I think I’m queer. What now? Start with a colour, not a label

You do not have to decide anything

Wondering is not a test you pass or fail. Most people who use the word queer arrived at it slowly, tried it on, put it down, picked it up again. That is normal. Stonewall’s list of terms describes queer as an umbrella word many people choose because it does not pin them to one place.

So this page will not tell you what you are. Nobody here can, and nobody should. What it can do is show you a way of looking that was built for exactly this feeling: knowing something about yourself before you have words for it.

Why a colour helps

In 1972 gay and bisexual men in San Francisco and New York could not say what they wanted out loud. They wore a colour instead — a handkerchief in a back pocket — and let the room read it. Left pocket gives, right pocket receives. The colour did the talking. That is the hanky code, and it is recorded in Hal Fischer’s Gay Semiotics (1977) and Bob Damron’s Address Book (1980).

A colour is easier to hold than a label. You can look at it, wear it, send it to one person, and see how it feels. If it feels wrong you put it down. No form, no announcement. That is why we kept the grammar and wrote new words for it in 2026.

How to use this site for the feeling you have

Take the five-question quiz. It asks how you move through a room, not who you sleep with. It gives you a colour and a pocket and one word. It stores nothing.

Then look around your colour. Every code page lists the colours next to it and the codes in the same family, so you can drift sideways until something fits better. The Who you love cluster holds gay, lesbian, queer, genderqueer and questioning. The Who you are cluster holds thirty colours for gender. Questioning is a code in its own right.

Make the free swatch and send it to the one person who should read you. That is how the code worked in 1972: one signal, one reader.

If it is heavier than curiosity

Sometimes the question arrives with fear — about home, school, faith or safety. That is bigger than a colour. Switchboard LGBT+ (0800 0119 100) will talk with you about anything. The Proud Trust and akt are there for under-25s. Childline is 0800 1111. If you are in danger, 999. The links are on our Support page, one tap from every identity page.

What we will not do

We will not hand you a label, and we will not take one away. We will not call it a phase and we will not call it a destination. We will not sell you anything on this page. The art is on the code pages, for adults, and it will still be there when you are ready or never.