What precisely do the following terms:
-Genderqueer
-Queer
actually mean? In old times, “queer” was a synonym for gay, but that seems to not be the case anymore.
Queer: diverging from the conventional. It used to be used more commonly in reference to sexual preference, but its use has expanded.
Genderqueer: diverging from the conventional specifically with respect to gender identity.
Queer still mostly refers to male homosexuals AFAIK.
Genderqueers are people who don’t align with any of the generally accepted genders, gender cultures etc… They can identify with neither, both, or a little of each, or fluctuate between genders over time. They all reject the notion that gender is strictly binary.
As I understand it, “queer” is used as an umbrella term for anyone who doesn’t fit into the two most common categories (heterosexual cisgender male or heterosexual cisgender female), regardless of just how they don’t fit in. It’s used because a larger movement is more politically powerful than a small movement, or even multiple small movements, and queer people of all sorts face many of the same political issues, so it makes sense for them to unite.
“Queer” was a slur against gay men at one point, but has since been reclaimed, and is now used as a blanket term for ‘non-conventional sexuality’. It started off being used by highly political types, but has spread into more widespread usage. There are a good number of older gay men who aren’t comfortable with the reclaimed term since they grew up with it as an insult.
“Genderqueer” refers to people who don’t consider themselves entirely male or female, and instead present/identify as neither, both, a mix, or switch between one and the other. A lot of genderqueer people will present as strictly one gender to the world at large, since there are a lot of risks involved in not doing so (ranging all the way from ‘refused service’ to ‘beaten up’ to ‘fired from job’ to ‘murdered’).
I still don’t really get the gay community wanting to reclaim that word. It will always sound like an insult to me. It’s not as bad as ‘fag’ but it’s about the same as ‘homo’ or ‘fruit’, and I’m a Gen-Xer (but not gay)…
Well, one thing to bear in mind is that there are a lot of people that are not heterosexual but also not part of what’s typically called the ‘gay community’. ‘Gay’ typically refers to men who are interested exclusively in other men, so lesbians don’t fit at all, bi- or pansexuals are left out of the party, and non-masculine males (other than drag performers) don’t fit in either. Reclaiming slurs is always confusing, but it makes a lot of sense that there are non-heterosexuals who wanted a term other than ‘gay’.
“Queer” by itself originally meant “gay”, as you said – by way of “other than the expected sexual orientation”. “Other than expected” is the really classic def of queer, as in weird, different, divergent, etc.
“Queer” nowadays is sort of expanded to “other than the expected sexual orientation or something else along those lines”.
GenderQueer is “other than the expected gender identity”, in other words queer about gender in the same way that gay is queer about sexual orientation — not the expected value or pattern.
“Queer”, originally, just meant odd or different. It later took on the meaning of “homosexual”.
LGBT is now LGBTQ, so the “Q” can’t be the “G.”
Amen, fellow human. Nigger is also not cool, despite what the idiots with lifespans in the teens and waistbands around their ankles think.
For the record, Cecil did a column thirty years ago regarding the word ‘gay’ as always having had a sexual connotation…
IFAIK ‘queer’ historically had a much broader application, denoting not only homosexuality but also just about anything or anyone out of the ordinary. A person who had unusual interests or hobbies might be described as queer. A house unlike all the others on its street, or with peculiar interior features like trap doors could be referred to as queer.
In a way the history of its usage parallels that of gay.