Queer

A young British friend I know writes me, "Anything that implies a fey limp wristed effeminate person annoys me, as does the assumption that every guy who likes other guys is all about anal sex or cocksucking." He's got a point.

In the push for inclusivity and diversity, you tend to see: LBGTQQIA, like a run-on sentence gone wild. But parse/spell it out and you get:

LesbianBisexualGayTransgendered/TranssexualQueerQuestioningIntersex(xed)Asexual

Compartmentalisation: People are pigeon-holed, but some people choose to separate themselves, too - as if they are quintessentially special - and they let you know it - publicly lugging around their emotional baggage, as if in a colostomy bag! Until the LBGTQQIA community figures out what they are, I'll just use the all-encompassing "Queer."

Queer used to be the derogatory word that was applied to homosexuals. Although the word 'gay' has defined homosexuals, some prefer the word queer since it used to be a derogatory term and by calling yourself queer there is the perception of 'reclaiming' the word as less negative. That's inherent in the pride celebrations. The same use of a negative word is when African Americans use the nigger with each other to show a rejection of previous connotations of negative connotations and reclaiming the word as a word and not as a label. The use of words formerly used in a negative context are similar, a gay person will accept being called queer by another gay person but may take offense if called that name by someone else.

This definition pretty much sums up exactly how I feel about the word queer:

"I prefer to say I'm queer because unlike the descriptors: gay, lesbian, or bisexual, queer doesn't force me to choose a gender or sexual orientation, and it allows me to indicate that I feel fundamentally out of place in a binary gender system." -- Jess Fluetsch/Queers of Faith

Queer Liberation Army/Burlington