Queer

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) communities as being oppressive or assimilationist.

This term is controversial because it was reappropriated only to an extent two decades ago from its use as an anti-gay epithet. Furthermore, some LGBT people disapprove of using queer as a catch-all because they consider it offensive, derisive or self-deprecating given its continuous use as a form of hate speech. Other LGBT people may avoid queer because they associate it with political radicalism, or simply because they perceive it as the faddish slang of a "younger generation."


Read more about Queer:  Inclusivity and Scope

Famous quotes containing the word queer:

    It is queer how it is always one’s virtues and not one’s vices that precipitate one into disaster.
    Rebecca West (1892–1983)

    Oh dear, oh dear. I have a queer feeling there’s going to be a strange face in heaven in the morning.
    Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)

    For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity.
    Joyce Cary (1888–1957)