Kevin Drum stirred up a hornet’s nest in his comments in a post asking what exactly the term ‘queer’ meant these days when applied to issues of gender and sexuality. He thought that it had become an umbrella term for anyone who is not cisgender and heterosexual. It is simpler than listing all the categories like LGBTQIA+. Using queer as an umbrella term for those categories risks circularity since Q in the list stands for queer or questioning. But that can be dismissed as a quibble that will only worry language pedants and also by reserving Q only for ‘questioning’.
That seems to be a common understanding of the term. Unfortunately, Drum phrased it in a way that, while attempting to be amusing, was seized upon by some of his commenters to take offense and the conversation veered off in an acrimonious direction. We know that when it comes to comments on the internet, that is inevitable so we should not be surprised that it happened.
However, the term ‘queer’ has a history of being used as a slur, and thrown as an insult at members of the LGBTQ community.
Because queer originally meant odd, strange, and unusual, cisgender straight people adopted it as a way to insult and alienate LGBTQ+ folks. The first recorded use of the term as a slur was in 1894, when John Douglas, the 9th Marquis of Queensberry, called his son Lord Alfred Douglas and his alleged lover Oscar Wilde “Snob Queers” in a public court trial. Soon after, American newspapers began using “queer” to refer to gay men in disparaging articles, which introduced it into the popular lexicon.
After the 1969 Stonewall Riots, which many consider the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, organizers began having conversations about what terms best describe our community’s shared experiences. While gay people, lesbians, and trans folks of all sexualities experience the world differently, cis-het society views us all as “queer.” Organizations like Queer Nation in New York City and individuals alike began to reclaim the phrase as a term of empowerment and collective unification. This trend only gained momentum in the 1980s, when LGBTQ+ people were organizing against the U.S. government’s handling of the HIV/AIDS crisis.
Trying to defang slurs by members of the slurred community proudly using the word has also been attempted by some Black people with the n-word. But while the n-word was used exclusively as a racial slur, the word ‘queer’ also has, as the above excerpt says, a prior everyday meaning of ‘odd’, ‘strange’, or ‘unusual’, used usually in a negative sense.
As with most terms that have a history of being used as identity slurs, it is the members of those communities who can use the terms without fear of being seen as bigoted.
contextually this can be very different. queer has been used in academia in study of the subject, the N word has absolutely not and never would be. “Q slur” discourse was promoted early on by tumblr terfs as a way to get terminology associated with trans people out of public use. they don’t even like it for “questioning” because that might allow for trans as an answer. but there’s no question bigots have used queer as a slur with murderous venom in their hearts, so..?
Most visibly, African-Americans have (partially) repurposed the “N-word”, but I wouldn’t advise non-“N”s to copy that.
As a cis-het, I feel hesitant to use the “Q-word” for approximately the same reason.
(Others have told me I can do so socially-safely -- but they’re cis-het too…)
Denis Leary certainly seems to repurpose the A word in that song as he keeps using it about himself
(it can also be used for white people who want to use the N word).
Content warning -- repeated refutation of the above ludicrous assertion.
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=6244c753c84f1cbb48822b1d6bd29cae955db88b
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1919&context=theses
https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=11559&context=dissertations
I mean, I could go on. I deliberately skipped a link that actually included the word in full, since the last thing I want for our host is for a link to be
because frankly bollocks to the kind of brittle offence-tourists who do that kind of thing.
The rule is clear and simple:
If you’re a member of [$group] then if you want, you get to use slurs formerly (or currently) aimed at that group in a spirit of reclaiming and defanging the word.
If you’re NOT a member of that group, you don’t get to do that.
THAT’S IT. It’s not complicated. Clerks 2 had a character using a phrase I’d never heard before, saying he was “reclaiming it”. Trouble was, it was a slur aimed at Black people, and he was white. The point was well made that you just can’t do that.
If you’ve ANY sense, you just won’t ever use such words, for any reason, in any company. Forget nuance here, you can just not do it. I’ve got friends who do use those words for reclamation purposes, and it’s a running joke with them that I won’t say them. They’ve assured me I get a pass, when I’m in their company, we’re good friends, and so on. They’ve even referred me to the Chris Rock “Dr Dre Rules” bit about hanging out in diverse groups and whether you get to say THE WORD (whatever it is). My position is -- thanks guys, I’m flattered you’d be OK with me saying it. I’m flattered you make repeated fun of me for not saying it. But I’m sticking to my guns here, because y’know, it’s not worth it and I’d rather not.
There is a strange fascination some people have with “saying the unsayable”, something that makes them say “but WHY can’t I say it, it’s just a word, right?” or variations thereon. Ultimately, they’re asking “can’t I just say this massively racist and harmful thing a little bit?” Anyone going down that route needs to look hard in the mirror and ask themselves why they’re wanting to do that. (The answer is -- you’re racist. Sort it out)
One of the best comedy bits I’ve ever seen (but infuriatingly can’t find a link to) is a Black comedian relating a time he went to a Native American bar. As they approached he said something like “I’ve never been to an Indian bar before”, and his Native American friend took him to one side and quietly informed him that that word was offlimits as it had been imposed by the white man, was geographically inaccurate and offensive, and that he really shouldn’t say it. And the comedian thanked his friend for helping him out with this information, and respected that he’d done so quietly and privately, and promised not to say it. Then they go in the bar, and the barman recognises said friend and shouts “Hey! Who’s your favourite INDIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!??” And the Black comedian says to the audience ‘And I thought “So they have a word that *I* can’t say, cause it’s offensive, but they get to say it? That don’t seem fair.” ‘ And the laugh that gets from the audience, rippling around and rising as they process it, is delicious.
Finally, on “saying the unsayable”, Stewart Lee unsayably says it best in his show “Snowflake”, doing an impression of Ricky Gervais attempting to say the unsayable… for FORTY SEVEN MINUTES. It’s not easy to watch, and Lee is for sure an acquired taste, but personally I hurt myself laughing at it.
My first transgender friend (now deceased) used the word “tr*nny” for a while, but it now seems the pejorative use of same has prevailed.
Probably multiple analyses have been done about that, and probably they disagree. I find gender-wars-jargon studies somewhat impenetrable, and remain with the conclusion that even the pro-LGBTQ&c community still has nothing approaching consensus on a rubric (except, apparently, that clumsy & unpronounceable umbrella acronym). 🙁
That initialism is especially clunky when you consider the +, which is there to represent any other category not already represented with its own initial.
I think there is definite UK-US divide in usage of the term “queer”. It was used quite a lot in late 18th-mid 20th Century British slang, particularly in London, such as the phrase “up queer street”, meaning “badly in debt”. There seems to have been a class divide in usage too. Its basic meaning -- unusual, strange, eccentric, peculiar, out of the ordinary -- tended to be used by those of the upper classes without the same pejorative intent as its working-class usage, where it became a synonym for shifty, untrustworthy and criminal.
jeez, gotta choose your words with the precision of a neurosurgeon to avoid getting called the r-slur in these comments. of course the n slur gets looked at academically, i know that, did a terrible job expressing it. a better way to make the point i was getting at in comment 1 would be: It would be a very fucking queer (classic sense) college to have “n slur studies (uncensored)” in the course catalogue, whereas “queer studies” has been very common. got anything to contradict that in the link pile there? the words just are not equivalent in the most common usage, whether or not they’re the same in the mouth of a rednecKKK who is trying to kill you.
I know a few people who identify by the term Queer, and it’s fine to call them that, simply because that’s how they’d prefer to be known as. If anything it might be a little insulting to be obviously going out of your way to avoid saying that. I think that’s the default. Though even so, it still doesn’t hurt to ask, as “default” doesn’t mean 100% of the time.
I had a major post on this at Pervert Justice not long ago. Here’s the link:
https://pervertjustice.substack.com/p/slurs-lets-mention-unmentionables?
I don’t think that queer is really comparable to the N word. I suppose different people may feel differently about it, but from where I’m at, anyway, it feels like the F slur is much closer to the N word, it still has a lot of venom attached to it in my mind. Unless we’re dealing with a country in which it means “cigarette”, because language gets complicated. I use queer as an umbrella term as well, in particular in the phrase “queer culture”. It’s easier than rattling off a list of letters.
I dont think Paul Whitehouse or Harry Enfield are…
https://youtu.be/CHR5Ly3TrwM?si=dAoJl5mKAQg8Xn6F
I’m queer but the label doesn’t sit well with me and I would never use it to describe myself, but meh. That’s a me problem. I’m happy it’s been reclaimed and watch with joy as all the queer queers queerly queer the word for the general populace.