Many thanks to mittens, who co-wrote this post with me.

Why “queers”? The debate for a properly inclusive term that can encompass a wide range of sexual and gender identities is decades old and still ongoing. Many feel that “queer” still retains derogatory connotations and prefer not to use it; on the other hand, the common use of acronyms like LGBT and QUILTBAG often leave members out, enforcing a sense of marginalization. Our desire is to celebrate diversity, to include, to demarginalize, and so we chose the most inclusive term commonly used.We understand that even “queer” does not properly include all issues of intersectionality: It does not draw out differences in class, in ethnicity, in able/disability status. And we want to be explicit that our choice of the word “queer” is not meant to hide those issues.This is an entirely optional initiative designed to allow queer-identified posters to recognize each other and feel a sense of solidarity with other posters in the community. If you are uncomfortable with participating, that’s fine too! But online sites like Metafilter are often a surprisingly accessible form of queer community for people who don’t always have access to other, more sheltered spaces, and in light of this we’d love to make it easier for queer posters to recognize each other while posting on the site.Because there are fewer queer people currently participating on Metafilter than women (as in previous MonthByWomen efforts), our goal is very modest: toposted to the front page by queer-identified people during the month of June. If we get more than that, fabulous, but our goal is 60. That’s two posts per day by someone who IDs as some flavor of queer.Many posters have shared concerns that this initiative will be seen as lumping the diversity of queer identities under a shared banner which be dominated by cis gay concerns and perspectives. With that in mind, we also optionally encourage people who would like to make it clear exactly how they identify to add an additional tag clarifying your primary identity--for example, “JuneByTrans” or “JuneByBisexual.” If this proposal makes you feel uncomfortable or if you do not feel that your identity can be accurately summed up by a single phrase, feel free to skip this and use the broader “ByQueers” tag only.Anything you like. This is an initiative motivated by a desire to know what queer MeFites find cool! Bring your favorite niche interests to the party. Yes, even that really nerdy one that you think other people would find boring. I promise that SOMEONE will find it super cool.Pay attention to queer people’s comments in threads. Try very hard not to center conversations by and about queer people around yourself--that’s often very frustrating to us! If you see obviously problematic shit, please flag it. I promise the mods will not be offended and it helps to have moderator commentary in the thread to deal with.While the tag is definitely about visibility, it’s not really about education, or a queer person having to answer questions posed by people not of their particular identity. We’d ask that everyone respect that when we’ve had big educational discussions in the past, it has been exhausting for some members, and limited their participation in threads. We want queer MeFites to feel engaged in conversation as participants, not as subjects.Post here! There are plenty of people here who are happy to cheerlead and help you frame a FPP so that it goes well on the main page. If you are worried about the possible places a discussion might go and you want to talk that out here and figure out framing, this is also a great place for that! One thing we as a community can do is pledge to back each other up and help each other encourage interesting, productive conversations to go as smoothly as we can.