A lot of queer people (in the US in particular) are always going to have complicated feelings about straight people using the word “partner,” because for a long time here that was one of our signifiers. And that’s okay.
(This is a Discourse subtweet, sorry)
Some queer people are going to feel more included if everyone is using partner. Some are going to feel like something that’s theirs is being diluted so that it’s useless as an in-group signifier. Some of us will feel a mix of both!
So if the larger culture is waiting for some kind of consensus on this issue...lmao good luck
Also in my experience, a lot of the people who appear straight but use “partner” are in fact not straight. A lot of bi/pan people dating the “opposite sex” use it as a signifier/to avoid invisibility
It is mildly annoying that I can’t trust either “my girlfriend” or “my partner” as signifiers of queerness when I’m talking to another woman but that is not exactly the biggest problem we face in this life lol. Use what you feel most comfortable with.
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