sorry for late reply , but as a non native speaker i had NO idea qeer was actually disrespectful, i thought it generally meant people part of the lgbtqia+ community (⊙…⊙ ) i have used tgat term in the past i hope no one got offended
what a dumb comment. queer has been used to signify the lgbt community for decades now. this IS a queer story. it tells the life of multiple lgbtq characters, there is nothing wrong with using a term that has not only been reclaimed but also used as a positive for so long. you live a sad life.
I understand where you're coming from but many people have reclaimed queer and use it as a term for when there's not just lesbians/gay men in a story. Many queer people call queer stories what they are, queer! The people in the story don't have to specifically identify as such for it to categorized that way.
The reality of it is, while queer is a term some have deep bad history with, it's also a term taken up by many lgbtq+ people and your argument stands to feel a little rude when you call it disempowering for queer people to call a story queer. Cause it is, and trying to discredit people for calling it that may end up just invalidating what we view as a queer story. Because many gay men, lesbians (including myself) bis, pans, ace/aros, and so many more use the word queer endearingly now. No one person can speak for all of us.
Just a thought.
Cringing at the comments calling this a "queer" story and the characters "queer", it's so disempowering. Firstly, many still consider that word an insult, and secondly, the characters don't identity as this. They call themselves "gay" and "lesbian", the author also throws in some Japanese gay slang where her lesbian characters call themselves "bian". Ted talk over, but this really needs to be confronted, it's not respectful to those who are lesbian, gay or bisexual identified. As for the story, whilst it is progressive for it's time and place, it's sad that gay men or women went through with such marriages and sex instead of being offered the dignity to have equal marriage and have children without such "arrangements", very little drama too which seemed to be the sake of having an easy quick oneshot tbh.