Apparently, queer was originally used by gay men about themselves

[conuly]

In a non-derogatory way.

I really thought it was a reclaimed slur myself!

(Of course, key word there is reclaimed. If people from a certain group use a certain term about themselves in a neutral or positive fashion, then it's not a slur in that context no matter what the history is. Obviously. I kinda feel like this ought to go without saying, but apparently we have to say it?)

Comments

[nostalgia]

i accidentally offended a friend the other day by mentioning queer something or other from tumblr and it turns out he hates the word D: but its okay we made up after.

[conuly]

If somebody hates a specific word, and that word isn't utterly unavoidable, like "the" or "no", then you don't use it around them, you find another one.

Perfectly reasonable, but the impetus for this link wasn't somebody going "Hey, please don't call me queer, I hate that word", it was them tagging this person as using slurs, arguing with them that their self-identification can only be a slur, and generally being a brat.

[author_by_night]

I also had no idea it wasn't a reclaimed slur. Growing up, "queer" was not a compliment. I remember the show with the name "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and finding the title offensive. I do know before, it could also be a term for something odd, I believe, but I didn't know it was also what gay people called themselves.

(Of course, key word there is reclaimed. If people from a certain group use a certain term about themselves in a neutral or positive fashion, then it's not a slur in that context no matter what the history is. Obviously. I kinda feel like this ought to go without saying, but apparently we have to say it?)

I have no idea why. I always understood that there were words I couldn't say, and was surprised to learn people don't understand that. I mean, do people really have nothing they can say among friends and family that no one else could get away with?

[conuly]

I'm not sure if the issue is that they don't understand it. I think the issue is that they don't want to understand it. They want to be the ones to decide which words are acceptable and which aren't.

[wpadmirer]

Interesting. I didn't know that, but now I'm more educated.

[konsectatrix]

It's easier to put things into boxes of this is good and this is bad. But most of us inhabit realities that are way more complex than that.

[dine]

yeah, queer had been in use in the community for a very long time before it became used as a slur by outsiders

the depths of some people's ignorance is acutely painful - I wish people could get outside their tumblr bubble and actually *learn* about stuff before spouting off about it. I'm glad people spoke up, but am pretty sure it's not going to affect their concrete brain

[conuly]

And the thing is, it doesn't even matter what the origin is. If it was originally a slur, if it wasn't - all that matters is they know darn well that the person they're spitefully tagging a. is part of the in-group and b. isn't using it as a slur. They're not even personally being called queer and objecting to that, they're just being petulant for no good reason.

But the history of this usage was still interesting and worth the drama, at least from my end.

[dine]

yeah, you make an excellent point about the brat's motives

[ioplokon]

yeah honestly i wish people would like...... chill out and actually listen to each other wrt this. esp bc like, i feel like i fall in a camp w/ a lot of people where, regardless of the history/origins, i'm fine w/ people in the community or who i know using queer to refer to me & use it sometimes myself but think it's wild and uncomfortable when random people call me queer when i have no idea where they're coming from. (so like, "don't bro me if you don't know me" rules)

(also i've 100% had "accepting" straight people call me queer in like a really passive-aggressive way - ie: "oh well you're queer so of course you don't get it" and similar - which is part of why I'm like. I don't always Trust this)

[killing_rose]

~looks around bookcase to see if I still have Gay New York~

well hell. unless it was a course packet (which it might have been, I think i remember something-or-other being an issue with buying it), I must have resold it or grabbed it from the library. Damn. Now I want to reread the damn thing.

Chauncey has his flaws, but he knows his shit (at least when it comes to the history bit). This doesn't mean that I don't have issues with his interpretation of the history and his analysis--boy do I--, but he was one of the first to really catalog the history, even if he did make sweeping generalities and have an...let's go with interesting perspective on what he was writing and how sexuality functions. (I swear have no opinions on this.)

Of course, now I'm trying to remember which author it was (the author wrote fiction as his day job, as I recall) wrote an autobiographical account of how sex functioned between the 60s and the 80s in New York, because while *incredibly* graphic wrt sex, it also slots in nicely as point-counterpoint to Chauncey. That one I know I have in course packet, as it nearly fell in the bathtub while i was attempting to highlight things.

I spend much of my time seriously wanting to strangle children (and people my age, for that matter) who assume a lot about history without actually knowing said history. I mean, okay, yes, fine, I knew a lot of history that most of my age mates didn't live. Like, i knew by the time i was in high school that queer had been used at one point, but I spent my childhood in an area where fag and queer had not been reclaimed, i didn't have a single straight parent (and most of them didn't have straight friends), it was the early 90s, and 25 years later, i still have some kneejerks from that upbringing. I absolutely reclaimed it, but since i like living, i don't use it around most of my family.

Seriously, tumblr children (and others), i can break out a list of books you'd be better off actually reading than making, you know, assumptions.

[conuly]

Chauncey has his flaws, but he knows his shit (at least when it comes to the history bit). This doesn't mean that I don't have issues with his interpretation of the history and his analysis--boy do I--, but he was one of the first to really catalog the history, even if he did make sweeping generalities and have an...let's go with interesting perspective on what he was writing and how sexuality functions. (I swear have no opinions on this.)

Despite having not read the book and having absolutely no context, I find myself itching to know what issues you have with his analysis etc.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Was the smoother of rocks service involved? That's been a language game going on among certain sets.

Though, I should get a laminated [redacted] sign so when I'm "playing in traffic" I'm prepared for direct quotes I cannot myself speak in their entirety. (Just to be clear, the sign would have the word 'redacted' between square brackets. Laminated for use for all words unutterable by a non-insider.)

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

There has been some discussion of where this particular horse has rode in from. It does not allow for usages to differ between outsiders and insiders.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Looks like I've got some new reading to get to. =)

[senmut]

I understand it began with men. I also understand why people see it as a reclaimed slur. Many of those who have poked its rehabilitation into language ARE aware it began in the community. But it was taken, and used against us with virulence, making it awful to endure.

I am only SLOWLY growing able to cope with using it as an umbrella term. I have the same issue with Dyke. Both words were hurled with hatred, instead of being self-labels, during my formative years.

So, I see the history. I understand the history. I still see queer as a reclaimed slur, pulling it away from the hatred it became imbued with to being what it began as.

[conuly]

Which is also perfectly valid!

[siderea]

And when it was reclaimed, it ABSOLUTELY was done in the spirit of reclaimation.

The first time I ever encountered it used not as an insult was... fall of 1989 I think? walking to my local gay bookstore to pick up my reading requirements for a Gay Lit seminar? and encountering the seminal QUEERS READ THIS – in actual newsprint, a stack on the floor in the hall right outside the bookstore – and thinking, shocked, it was some sort of hate literature. It wasn't. It was from ACT-UP.

How can I tell you. How can I convince you, brother, sister that your life is in danger: That everyday you wake up alive, relatively happy, and a functioning human being, you are committing a rebellious act. You as an alive and functioning queer are a revolutionary. There is nothing on this planet that validates, protects or encourages your existence. It is a miracle you are standing here reading these words. You should by all rights be dead. Don't be fooled, straight people own the world and the only reason you have been spared is you're smart, lucky or a fighter. Straight people have a privilege that allows them to do whatever they please and fuck without fear. But not only do they live a life free of fear; they flaunt their freedom in my face. Their images are on my TV, in the magazine I bought, in the restaurant I want to eat in, and on the street where I live. I want there to be a moratorium on straight marriage, on babies, on public displays of affection among the opposite sex and media images that promote heterosexuality. Until I can enjoy the same freedom of movement and sexuality, as straights, their privilege must stop and it must be given over to me and my queer sisters and brothers. [...]

Being queer is not about a right to privacy; it is about the freedom to be public, to just be who we are. It means everyday fighting oppression; homophobia, racism, misogyny, the bigotry of religious hypocrites and our own self-hatred. (We have been carefully taught to hate ourselves.) And now of course it means fighting a virus as well, and all those homo-haters who are using AIDS to wipe us off the face of the earth. [...]

I'm angry. I'm angry for being condemned to death by strangers saying, "You deserve to die" and "AIDS is the cure." Fury erupts when a Republican woman wearing thousands of dollars of garments and jewelry minces by the police lines shaking her head, chuckling and wagging her finger at us like we are recalcitrant children making absurd demands and throwing temper tantrum when they aren't met. Angry while Joseph agonizes over $8,000 a over for AZT which might keep him alive a little longer and which makes him sicker than the disease he is diagnosed with. Angry as I listen to a man tell me that after changing his will five times he's running out of people to leave things to. All of his best friends are dead. Angry when stand in a sea of quilt panels, or go to a candlelight march or attend yet another memorial service. I will not march silently with a fucking candle and I want to take that goddamned quilt and wrap myself in it and furiously rend it and my hair and curse every god religion ever created. I refuse to accept a creation that cuts people down in the third decade of their life. It is cruel and vile and meaningless and everything I have in me rails against the absurdity and I raise my face to the clouds and a ragged laugh that sounds more demonic than joyous erupts from my throat and tears stream down my face and if this disease doesn't kill me, I may just die of frustration. My feet pound the streets and Peter's hands are chained to a pharmaceutical company's reception desk while the receptionist looks on in horror and Eric's body lies rotting in a Brooklyn cemetery and I'll never hear his flute resounding off the walls of the meeting house again. [...]

Why Queer

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. It's a way of telling ourselves we don't have to be witty and charming people who keep our lives discreet and marginalized in the straight world. We use queer as gay men loving lesbians and lesbians loving being queer. Queer, unlike GAY, doesn't mean MALE. And when spoken to other gays and lesbians it's a way of suggesting we close ranks, and forget (temporarily) our individual differences because we face a more insidious common enemy. Yeah, QUEER can be a rough word but it is also a sly and ironic weapon we can steal from the homophobe's hands and use against him.[...]

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I had some uncomfortable overhearing of some 'joking' micro aggressions related to gardening. Gardening!

(Folding chair drill team member since 20th Century.)

[shadowkat]

Unfortunately like all words in the English language, it really does depend on context, who is using the words, and how they are using it as to its meaning.

In recent years, Queer has been adopted by those who are not heterosexual exactly but not gay or lesbian either...and sort of fit into another category altogether. Yet, it is also still being used by the gay and lesbian community -- which is confusing.

The additional "QIA" has come to include those who identify as queer/questioning, intersex/intergender and asexual/ally. Some iterations of the acronym even add a "+" sign at the end, symbolizing the inclusion of all other identities.

QIA is the end portion of LGBTQIA, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Asexual/Ally.

The problem people have is they were taught to think in bilateral bilineal terms, but mother nature is a wee bit more complicated. Gender is a spectrum, people fall in various areas within it, just as sexuality is a spectrum.

For example? There are people who can only be turned on persons of the same sex, there are people who can only be turned on by whomever they fall deeply in love with and have a connection to regardless of gender, there are people who can only fall for persons of the opposite sex, there are people who are not sexually attracted anyone, there are folks who sexually attracted to all genders and like multiple partners, there are people who are into kinky sex, there are people who are het but are turned on by gay sex (many of these people call themselves queer)...it goes on and on.

To make it even more complicated, they don't always agree on what to call themselves. Example - some people in the gay community have reclaimed Queer as their own, others hate it, while people who are neither gay nor hetersexual have claimed it as theirs.

Sigh. Semantics. Sigh.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

_{I learned the A as Asexual (Aromantic possibly too) but not Ally. Allies are with the folding chair carts and other support crew items, not in the acronym)}

LGBT+ which is more concise than QUILTBAG. Then there is the bi/pan which rotation is it today?

Exit stage left pursued by a Bear looking for duck tape and a safety pin.

[shadowkat]

Depends on who you talk to. Which dictionary site you visit. Etc.

But people don't agree, some vehemently so. Which is sad. And divisive.

[ioplokon]

Geeze wtf. I feel like the temptation to respond w/ that "I may not know my flowers but I know a bitch when I see one" line would be... high.

But yeah, that's the thing is like, I just feel in general people get way too familiar too quickly. Like to view it irt something other than oppression, it's like when someone sees you teasing and being fake-mean w/ your friends who you know really well and have been through a lot of shit with and they try to interact w/ you on that level and it just... doesn't play. (OR they try to intervene and be like, omg don't be so horrible! even tho it's like, we're all fine) edit: and that's assuming good intentions which people do NOT always have, especially subconsciously...

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Tomatoes.

Yeah. People are not good at recognizing boundaries.

[duskpeterson]

"I learned the A as Asexual (Aromantic possibly too) but not Ally."

I actually checked on this once. The earliest references I could find to LGBTQIA mentioned asexual, ally, or both. So it appears that A as ally goes as far back as A as asexual.

[conuly]

Once you add enough letters you may as well double the a. QUILTBAAG.

That sounds somewhat oversnarky, and I do apologize. Inclusiveness is good, even if it makes the acronyms a little long.

[duskpeterson]

:)

[the_siobhan]

You know, I don't remember queer being used as a slur before we started using it to describe ourselves. It was always "dyke" and "fag". I'm talking about the late 70s (when I was reading everything I could get my hands on) to early 80's (when I was finally old enough to start going to clubs).

I like queer because it makes for a good umbrella term and the people who seem to be pushing back against it are the kind of people who think asexual people aren't oppressed enough to hang around with the cool kids. So fuck them.

[the_siobhan]

Out of curiosity, how old are you? I'm wondering if this is something that shifted over time.

[author_by_night]

33. I'd say in middle or high school, "queer" was an insult, but now that I think about it, it may have been more of an "adult" insult, something you'd expect an aunt to say,* as opposed to things my own peers were saying - but we still knew it wasn't a very nice thing to say. I remember finding it awkward when people my grandmother's age would say "queer" but in a totally different context.

But I could be off base. I also wasn't the most social kid, so it's possible I "missed" a lot of jargon, and/or some of the jargon I know is a bit dated due to the fact that I mostly was around people a lot older than me.

[author_by_night]

Honestly, they make me think of a former friend, who would start social justice related arguments with me just to start them. I'd almost say this could be the same person, but he wasn't gay, so. I think the internet is a very easy place to be needlessly petulant, although there are a lot of people like that IRL too.

[conuly]

Maybe this person is just young? I remember being overzealous in my adolescence.

[nodrog]

I remember, someone asked British comedian Benny Hill if he was queer, and he said, “Well, I have my little ways…”  He literally didn't know what they were talking about.