forties, who'd get terribly bent out of shape at how i described myself. some would go on to say even nastier stuff (the big one being "you chose to trans because it's more acceptable than being seen as a gay man"). i had a name for this demographic, and it was both accurate and not very nice. -_-
@sev it's a continuum. i've seen a lot in the last 25yrs. remnants of this stuff still lingers, but they're no longer running things the way they were as recently as a half dozen to ten years ago
@patience I am sorry you had to deal with that. :(