To resist using the word "queer"

[Piapiano]

I am old enough to remember (not even that long ago) when calling someone queer was a massive insult. So I'm really uncomfortable using the word now even though some sections of LGBT+ seem to have reclaimed it. I would feel the same using the "n" word that some sections of black communities (especially in the US) have reclaimed.

I mentioned this to a friend the other day and she seems to think I was being really unreasonable in not accepting it as a perfectly valid word to describe someone's sexuality/sexual preferences (actually not sure what it even is referring to) and that I was somehow bigoted for not feeling comfortable using it.

AIBU?

So to you, your comfort in saying a word trump's their identity.

Why is another person's identity more important then her discomfort?

@ignatiusjreilly

So to you, your comfort in saying a word trump's their identity.

Why is another person's identity more important then her discomfort?

Why is her comfort more important?

Here we are again with Queer Theory's insistence that women people having their own boundaries is unacceptable.

So creepy.

‘Queer at folk’ is a play on the phrase which means ‘people are weird/odd’. It was a bit edgy, a bit FCUK of its time.

It still doesn’t mean that using the word to refer to - what ARE we referring to here exactly? It’s gay ++++ nowadays, with straight people declaring their Q-ness to show how modern and special they are, whilst older gay people run their hands over the scars on their heads and think ‘what the hell?’

(I generalise - some people will use the word in the way the the N word is sometimes used. But then it should only and only ever be used by people who actually are black).

Why is another person's identity more important then her discomfort?

Why is her comfort more important?

This could go on and on. Because it’s her discomfort, perhaps? Why shouldn’t she prioritise herself?

Queer is exemplified to me by some stupid TV show I watched once where they did an experiment and asked 100 people to matchmake 3 men and 3 women. Only one or two correctly put together two men, two women and one woman/man pair. The "queer" woman's comment of "huh, how funny, I'm queer and it didn't even cross my mind they might be same sex couples!"

@LoveGrooveDanceParty

Why is another person's identity more important then her discomfort?

Why is her comfort more important?

This could go on and on. Because it’s her discomfort, perhaps? Why shouldn’t she prioritise herself?

It's ridiculous. There's no need to talk about how someone identifies anyway. Using or not using a word won't change how the other person identifies at all.

*@Biancadelrioisback

"YoungForever
I'm a gay woman, a lesbian and I'd not be pleased if anyone referred to me as queer. I get that some people are ok with that, but it'd be a risky move to use it in everyday language, unless someone is referring to themselves using that term. To be honest, if someone wanted me to refer to them as queer I'd just not. Maybe in a decade or so I'll think differently, but for now, all it is is an insulting term because of how I've heard it used throughout my life. "*

But then you can't be cross if people don't refer to you the way you want if you won't refer to them the way they want?

No I wouldn't be cross, I don't need to be referred to as anything really. But I won't use a word I find offensive just because someone wants me to. Loads of ways to avoid that.

Exactly.

No-one is going to prioritise someone’s need for a label over their own, personal discomfort.

That this is surprising to some on this thread is really quite enlightening.

Soon can demand that people call me c*, your majesty or Eeeeekaaahraaaahhhrahhhhrrrk (flying money sound)?

I think it's generally covers more people and preferences. I have a bisexual friend who I wrongly assumed was a lesbian because she's in a long term relationship with a woman. She's had a bit of a bad time in the past for her sexuality, and has generally made to feel like an outsider for not being "properly gay".

I still don't like the word though, it feels almost like a slur.

I had no idea that the word queer was linked to having blue hair?! (is that for real of a joke - it's been mentioned multiple times on the thread?)

I can understand the arguments on both sides. I don't think I've ever really thought about it before. My mum still uses queer as a synonym for strange and it annoys me because she claims not to know it as a word in any other context and doesn't link it to homosexuality - even though I've told her about the link many, many times.

I think this thread is a clear example of why the word queer can't be compared to the n word though. Everybody has been happy to type queer and nobody has written 'the q word'. Nobody has been happy to type n*** and everybody has written 'the n word'.

I have typed the word once in the context of the well known expression to mean ‘odd’ or ‘weird’.

But could you bring yourself to type the n word in any context?

In what other context is there?

@blameitonthecaffeine

There’s a joke John Mulaney tells about that, saying basically if you’re comparing the badness of two words and you won’t even say one of them, that’s the worse word.

Comparing queer to the n word is just silly though. We all know the huge difference is that some people identify themselves as queer and want to be called that. No black person I’ve ever met wants to be called the n word by white people as that’s how they identify. It’s just pointless to say but, but why can’t we call people the n word? It’s not relevant.

I think it's mainly used by people who don't remember when it was used as a slur, and a very nasty one at that. I could never use it, my gay brother was beaten up a number of times in the 80s and that was a word he was often targeted with, I find it incredibly difficult to hear and would never use it.

I was bullied as a teen because of my gay sister, and yes, that was one of the words in the repertoire of bullies and arseholes (yes I can type that word).

I will ever use the word queer. It's vile.
Gay is also still used as a slur as well

Im a lesbian, been out over 30 years.

When I was young in the 1980s 'queer' was residually used as a term of offence, but growing up in Yorkshire I heard "there's nowt as queer as folk" - used far more.

In the nineties & beyond when I was a student & then an academic it was used liberally in postmodern discourse - everything was being queered & deconstructed. Some good work went on but much of it was performative & has got us to the place we are today where we face a dangerous & disingenuous gender ideology that, in my view, does harm to women & LGB people especially.

In recent years the only people I find using the term to describe themselves are under 30 & generally heterosexual but 'identify' as anything from non-binary to pan to demisexual & beyond. They're trading on something that they perceive makes them interesting I've had a couple tell me I'm queer because I'm a feminine lesbian. They have no idea of LGB history or culture & for all their talk of self-determination in terms of identity they seem very keen to label me against my wishes 🤔

I'm happy to be described as a lesbian, as gay or as same sex-attracted. I don't want to be described as 'queer' as I associate it with the erosion of my homosexuality. Just the same as I wouldn't have accepted being called a pregnant person when I was en route to becoming a mother.

@blameitonthecaffeine
Yes most of the people who call themselves queer (normally straight) have blue hair and the head tilt, go on twitter or her (the supposedly lesbian dating app) and you'll see hundreds of them (mostly biologically males).
I'll let you look for yourself and when you do you'll understand what I mean by the head tilt

It’s genuinely interesting to me that many of the people who are uncomfortable with the word have been happy to type it in full, unlike many of the other taboo words mentioned here. MN has automatic filtering of some offensive words but ‘queer’ is obviously not one of them.

@LoveGrooveDanceParty

Anyone who identifies as ‘queer’ feel like providing us with their understanding of what it means? A definition?

If you use it to label yourself, then surely you’d be happy to do that.

I'm gay and use it. To me it just means gay, which I am and it also means a bit odd, and people have always described me as such. It fits. And I don't find it insulting. It does not belong to straight people however.

@LoveGrooveDanceParty

Anyone who identifies as ‘queer’ feel like providing us with their understanding of what it means? A definition?

If you use it to label yourself, then surely you’d be happy to do that.

One of my previous partners from years ago was a transman - female born, had altered their appearance with surgery and hormones (though didn’t believe TWAW or TMAM.) And for me, describing myself as a lesbian, when my partner had facial hair and had had their breasts surgically removed, and begun the bottom surgery process, and passed in any public circumstance as a man, didn’t seem quite the right descriptive word for my sexuality, even though my partner’s biology was female. But nor had I become straight, simply because my partner had chosen to change the way they looked and the pronouns they used and pass as a man: my sexuality is ultimately my own and isn’t dependent on the actions of my partner. So I called myself queer. It fitted, at the time.