Queer
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Queer is an
In the 21st century, queer became increasingly used to describe a broad spectrum of non-
Critics of the use of the term include members of the LGBT community who associate the term more with its colloquial, derogatory usage,[6] those who wish to dissociate themselves from queer radicalism,[7] and those who see it as amorphous and trendy.[8] Queer is sometimes expanded to include any non-normative sexuality, including cisgender queer heterosexuality, although some LGBTQ people view this use of the term as appropriation.[9]
Origins and early use
Entering the English language in the
Early pejorative use
By the late 19th century, queer was beginning to gain a connotation of sexual deviance, used to refer to feminine men or men who were thought to have engaged in same-sex relationships. An early recorded usage of the word in this sense was in an 1894 letter by
Queer was used in mainstream society by the 20th century, along with fairy and faggot, as a pejorative term to refer to men who were perceived as flamboyant. This was, as historian George Chauncey notes, "the predominant image of all queers within the straight mind".[19]
Starting in the underground gay bar scene in the 1950s,
Early 20th-century queer identity
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, queer,
In contrast to the terms used within the subculture, medical practitioners and police officers tended to use medicalized or pathological terms like "invert", "pervert", "degenerate", and "homosexual".[19]
None of the terms, whether inside or outside of the subculture, equated to the general concept of a homosexual identity, which only emerged with the ascension of a binary (heterosexual/homosexual) understanding of sexual orientation in the 1930s and 1940s. As this binary became embedded into the social fabric, queer began to decline as an acceptable identity in the subculture.[19]
Similar to the earlier use of queer, gay was adopted by many U.S. assimilationist men in the mid-20th century as a means of asserting their normative status and rejecting any associations with effeminacy. The idea that queer was a pejorative term became more prevalent among younger gay men following World War II. As the gay identity became more widely adopted in the community, some men who preferred to identify as gay began chastising older men who still referred to themselves as queer by the late 1940s:
In calling themselves gay, a new generation of men insisted on the right to name themselves, to claim their status as men, and to reject the "effeminate" styles of the older generation. [...] Younger men found it easier to forget the origins of gay in the campy banter of the very queens whom they wished to reject.[19]: 19-20
In other parts of the world, particularly England, queer continued to be the dominant term used by the community well into the mid-twentieth century, as noted by historical sociologist Jeffrey Weeks:
By the 1950s and 1960s to say "I am queer" was to tell of who and what you were, and how you positioned yourself in relation to the dominant, "normal" society. … It signaled the general perception of same-sex desire as something eccentric, strange, abnormal, and perverse.[24]
Reclamation
General
Beginning in the late 1980s, the label queer began to be
Ah, do we really have to use that word? It's trouble. Every gay person has his or her own take on it. For some it means strange and eccentric and kind of mysterious [...] And for others "queer" conjures up those awful memories of adolescent suffering [...] Well, yes, "gay" is great. It has its place. But when a lot of lesbians and gay men wake up in the morning we feel angry and disgusted, not gay. So we've chosen to call ourselves queer. Using "queer" is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world.[3]
Queer people, particularly queer Black and Brown people, began to reclaim queer in response to a perceived shift in the gay community toward
Other usage
The term may be capitalized when referring to an identity or community, in a construction similar to the capitalized use of Deaf.[26] The 'Q' in extended versions of the LGBT acronym, such as LGBTQIA+,[27] is most often considered an abbreviation of queer. It can also stand for questioning.[28]
Criticism
Reclamation and use of the term queer is controversial; several people and organizations, both LGBT and non-LGBT, object to some or all uses of the word for various reasons.[29] Some LGBT people dislike the use of queer as an umbrella term because they associate it with political and social radicalism; they say that deliberate use of the epithet queer by political radicals has, in their view, played a role in dividing the LGBT community by political opinion, class, gender, age, and other factors. Sociologist Joshua Gamson argues that the controversy about the word also marks a social and political divide in the LGBT community between those (including civil-rights activists) who perceive themselves as "normal" and who wish to be seen as ordinary members of society and those who see themselves as separate, confrontational and/or not part of the ordinary social order.[7] Other LGBT people disapprove of reclaiming or using queer because they consider it offensive, in part due to its continued use as a pejorative.[6] Some LGBT people avoid queer because they perceive it as faddish slang, or alternatively as academic jargon.[8]
Scope
Intersex and queer identities
Scholars and activists have proposed different ways in which queer identities apply or do not apply to intersex people. Sociologist Morgan Holmes and bioethicists Morgan Carpenter and Katrina Karkazis have documenting a heteronormativity in medical rationales for the surgical normalization of infants and children born with atypical sex development, and Holmes and Carpenter have described intersex bodies as queer bodies.[30][31][32][33] In "What Can Queer Theory Do for Intersex?" Iain Morland contrasts queer "hedonic activism" with an experience of insensate post-surgical intersex bodies to claim that "queerness is characterized by the sensory interrelation of pleasure and shame".[34]
Emi Koyama describes a move away from a queer identity model within the intersex movement:
Such tactic [of reclaiming labels] was obviously influenced by queer identity politics of the 1980s and 90s that were embodied by such groups as Queer Nation and Lesbian Avengers. But unfortunately, intersex activists quickly discovered that the intersex movement could not succeed under this model. For one thing, there were far fewer intersex people compared to the large and visible presence of LGBT people in most urban centers. For another, activists soon realized that most intersex individuals were not interested in building intersex communities or culture; what they sought were professional psychological support to live ordinary lives as ordinary men and women and not the adoption of new, misleading identity. ... To make it worse, the word "intersex" began to attract individuals who are not necessarily intersex, but feel that they might be, because they are queer or trans. ... Fortunately, the intersex movement did not rely solely on queer identity model for its strategies.[35]
Queer heterosexuality
Queer is sometimes expanded to include any non-normative sexuality,[36] including (cisgender) "queer heterosexuality". This has been criticized by some LGBTQ people, who argue that queer can only be reclaimed by those it has been used to oppress: "A straight person identifying as queer can feel like choosing to appropriate the good bits, the cultural and political cachet, the clothes and the sound of gay culture, without ... the internalized homophobia of lived gay experience."[37] Many queer people believe that "you don't have to identify as queer if you're on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, but you do have to be on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum to identify as queer."[9]
Academia
In academia, the term queer and the related verb queering broadly indicate the study of literature, discourse, academic fields, and other social and cultural areas from a non-heteronormative perspective. It often means studying a subject against the grain from the perspective of gender studies.
Queer studies is the study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on LGBT people and cultures. Originally centered on LGBT history and literary theory, the field has expanded to include the academic study of issues raised in biology, sociology, anthropology, history of science, philosophy, psychology, sexology, political science, ethics, and other fields by an examination of the identity, lives, history, and perception of queer people. Organizations such as the Irish Queer Archive attempt to collect and preserve history related to queer studies.
Culture and politics
Several
Other social movements exist as offshoots of queer culture or combinations of queer identity with other views. Adherents of queer nationalism support the notion that the LGBT community forms a distinct people due to their unique culture and customs. Queercore (originally homocore) is a cultural and social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of punk expressed in a do-it-yourself style through zines, music, writing, art and film.[41][42]
The term
Art
The label queer is often applied to art movements, particularly cinema.
Multidisciplinary queer arts festivals include the Outburst Queer Arts Festival Belfast in Northern Ireland,[45] the Queer Arts Festival in Canada,[46] and the National Queer Arts Festival in the United States.[47]
Television shows that use queer in their titles include the UK series
See also
- Gay Shame
- Heterosexism
- Homophobia
- Queers (TV series)
- Sexual minority
- Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures
- Queerplatonic relationship
References
Citations
- ^ "Definition of QUEER". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2024-02-17.
- ^ "The 'Q' in LGBTQ: Queer/Questioning". American Psychiatric Association. December 11, 2019. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
- ^ a b c Queer Nation (June 1990). "Queers Read This".
- ^ ISBN 9781593761950. Retrieved 11 March 2015.]
Willful participation in U.S. imperialism is crucial to the larger goal of assimilation, as the holy trinity of marriage, military service and adoption has become the central preoccupation of a gay movement centered more on obtaining straight privilege than challenging power
[permanent dead link - ^ a b c d "queer". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2014.
- ^ a b Wisegeek, "Is Queer a Derogatory Word?" Retrieved 2 October 2023.
- ^ .
- ^ ISBN 978-1-137-39177-3.
- ^ a b Kassel, Gabrielle (2021-06-04). "Can Straight People Call Themselves Queer Without Being Appropriative? It's Complicated". Well+Good. Retrieved 2022-01-16.
- ^ a b "queer". Merriam-Webster. Encyclopædia Britannica. 2014.
- ^ "there's nowt so queer as folk". Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary and Thesaurus (via Cambridge Dictionaries Online). Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2 November 2015.
- ^ "My Word, You Do Look Queer", Monologues.co.uk. Retrieved 17 January 2021
- ^ a b "queer". The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (5th ed.). HarperCollins.
- ^ Jodi O'Brien, Encyclopedia of Gender and Society (2009), volume 1.
- ISBN 978-0717190201. Retrieved 6 June 2023.
- ISBN 9780300071122.
- ISBN 9780393326499.
- ^ "What exactly is 'queer' and should we keep using the term?". www.pride.com. Retrieved 2024-02-16.
- ^ ISBN 9780465026210.
- ^ ISBN 0-8070-7911-1.
- JSTOR 41053896.
The most striking addition to the picture offered by D'Emilio and Freedman is a working-class sexual culture in which only those men who took the passive or feminine role were considered 'queer.' A man who took the 'active role,' who inserted his penis into another man, remained a 'straight' man, even when he had an on-going relationship with a man who took the passive role.
- ^ Czyzselska, Jane (1996). "untitled". Pride 1996 Magazine. London: Pride Trust & Gay Times: 15.
- ISBN 978-0080962986.: "In the early 20th century in the United States, the term queer was used as a term of self-reference (or identity category) for homosexual men who adopted masculine behavior (Chauncey, 1994: 16-18)."
- S2CID 143022465.
- ISBN 9780807079553.
- ^ "Deaf Culture". glbtq.com. 2005. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 9 March 2015.
- ^ "LGBTQIA+". www.uncw.edu. Retrieved 2021-10-10.
- ^ Grisham, Lori. "What does the Q in LGBTQ stand for?". USA Today. USA Today Network. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- ^ For example, see Drew Cordes "New Yorker magazine refuses to use the word queer" Archived 2014-02-20 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 29 January 2014.
- S2CID 142878263.
- ^ Carpenter, Morgan (18 June 2013). "Australia can lead the way for intersex people". The Guardian. Retrieved 2014-12-29.
- S2CID 220631036.
- ISBN 978-0822343189.
- ISBN 978-0-8223-6705-5. Archived from the originalon 2014-12-26. Retrieved 2014-12-26.
- ^ Koyama, Emi. "From 'Intersex' to 'DSD': Toward a Queer Disability Politics of Gender". Intersex Initiative. Retrieved 30 Sep 2015.
- ^ "queer". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on March 22, 2020.
- ^ Mortimer, Dora (9 Feb 2016). "Can Straight People Be Queer? - An increasing number of young celebrities are labeling themselves 'queer.' But what does this mean for the queer community?". Vice Media. Retrieved 2018-12-12.
- ISBN 9780822341147.
- ^ "James Roffee & Andrea Waling Resolving ethical challenges when researching with minority and vulnerable populations: LGBTIQ victims of violence, harassment and bullying".
- ^ "Home". Archived from the original on February 2, 2014. Retrieved January 31, 2014.
- ISBN 9781315317847.
- ISBN 9781629638201.
- ^ "Rainbow Railroad - What we do". Archived from the original on June 25, 2018. Retrieved January 9, 2018.
- ^ Tran, Tini (June 18, 2009). "Gays In China: Beijing Queer Film Festival Goes Off Without A Hitch". The World Post. Retrieved 30 January 2014.
- ^ Wild, Stephi. "Outburst Queer Art Festival Announces 2021 Lineup". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
- ^ "CBC Vancouver sponsors Western Canada's largest queer arts event". CBC. Retrieved 26 October 2021.
- ^ http://# (2021-10-09). ""Each Garment Is Layered With Imagery That Is Queer…"". Instinct Magazine. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
- ^ "Here's the First Pic of the New 'Queer As Folk' Cast Together". www.out.com. 2021-10-26. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
- ^ White, Peter (2021-10-05). "'Queer Eye' Producer Scout Bolsters Exec Team With Promotions & Hires". Deadline. Retrieved 2021-10-26.
- ^ Fountain-Stokes, Lawrence La (January 2007). "Queer Ducks, Puerto Rican Patos, and Jewish American Feygelekh: Birds and the Cultural Representation of Homosexuality". CENTRO: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies.
General bibliography
- Anon (1992). "Queercore". I-D Magazine. Vol. 110, no. the Sexuality Issue. Archived from the original on 2018-01-14. Retrieved 2018-01-14.
- Crimp, Douglas; Rolston, Adam (1990). AIDS DemoGraphics. Seattle Bay Press. ISBN 9780941920162.
- Kalin, Tom (November 1990). "Slant: Queer Nation". Artforum. pp. 21–23. Archived from the original on 2018-01-14. Retrieved 2018-01-14.
- Sicurella, Federico Giulio (2016). "The approach that dares speak its name: queer and the problem of 'big nouns' in the language of academia". .
- Tucker, Scott (1990). "Gender, Fucking, and Utopia: An Essay in Response to John Stoltenberg's Refusing to Be a Man". JSTOR 466305.