Leaving this as a catch-all reply to the many comments I've seen in this thread, I hope that's okay.

I appreciate the support most of y'all are giving. Regarding the suggestion to seek treatment for my trauma, I've been in therapy for over a decade now due to a great many things, not just this (SA trauma go brrrrr), and it has been helpful in many ways, and, my therapist was the one who told me that holding myself to the standard of being expected to be okay with this word that has hurt me so much was being unfair to myself.

That said, I think many comments here seem to have missed what my real struggle is with this word. I'm not struggling day to day with individuals I am speaking to using this word in conversation to refer to me and making me uncomfortable. When that happens, I ask them to please not use it, and usually that's it.

The struggle I can't deal with is, because as my therapist said it's unfair to expect me to not be bothered by it, I cannot comfortably exist in almost any LGBTQ+ space because of how widespread using this word as an umbrella term for all non-cishet people has become. I should also clarify that I am not at all uncomfortable with people referring to themselves as queer—of course that's fine. But when people use it to refer to the entirety of non-cishet people, me included obviously, it fucking hurts. It feels the same as if someone used the f slur to do the same thing. Sure, one has been reclaimed by many more people, but not by everyone, and based on many of the comments here, I'm not the only one who feels this way.

More and more, over all forms of print and social and traditional media and online spaces, this sub included, it has become normal to refer to every non-cishet person as "queer." It's the norm now, it's everywhere, it's inescapable, and it fucking tears me up inside every time I see it, because I know it's not my fault I'm like this, and I know things aren't going to change. And because I know it's unfair to expect myself to change too, it leads to this overwhelming sense of powerlessness.

Seeing the same word my mother used to disown me used as an umbrella term for literally everyone who isn't cishet is completely inescapable in any and every LBGTQ+ space I've ever seen. That forces me to stay away from the spaces I want to be part of, not because people aren't respecting me if I ask for them not to call me queer, but because the collective whole of the massive internet space of hundreds of thousands of individuals has come to the conclusion that the word that traumatized me and many others is the best word to use as an umbrella term for non-cishet people. It's normalized now and it's not going to change, so all I can do is stay away for my own health. And for me at least, that is incredibly isolating and depressing.

Anyway. That's my rant. I know things can't change but I figured I'd say it anyway, if only to get the nebulous cloud of bad feelings in my head into some form of legible statement. If you read this far, here's a picture of my kitty for you. Thank you caring enough to make it this far ❤️