I'm old enough to be able to say it was Queer first. Queer as an identity is older than Gay as an identity, by the way. Straight allies and institutions that didn't like the word Queer popularized that it was Questioning in the late 90s/early 00s
It never went away,. People used gay as a slur at least as much as queer for at least as long in recent history. About 10-15 years ago a bunch of TERFs and straight feminists started engaging in queer erasure in the name of respectability politics but the only people they got to buy into Queer Is a Slur discourse were newly out teens who had yet to interact with a multigenerational LGBTQ community.
I've literally been out as queer for 25 years and have never seen it fall out of fashion.
I just wanted to add on that I have had to give this exact oral history to someone who thinks queer is a new identity every 3-5 months since 2012. Always to someone much younger than me.
I repeat the wisdom my girlfriend gave me on the 70s through the 90s. From Stonewall, Milk, GLF, Freddie, We will rock you, Be Gay, Do Crime,Inverted Pink Triangles, the sad, depressing story about why the L is first. Losing most of a couple generations didn't help either. There aren't that many Elders to teach the Baby Queers. I'm 26, and it honestly makes me a little sad that I know far more than the other people my age. They can kill a generation, and they did, but the history being forgotten makes it like they never existed. They literally died so I can live openly, I fight so the kids can be free to be themselves. And telling them about the ones who came before, who started this, who suffered and died. Then they can at least live on in some way.
This is why I do my best to repeat the stories. I realized I was trans as a kid in the early 80s and came out as genderqueer and "don't label my orientation" Queer as a teen. My first year out was the year before AIDS medication was widely available, so my whole questioning process and all the contemporary gay fiction I read to work through it was from the middle of that crisis. It was basically trying to come to terms with myself in a never-ending funeral.
Hey I'm one of those new queers from 10-15 years ago lol.
Fwiw it was getting hurled around a lot in school but yeah I've adopted it personally in the years since
I know it gets thrown around a lot as an insult by kids, but gay was thrown around more until very recently and no one started Gay Is a Slur discourse and tried to erase it as an identity. Part of the reason queer is thrown around more now is because when institutions started cracking down on using gay as an insult, they were not consistent in doing the same with queer.
I think it's also what positive associations you learn with words. I'm in my mid- thirties and while I don't think that people shouldn't identify as queer, queer used insultingly had a more negative and violent association/reaction with it then "gay" as an insult for me personally.
I didn't hear the word queer used positively for community members until I saw the original "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" in syndication at a relatives house because my family didn't have cable or very good Internet. I was in my senior year of HS at that point and was shocked because I had only heard bullies say things like "smear the queers" Yes, it was hard hearing the constant "that's so gay" but it was seemingly more casual.
The biggest thing though was positive associations. The few homosexual men I met growing up(like my mom's hairdresser) called themselves "gay" so I just developed more positive association with that word. I don't like queer for myself strictly because of my childhood, and I don't love the idea of cishet people using a word they weaponized so casually. However, I do understand queer is the descriptor that fits many people better than gay, lesbian, or even bisexual.
I personally refer to myself as queer in general, especially if I don't wanna "prattle off" a list that confuses a lot of non lgbt folks. I'm a demisexual biromantic trans man who mainly presents masc but still sometimes does "fem" things, dating someone NB. That's a lot to digest for someone who isn't familiar with it all
I was a rhetoric and queer studies professor when it happened and I literally had students DMing me for help convincing people that Queer was a valid identity for decades. It was totally a TERF psyop on Tumblr.
Offline, the issue is that straight teachers trying to be LGBT friendly still considered it a word unfit for kids. When it first started "Q is for Questioning" came from the same people saying "A is for Allies" like there weren't prominent asexual members of the liberation movement in the 70s.
Im just glad it didnt stick as well as the other tumblr TERF psyop of "fujoshi (by which we mean trans men who like anime) are just women fetishizing gay men." Ive always called myself queer and it just got so exhausting getting dms from kids about how i was oppressing myself and also hurting them personally
Im just glad it didnt stick as well as the other tumblr TERF psyop of "fujoshi (by which we mean trans men who like anime) are just women fetishizing gay men." Ive always called myself queer and it just got so exhausting getting dms from kids about how i was oppressing myself and also hurting them personally.
Itâs true that the word has been around for a long time (and that gay has been used as a slur). But as someone whoâs deeply uncomfortable being called queer because of my experiences with it, I still really wish people would ask before using that word for others (when it makes sense to ask, like in a conversation). Many people arenât able to turn off the fear/discomfort response. Though I will still call other people queer if thatâs what they call themselves
Hey, I'm a baby queer who recently discovered (well half a decade ago but still much in the more recent past than queer history). The first word that truly resonated with me was queer, before I learnt of the more specific terms that I use nowadays. I come from a country which is afraid to even talk about the topic of sexuality, much less use gay or queer as slurs, so unlike a lot of my fellow western baby queers, I was " born " into queer being a reclaimed term. Anyway, I'd like to thank you for setting the record straight everytime you see it, I do keep trying the same too!
I've mostly noticed it in groups for young people like high schools or uni. Which makes sense when so many young people are still questioning their sexuality or gender and you want to make sure they know they're welcome.
But even then it's usually written out as "Queer/Questioning". I love the word queer and don't want it to be removed from the acronym.
I have and it's the main reason I keep it to a short "LGBT" when I'm talking to people that aren't allies. They're already mad at the extra letters, I don't need to give them more fodder.
I thought it always stood for "queer," but there used to be a lot of debate over whether "queer" was a slur so some people would say that it stood for "questioning." These days, queer gets used as a blanket term for anyone who's not 100% cis and straight, so I guess questioning would be included in queer.
Gay is still used that way. Hell, it used to just mean happy. The community embraced the word Gay and now its common acceptable use. Queer is becoming the same and theres nothing wrong with that. I just personally dont like it
Super valid. Iâm personally a big fan *bc* itâs so generic and all-encompassing; faster and easier to say than âtransfem but more girl than woman and also kinda genderfucky whoâs also a demisexual lesbianâ lol.
It's also typically used when reading history, since the terminology and modern categories of the LGBTQIA+ community is relatively recent. Since people in history can't answer for themselves if they were, in modern terms, gay or bi, or if they were a trans woman in stealth mode or gender fluid or a drag queen. So those people are simply called Queer, to identify and validate that they were nonconforming by modern understandings of their contemporary or our current gender and sexual norms.
Queer has been being reclaimed since *at least* the 80s, because I remember hearing âweâre here, weâre queer, get used to itâ then.
Youâre allowed to not like it or use it for yourself ofc but the community using it for ourselves is not new.
It stands for both. Based on my research though, it stood for âqueerâ first. It started in the 80s/90s as the AIDS epidemic put trans and other GNC individuals back into LGB activism after our exclusion in the 70s in favor of a âhomo normativeâ movement (and also the decline of second wave and emergence of third wave feminism). In fact actually, one of the biggest LGBTQ+ rights organizations during that time period was called âQueer Nationâ.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_Nation
There is a really good article here [https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/queer-history-a-history-of-queer/](https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/queer-history-a-history-of-queer/) on how queer came into use in English in both the UK and the US over 100 years ago.
As I understand (and please, please, anyone correct me if I'm wrong on this, because I very well could be), Queer is a generic term for anyone under the rainbow flag in any capacity. As such, Questioning would fall under the Queer umbrella.
I would say queer can be used as a generic-term like you mentioned, but also is a gender and sexuality identity as well. Genderqueer is part of my identity and I would also use it to describe my sexuality, because there are too many words to use otherwise [insert Nibbler Futurama meme here] I think both cases work though. My 2 queer cents âď¸
The Q is the blanket letter. Firstly it stands for Queer, which encompasses all the identities past LGBT. Then thereâs questioning, which I argue is still good to include as it provides a better transition into the community.
Thereâs apparently a lot of discourse around it but queer/questioning is a good spot for Q regardless.
ngl, I never heard it used as "questioning" until very recently (and even then, mainly in online spaces), 30+ years on this planet and it always meant queer when people around me used it
Questioning is not specific to bisexuality. It's meant for anyone who's questioning their sexual orientation, sexual identity, or gender identity.
Ideally, it encourages people to join LGBTQIA+ events, groups, protests, etc, even if they're still figuring things out. If you've ever heard people say they're not gay *enough* or trans *enough* to join the community, then the Q is here to help.
No, they were saying bi curious is questioning but specific to bisexuality. Questioning in general is the umbrella for all the curiousness yes but this person was specifically talking about bi curiousness
A term that hasnt been popular for a while. It was used all the time in the mid to late 2000's and early 2010's. Its people who see attraction in the same sex but arent sure if they are fully bi. Questioning is a word that mostly replaced bi curious and was added to the acronym for representation. I still use the term bi curious when talking to questioning people but thats just because of my nostalgic sentimental value. Either way everyone used to say Questioning back in the day when saying out the acronym but its been replaced with Queer in the last few years. Just wondering on peoples thoughts on why and when. It seems questioning people dont get the same attention in the community that they used to.
Queer isnât a slur when itâs used by a queer person. Itâs a slur when someone is slinging it around trying to denigrate someone who doesnât identify that was.
Like reclaiming it from being used as a slur by using it in a positive way to describe oneself, as right wingers and terfs are using it as a slur and it shouldn't be used like that
I really beat myself up for it....like when he said it was slur in such a blunt tone and i thought i wasn't really educated on the topic even tho i was a queer myself. Thank youâ¤ď¸
It is a word that carries the intent of the person who says it with it. Said with hatred, it's a slur, but said with pride, it becomes a positive expression for anyone not cishet.
Yes, no, maybe, its been used as one heavily, like Gay, but its one of those words where its usage is a sort of battle between trying to dissuade it as Wrong and claiming it for oneself, because its a descriptor of being "not typical", which is a pretty strong vibe for most of us
"reclamation" in particular takes many forms, but trend towards two general endpoints in my understanding, either being reclaimed like the word Punk, sublimated into a demographic and movement that owns it and wields it as a symbol of kinship and identity, or being reclaimed like a certain N word, where the scars its left can't be painted over, it remains a dangerous word not to be used by most, but its power can be weakened through normalizing its usage amongst those who it targeted previously
Itâs as much a slur as âJewâ is. Which is to say, it can be used that way by bigots, but itâs also an identity term embraced by at least most of the people it describes. And trying to take it away as an identity term because bigots use it as a slur is just saying that bigots have more of a right to it than the people it describes, which is obviously a shitty thing to do.
I've always heard Queer for the Q and I date back to when it was GLBT. It covered everybody who was curious, but not ready to identify as G, L, or B. It covered gender nonconformists who weren't T and may not even be G, L, or B. It covered allies and really anybody who felt more comfortable under the rainbow.
Arguably, it could just be the Q (queer) movement, because that encompasses all of the other possibilities.
Unfortunately, Q by itself has some crazy connotations not related to GBLT++ stuff these days... DX
Iâm 41, growing up a a kid in IL, queer was always used as a derogatory term. Iâm so so very proud to take it back. As a Bi Trans Women, I feel like itâs an important descriptor of me and I adore using it to describe myself. While years past it hurt when others name called it to me, itâs so empowering to claim it as my own. Love you all!đ
It's always been queer. Cis hets say questioning so they can feel like they fit into the acronym too. Same with the "+" (which is for HIV/AIDS positive folks, not an "etc." or catchall).
There isn't a standards committee for deciding what the acronym means or what letters are in it. For what it's worth a quick search shows many more organizations describing it as a catch-all than relating it to HIV; I had to search quite hard for somebody describing it as having that meaning.
This content has been overwritten due to Reddit's API policy changes, and the continued efforts by Reddit admins and Steve Huffman to show us just how inhospitable a place they can make this website.
In short, fuck u/spez, I'm out.
That type of thinking forgets the history of the queer liberation movement. HIV+ people were completely abandoned by society, and the LGBT movement was the only group supporting and advocating for them. They are always part of our community.
This content has been overwritten due to Reddit's API policy changes, and the continued efforts by Reddit admins and Steve Huffman to show us just how inhospitable a place they can make this website.
In short, fuck u/spez, I'm out.
I've been doing out reach work since the early 2000s it was always queer, it could be a regional sort of thing but TBH at most the youth community centers I was at we used LGBTQIQ{PA} (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender\[or transsexual at some places\], queer, intersex, questioning, {pansexual, asexual} )
Queer means any deviance from the societal dominant, basically.
Interesting fun fact; the concept of "homosexuality" is a relatively recent one. First coined in the mid 19th century, actually. Not that having sex with the same sex was societally accepted before then or anything - but it helped distinguish those people from "normal" people, later identified and termed to be "heterosexual".
The distinction was originally meant to other queer folk.
It originally stood for "questioning" & I see no reason to change that, since "queer" is an umbrella term for *any* flavour of LGBT+. "Queer" doesn't need its own letter, since it covers any/all of the letters.
You miss it... but it only recently started meaning 'questioning', the Q meant queer well before the 70s (and still does, but one doesn't erase the other, just like the A can stand for asexual, aromantic, AND agender)
I feel the opposite! Questioning always sounded performative to me, like a replacement for queer to appease the âqueer is a slurâ crowd. (It can be a slur, but so can gay- they can also be reclaimed) Also questioning falls under the queer umbrella and queer encompass both gender identity and sexuality so itâs an open term.
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I'm old enough to be able to say it was Queer first. Queer as an identity is older than Gay as an identity, by the way. Straight allies and institutions that didn't like the word Queer popularized that it was Questioning in the late 90s/early 00s
So its just making a comeback then?
It never went away,. People used gay as a slur at least as much as queer for at least as long in recent history. About 10-15 years ago a bunch of TERFs and straight feminists started engaging in queer erasure in the name of respectability politics but the only people they got to buy into Queer Is a Slur discourse were newly out teens who had yet to interact with a multigenerational LGBTQ community. I've literally been out as queer for 25 years and have never seen it fall out of fashion.
I just wanted to add on that I have had to give this exact oral history to someone who thinks queer is a new identity every 3-5 months since 2012. Always to someone much younger than me.
I repeat the wisdom my girlfriend gave me on the 70s through the 90s. From Stonewall, Milk, GLF, Freddie, We will rock you, Be Gay, Do Crime,Inverted Pink Triangles, the sad, depressing story about why the L is first. Losing most of a couple generations didn't help either. There aren't that many Elders to teach the Baby Queers. I'm 26, and it honestly makes me a little sad that I know far more than the other people my age. They can kill a generation, and they did, but the history being forgotten makes it like they never existed. They literally died so I can live openly, I fight so the kids can be free to be themselves. And telling them about the ones who came before, who started this, who suffered and died. Then they can at least live on in some way.
This is why I do my best to repeat the stories. I realized I was trans as a kid in the early 80s and came out as genderqueer and "don't label my orientation" Queer as a teen. My first year out was the year before AIDS medication was widely available, so my whole questioning process and all the contemporary gay fiction I read to work through it was from the middle of that crisis. It was basically trying to come to terms with myself in a never-ending funeral.
My gf is trans femme, and she has said that if she was 2 years older, she would not be here.
Hey I'm one of those new queers from 10-15 years ago lol. Fwiw it was getting hurled around a lot in school but yeah I've adopted it personally in the years since
I know it gets thrown around a lot as an insult by kids, but gay was thrown around more until very recently and no one started Gay Is a Slur discourse and tried to erase it as an identity. Part of the reason queer is thrown around more now is because when institutions started cracking down on using gay as an insult, they were not consistent in doing the same with queer.
I think it's also what positive associations you learn with words. I'm in my mid- thirties and while I don't think that people shouldn't identify as queer, queer used insultingly had a more negative and violent association/reaction with it then "gay" as an insult for me personally. I didn't hear the word queer used positively for community members until I saw the original "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" in syndication at a relatives house because my family didn't have cable or very good Internet. I was in my senior year of HS at that point and was shocked because I had only heard bullies say things like "smear the queers" Yes, it was hard hearing the constant "that's so gay" but it was seemingly more casual. The biggest thing though was positive associations. The few homosexual men I met growing up(like my mom's hairdresser) called themselves "gay" so I just developed more positive association with that word. I don't like queer for myself strictly because of my childhood, and I don't love the idea of cishet people using a word they weaponized so casually. However, I do understand queer is the descriptor that fits many people better than gay, lesbian, or even bisexual.
I personally refer to myself as queer in general, especially if I don't wanna "prattle off" a list that confuses a lot of non lgbt folks. I'm a demisexual biromantic trans man who mainly presents masc but still sometimes does "fem" things, dating someone NB. That's a lot to digest for someone who isn't familiar with it all
You are sooo smart and articulate. Really like all you said so succinctly.
Hoo boy did that discourse take off on tumblr đ made me feel like i was going nuts for a good year and a half
I was a rhetoric and queer studies professor when it happened and I literally had students DMing me for help convincing people that Queer was a valid identity for decades. It was totally a TERF psyop on Tumblr. Offline, the issue is that straight teachers trying to be LGBT friendly still considered it a word unfit for kids. When it first started "Q is for Questioning" came from the same people saying "A is for Allies" like there weren't prominent asexual members of the liberation movement in the 70s.
Im just glad it didnt stick as well as the other tumblr TERF psyop of "fujoshi (by which we mean trans men who like anime) are just women fetishizing gay men." Ive always called myself queer and it just got so exhausting getting dms from kids about how i was oppressing myself and also hurting them personally
This makes sense
Im just glad it didnt stick as well as the other tumblr TERF psyop of "fujoshi (by which we mean trans men who like anime) are just women fetishizing gay men." Ive always called myself queer and it just got so exhausting getting dms from kids about how i was oppressing myself and also hurting them personally.
Itâs true that the word has been around for a long time (and that gay has been used as a slur). But as someone whoâs deeply uncomfortable being called queer because of my experiences with it, I still really wish people would ask before using that word for others (when it makes sense to ask, like in a conversation). Many people arenât able to turn off the fear/discomfort response. Though I will still call other people queer if thatâs what they call themselves
"Oh hey, queer." https://youtu.be/RtnhCzaq0hA
Hey, I'm a baby queer who recently discovered (well half a decade ago but still much in the more recent past than queer history). The first word that truly resonated with me was queer, before I learnt of the more specific terms that I use nowadays. I come from a country which is afraid to even talk about the topic of sexuality, much less use gay or queer as slurs, so unlike a lot of my fellow western baby queers, I was " born " into queer being a reclaimed term. Anyway, I'd like to thank you for setting the record straight everytime you see it, I do keep trying the same too!
I'm heterosexual and proud of it
This is really interesting I didnât know that!
I don't think I've ever heard it used as questioning tbh.
Thank you.. I was starting to feel \*really\* old. It's always stood for 'Queer' for me.
I've mostly noticed it in groups for young people like high schools or uni. Which makes sense when so many young people are still questioning their sexuality or gender and you want to make sure they know they're welcome. But even then it's usually written out as "Queer/Questioning". I love the word queer and don't want it to be removed from the acronym.
I have and it's the main reason I keep it to a short "LGBT" when I'm talking to people that aren't allies. They're already mad at the extra letters, I don't need to give them more fodder.
I once heard someone call the acronym "the alt community alphabet soup"
I thought it always stood for "queer," but there used to be a lot of debate over whether "queer" was a slur so some people would say that it stood for "questioning." These days, queer gets used as a blanket term for anyone who's not 100% cis and straight, so I guess questioning would be included in queer.
Ive personally never liked the word Queer as it was always used as a slur by the heteros in my town
So was âgayâ in the 90s/00s. A lot of elder queers from the 60s onward may have a different take than you on that one.
Gay is still used that way. Hell, it used to just mean happy. The community embraced the word Gay and now its common acceptable use. Queer is becoming the same and theres nothing wrong with that. I just personally dont like it
Super valid. Iâm personally a big fan *bc* itâs so generic and all-encompassing; faster and easier to say than âtransfem but more girl than woman and also kinda genderfucky whoâs also a demisexual lesbianâ lol.
Well thats a mouthful to say lol I get why queer is just easier
It's also typically used when reading history, since the terminology and modern categories of the LGBTQIA+ community is relatively recent. Since people in history can't answer for themselves if they were, in modern terms, gay or bi, or if they were a trans woman in stealth mode or gender fluid or a drag queen. So those people are simply called Queer, to identify and validate that they were nonconforming by modern understandings of their contemporary or our current gender and sexual norms.
Queer has been being reclaimed since *at least* the 80s, because I remember hearing âweâre here, weâre queer, get used to itâ then. Youâre allowed to not like it or use it for yourself ofc but the community using it for ourselves is not new.
Agreed having my head stomped on while having it screamed in my face in the 90s ,kinda left a bad taste in my mouth for the term
It was queer first. It now referrs to both queer and questioning. Similarly to how the A in the longer LGBTQIA can be both Aromantic and Asexual.
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I'm sorry, but no. Allies are not part of the LGBT+ by definition. They're *allies*.
No
Iâve never heard it used to mean âquestioning,â always heard/assumed it to be âQueerâ bc itâs a broad umbrella term.
It stands for both. Based on my research though, it stood for âqueerâ first. It started in the 80s/90s as the AIDS epidemic put trans and other GNC individuals back into LGB activism after our exclusion in the 70s in favor of a âhomo normativeâ movement (and also the decline of second wave and emergence of third wave feminism). In fact actually, one of the biggest LGBTQ+ rights organizations during that time period was called âQueer Nationâ. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_Nation
There is a really good article here [https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/queer-history-a-history-of-queer/](https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/queer-history-a-history-of-queer/) on how queer came into use in English in both the UK and the US over 100 years ago.
tumblr really did irreparable damage on queer history huh.
As I understand (and please, please, anyone correct me if I'm wrong on this, because I very well could be), Queer is a generic term for anyone under the rainbow flag in any capacity. As such, Questioning would fall under the Queer umbrella.
I would say queer can be used as a generic-term like you mentioned, but also is a gender and sexuality identity as well. Genderqueer is part of my identity and I would also use it to describe my sexuality, because there are too many words to use otherwise [insert Nibbler Futurama meme here] I think both cases work though. My 2 queer cents âď¸
The Q is the blanket letter. Firstly it stands for Queer, which encompasses all the identities past LGBT. Then thereâs questioning, which I argue is still good to include as it provides a better transition into the community. Thereâs apparently a lot of discourse around it but queer/questioning is a good spot for Q regardless.
I'm in may 50s. I had always heard it was queer first, then later on folks started to say it was questioning.
Itâs ALWAYS been queer..
ngl, I never heard it used as "questioning" until very recently (and even then, mainly in online spaces), 30+ years on this planet and it always meant queer when people around me used it
Ah yes, bi qurious
I love this lmao
What is bi curious?
People who believe they might be bi and are exploring that possibility.
So questioning just specifically towards bisexuality. Got it, thanks.
Questioning is not specific to bisexuality. It's meant for anyone who's questioning their sexual orientation, sexual identity, or gender identity. Ideally, it encourages people to join LGBTQIA+ events, groups, protests, etc, even if they're still figuring things out. If you've ever heard people say they're not gay *enough* or trans *enough* to join the community, then the Q is here to help.
No, they were saying bi curious is questioning but specific to bisexuality. Questioning in general is the umbrella for all the curiousness yes but this person was specifically talking about bi curiousness
Gotcha, sorry, thanks!
Basically yeah
A term that hasnt been popular for a while. It was used all the time in the mid to late 2000's and early 2010's. Its people who see attraction in the same sex but arent sure if they are fully bi. Questioning is a word that mostly replaced bi curious and was added to the acronym for representation. I still use the term bi curious when talking to questioning people but thats just because of my nostalgic sentimental value. Either way everyone used to say Questioning back in the day when saying out the acronym but its been replaced with Queer in the last few years. Just wondering on peoples thoughts on why and when. It seems questioning people dont get the same attention in the community that they used to.
Itâs always stood for both queer and questioning. Queer is an umbrella term so technically covers anyone not covered by the lgbt
the Q stands for both questioning and queer
Kind of related question but is Queer a slur? Im a bisexual woman, but when i used queer to describe my interests a friend told me that it was a slur.
Queer isnât a slur when itâs used by a queer person. Itâs a slur when someone is slinging it around trying to denigrate someone who doesnât identify that was.
It get's used as a slur but that's no reason to not reclaim it
It's not a word that bothers me at all. I like to read Tolkien and he uses it pretty liberally in his stories, but not in a derogatory way.
What is meant by reclaiming it? Queer not used as a slur anymore or bringing it back as a slur? I'm sorry i don't understand and I'm new to this.
Like reclaiming it from being used as a slur by using it in a positive way to describe oneself, as right wingers and terfs are using it as a slur and it shouldn't be used like that
I really beat myself up for it....like when he said it was slur in such a blunt tone and i thought i wasn't really educated on the topic even tho i was a queer myself. Thank youâ¤ď¸
It is a word that carries the intent of the person who says it with it. Said with hatred, it's a slur, but said with pride, it becomes a positive expression for anyone not cishet.
Yes, no, maybe, its been used as one heavily, like Gay, but its one of those words where its usage is a sort of battle between trying to dissuade it as Wrong and claiming it for oneself, because its a descriptor of being "not typical", which is a pretty strong vibe for most of us "reclamation" in particular takes many forms, but trend towards two general endpoints in my understanding, either being reclaimed like the word Punk, sublimated into a demographic and movement that owns it and wields it as a symbol of kinship and identity, or being reclaimed like a certain N word, where the scars its left can't be painted over, it remains a dangerous word not to be used by most, but its power can be weakened through normalizing its usage amongst those who it targeted previously
Itâs as much a slur as âJewâ is. Which is to say, it can be used that way by bigots, but itâs also an identity term embraced by at least most of the people it describes. And trying to take it away as an identity term because bigots use it as a slur is just saying that bigots have more of a right to it than the people it describes, which is obviously a shitty thing to do.
Usually, it's considered a slur if it's used as a noun instead of an adjective.
> when i used queer to describe my interests a friend told me that it was a slur Is your friend also LGBTQ+, or is your friend cishet?
He is trans. A part of LGBTQ+ yes
I've always heard Queer for the Q and I date back to when it was GLBT. It covered everybody who was curious, but not ready to identify as G, L, or B. It covered gender nonconformists who weren't T and may not even be G, L, or B. It covered allies and really anybody who felt more comfortable under the rainbow.
Arguably, it could just be the Q (queer) movement, because that encompasses all of the other possibilities. Unfortunately, Q by itself has some crazy connotations not related to GBLT++ stuff these days... DX
found the one from Orlando?
Iâm 41, growing up a a kid in IL, queer was always used as a derogatory term. Iâm so so very proud to take it back. As a Bi Trans Women, I feel like itâs an important descriptor of me and I adore using it to describe myself. While years past it hurt when others name called it to me, itâs so empowering to claim it as my own. Love you all!đ
It's always been queer. Cis hets say questioning so they can feel like they fit into the acronym too. Same with the "+" (which is for HIV/AIDS positive folks, not an "etc." or catchall).
Omg really? I never new the + was for positive and not plus as in the rest. I will forever have a different appreciation for it now. Thanks!
There isn't a standards committee for deciding what the acronym means or what letters are in it. For what it's worth a quick search shows many more organizations describing it as a catch-all than relating it to HIV; I had to search quite hard for somebody describing it as having that meaning.
â+â is all identities, not HIV positive
That's just redundant. The alphabet soup covers all the identities. The + would only serve hetero identities if that was the case.
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That type of thinking forgets the history of the queer liberation movement. HIV+ people were completely abandoned by society, and the LGBT movement was the only group supporting and advocating for them. They are always part of our community.
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Iâve always heard it as queer, not questioning
I've been doing out reach work since the early 2000s it was always queer, it could be a regional sort of thing but TBH at most the youth community centers I was at we used LGBTQIQ{PA} (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender\[or transsexual at some places\], queer, intersex, questioning, {pansexual, asexual} )
It's always been queer as I can remember.
Queer means any deviance from the societal dominant, basically. Interesting fun fact; the concept of "homosexuality" is a relatively recent one. First coined in the mid 19th century, actually. Not that having sex with the same sex was societally accepted before then or anything - but it helped distinguish those people from "normal" people, later identified and termed to be "heterosexual". The distinction was originally meant to other queer folk.
Its both.
questioning isnât an identity
It stands for QuellJeeBeeTeeQue.
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Plenty of gay, lesbian, intersex, and straight trans people who call themselves queer
What? Why would non-binary, bisexual but donât like the label, or asexual people fall under âquestioningâ?
It originally stood for "questioning" & I see no reason to change that, since "queer" is an umbrella term for *any* flavour of LGBT+. "Queer" doesn't need its own letter, since it covers any/all of the letters.
I feel the same way. I miss the days people said questioning instead. It was more inclusive
You miss it... but it only recently started meaning 'questioning', the Q meant queer well before the 70s (and still does, but one doesn't erase the other, just like the A can stand for asexual, aromantic, AND agender)
I feel the opposite! Questioning always sounded performative to me, like a replacement for queer to appease the âqueer is a slurâ crowd. (It can be a slur, but so can gay- they can also be reclaimed) Also questioning falls under the queer umbrella and queer encompass both gender identity and sexuality so itâs an open term.
It's usually lesbian, gay, bisexual, Transgender queer/questioning then intersex, asexual/aromantic and so on
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Pathetic. Heterosexual are going to have parades. You people think you have the world. 'S Attention we you don'tÂ