A heartfelt appeal: please stop calling me queer.

First of all I don't claim to be an authority in gay rights, nor do I know all the latest politically correct terminology or what acronyms I am support to use this week, however I'm older than a lot of people on here and have seen some terrible shit in my time, from houses being burnt down to people being beaten and killed in the name of homophobia.But then again I've also experienced wonderful things like dancing with a self titled drag queen at an illegal Irish gay club at 2am on a Saturday night, and some of the earlier prides when it was still new and full of the passion of freedom, marching behind a big pink tank while singing abba and singing because I'm glad to be gay, so I would appreciate it if you would listen to what I have to say.The internet is an odd thing, on the one hand it has broken down national barriers and formed a global community, but on the other it has fooled us in some ways into assuming that all English speaking cultures are the same. We have all seen and got tired with that whole "oh but in England we call it a lift" but there is one very important way in which this is relevant.In the Uk fags are cigarettes. The question is if fag does not = gay what slur is thrown at us instead? It's not gay, gay has never really had much of a impact as a insult because it's hard to use as word your grandmother still uses to mean happy in anger. So, as you may have guessed the word reserved as the worst insult is queer. As a insult it's a good one really when you look at the meaning, queer, odd, strange, off, not right. It's why they picked it.Some might be thinking the word "reclaim" here, some of them might be young Brits, but no, it's simply not an option. there is a history behind that word that the young should know.Sex between men was illegal till 1967, the age of consent was 21 till 1979 and 18 until 2001 when it became 16. 2. does not happen so much today but in the past gay men would have two options:go to gay clubs and pubs, it got better over time but this was a risk for a lot of people as unless you were well and truly out then being caught there could have dire consequences, so a lot of people went for option 2.Cruising. Gay men would meet in secret and at night in local parks or toilets, hamsted Heath was the most notorious for this. The reason was because it was so well known there used to be gangs of "queer bashers" roaming around, and so many people were hospitalized or killed by them. There aren't many statistics on who or how many were beaten in what park or bathroom because the police didn't care enough to investigate or make lists, it was simply put down as "queer bashing"So please, don't call me queer.