What makes us queer

Our Resource Center is a comprehensive guide connecting you to a wide range of personal resources and professional opportunities. From insurance enrollment to program-specific resource areas such as Recovery, Wellness, Family and Youth, find a compilation of LGBT-focused organizations and opportunities to connect.

Visit General Resources. For professionals looking for internship opportunities with The Center to those looking to further their understanding of the LGBT community, find resources designed to enhance your professional experience. Visit Professional Resources. LGBTQ is an acronym for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning. Some lesbians may prefer to identify as gay or as gay women. Sometimes lesbian is the preferred term for women.

People may experience this attraction in differing ways and degrees over their lifetime. Bisexual people need not have had specific sexual experiences to be bisexual; in fact, they need not have had any sexual experience at all to identify as bisexual.

People under the transgender umbrella may describe themselves using one or more of a wide variety of terms— including transgender. Many transgender people are prescribed hormones by their doctors to bring their bodies into alignment with their gender identity. Some undergo surgery as well. But not all transgender people can or will take those steps, and a transgender identity is not dependent upon physical appearance or medical procedures.

An adjective used by some people whose sexual orientation is not exclusively heterosexual. This term describes someone who is questioning their sexual orientation or gender identity. In fact, not to proudly use the word queer as an organization would be disempowering for many Outright youth. However, there are significant differences between the histories of these words in relation to the communities that they were once and still are used against.

People of color communities continue to explore and internally discuss how the N-word is used by individuals and their community as a whole. We hope that everyone understands that this piece of the conversation is much more complex than we can address in a post on our website and that simply put, the N-word is never appropriate for a white person to use, in any context. Outright Vermont supports the use of the word queer by those who understand its meaning, history, and proper use.

It is never okay to use it to intend harm or hurt. Many people who have had the word queer used against them are understandably very uncomfortable with the word. If you personally have negative associations with the word queer, find ways to open yourself to new understandings of the word.

Do personal, gentle, deep work in order to honor and respect those who use queer to describe themselves. Learn more about queer identity on your own. You might start by reading at least two articles or books that increase your understanding of queer identity. Dominant culture teaches us to depend on dualisms; challenge yourself to eradicate dualisms from your language and your understanding of the world.

Gay and straight, masculine and feminine, black and white: all dualisms obscure so many shades of grey, shades of queer, shades of androgyny and fluidity. Open yourself to this infinite variety. Use terms that encompass all genders rather than only two e. Expand the ways that sexual orientation is understood and discussed in your congregation beyond the idea that sexual orientation is a born-in, static trait.