Your report (England and Wales census counts trans and non-binary people for first time, 6 January) tells us that of the 1.5 million people who declared themselves non-heterosexual, only 15,000 referred to themselves as “queer”. I suspect that many of the others, like me, consider the term to be insulting and derogatory, and certainly not “reclaimed”. I am a gay man of 66 years with many friends and acquaintances, and know no one who would refer to themselves as queer. It would seem a small minority of activists has encouraged the media to use the word without considering its offensiveness to many people. You wouldn’t use the N-word, so don’t use the Q-word.
Karl Lockwood
Brighton
