"Queer" - quick question

[CallMeCleo]

Sorry if I seem naive but I am in my 60s and clearly am not too hot on ever changing meanings.

I belong to a neighbourhood social media site and a young woman (19) has joined and posted in the women's section asking to make new friends. She describes herself as "Vegan, queer, artistic."

I don't understand what she means by queer. If she is a lesbian, why not put "lesbian"?

Am I missing something? Can someone bring me up to date, please?

It used to be an insult, and for someone my age (40s) it still seems odd that people use it as a positive description.

Either way, it's used to mean "not absolutely heterosexual", I think, these days. So this particular woman might be bisexual, or a lesbian, or even simply open to the idea of having a same sex relationship/encounter. Or just having blue and pink unicorn hair.

She might be using it as a synonym for gay/lesbian, but apparently some non-gay people now use it to mean they're a bit alternative and absolutely definitely not fully signed up conformist, vanilla heterosexuals, or something.

Queer can have extremely dubious connotations these days. Although I’d be surprised if she even knows what she’s aligning herself with, sadly.

Honestly it could mean anything. It could mean she is same-sex attracted, but it could equally mean that she just places a lot of importance on gender identity, isn’t like the other girls, etc.

She’s probably bi/lesbian but could potentially be a straight person who identifies as being - -(special)- -queer. I have a straight friend who works in the arts who describes herself as queer, mainly coz of reading Judith Butler I think. Judith, queen of queer theory , is fine with straight people being queer.

I have seen that plenty of gay men do not like the 'reclamation' of this word

It could mean that she's into kinky sex (with the opposite gender), is dating a non binary person, is polyamorous. It could mean absolutely anything all and she could be heterosexual.

It means she's straight, but has short hair and wears those thick glasses like Vic Reeves used to have

Horrible, offensive word used by boring people to appear ‘interesting’.

These days it can sometimes mean

LOOK AT ME I US SPECIAL. MUCH MORE SPECIAL THAN YOU

Other times it's just a "self aware" way if saying they think they are more amusing, interesting and complex than the average Joe.

But it doesn't seem to mean just gay any more. Gay with a soupcon of straight, bi, asexual, etc perhaps.

As a fellow 60yo ... It seems to me to be rather a nebulous term which might mean different things to different people.
Maybe you should ask her what she means by it? Something like 'I hope you don't mind me asking but there may be a generational difference in what exactly 'queer' means and I don't want to accidentally put my foot in it - in my day it was essentially just g/l/b but I don't know whether it has any other nuance nowadays.

Otoh maybe best to ignore it and ask about her art and vegan recipes.

To be fair, there are an awful lot of people of 19 (and older) who simply believe the prevailing orthodoxy. If you do, then you believe that a female who doesn't like pink prosecco, high heels and dressing to please the guys isn't really a woman. The catch-all term "queer" provides you with a middle ground.
Yes, it's ridiculous, but it doesn't mean she's a dreadful person.

I haven't come across many lesbians who would describe themselves as queer.

More likely Bi, pan, curious, a bit kinky, want to feel special.

It's a political orientation, meaning you go along with the group consensus of other people calling themselves queer. (TWAW! Kink! Mermaids! Inclusive!) It's not a statement about gender or sexuality.

But they lever the ambiguity where people think it means 'not straight', to claim membership of a vulnerable/protected minority. They may or may not be straight.

am also 60ish and a long lost uni contemporary got in touch and described herself as queer - in our youth she was by turns lesbian and straight. Anyway I ignored this label for a few exchanges till it seemed she was forcing it on my attention and I said, well what does that mean? none of the lesbians I know call themselves queer?
and I never heard from her again

She’s marking herself as far more interesting sexually than your average heterosexual. She could be anything from gay to bi to interested in fetish and swinging.

Your best way to navigate this is to never inquire further. Just ignore it completely and act like everything is completely normal and ordinary. ‘That’s nice dear’ should cover it.

Yep it’s attention seeking of the worst kind. Ignore ignore ignore.

My reaction to such announcements is to generally view the person with so many 'special' attributes as an potential energy drain and source of drama. I know I shouldn't do this but having been in so many unconventional social situations and met so many people with special labels over the last 40 years I have seen a correlation between unsolicited announcement of 'specialness' and fragile personalities you can never get comfortable with because you cannot NOT offend them and the goalposts are always moving because part of their validation is to control your perceptions. Alternative sexual lifestyles, vampires, otherkin, you name it, etc. If you need to tell me your label, you are dictating that I accommodate you beyond what is generally expected in casual social exchange, maybe even play make believe.

I could be wrong and she's lovely, but personally, I would not engage if at all possible and wait for her to reveal who she is really.

Why on earth is there so much vitriol towards how someone else identifies their sexuality?

OP - it's becoming a bit more common now for people (especially women) to not identify with binary labels. Lesbian is a binary thing, which doesn't feel accurate to lots of non-straight women. By "now" I mean, especially under 30s, because of a slight cultural shift in that direction. I'm over 30 and use would only use gay or lesbian for myself, but might use "queer" as a catch all when talking about other women who aren't straight because I don't want to assume how exactly they identify. "Queer culture" is a bit more inclusive than "lesbian culture", for example, since it includes a lot of different people with a lot of different preferences.

Without asking her directly (which I'm sure you'd be welcome to do as long as you did so politely/respectfully), there's no way of knowing if it means she's a lesbian, bisexual, pansexual or heteroflexible. She might be a lesbian who chooses to identify alongside all the other people in those groups, from whom "queer" serves as a catch-all, rather than use a label which puts her in a slightly separate category. She might be a lesbian who would date a trans person, which would (by some accounts) put her outside of that binary category again, and it's a way of expressing that open-mindedness/inclusivity. There are lots of possibilities. A straight girl wearing Vic Reeves glasses would be a first for me though

Because

Plenty of homosexual people hate it, it is a slur they heard a lot

Because it's been expanded past sexuality into a whole load of other stuff

Because people who are not part of theLBG+ community and who have nothing about them that will attract discrimination etc are going along to all the stuff in atourist way

Because when being gay was illegal, or marching at pride could have got you a kicking or sacked, they would no way have been there

It's appropriation.

As somebody who is older than you I have got frustrated by this conformity among the young to use the word queer.

But you should also feel sorry for her. This is the world she has grown up in.

This has been a trend going back some years, particularly in universities, but became mainstream with Stonewall as it is effectively the umberalla term for anybody - its a badge to say how fluide you are - but excludes anyone who is boring (old) enough to have decided what they are.

And it is also true that many young women actively do not want to identify as a lesbian, because despite everything about how we are now more progressive, being lesbian does not have the status that gay men have for being gay. As with so many words about women it has been an insult, something to be ashamed of for so long, that rather than reclaiming it with Pride(!) it is being erased. Not unlike being a woman!

This isn't about using the word queer, but looks at why some young women who are lesbian prefer to be known as gay www.varsity.co.uk/lifestyle/19492

slate.com/human-interest/2016/12/young-queer-women-dont-like-lesbian-as-a-name-heres-why.html

This is a doozy of an article.

By which I don't mean approval.

@Babymamamama

Yep it’s attention seeking of the worst kind. Ignore ignore ignore.

I'm not sure it is, in a 19yo today. It might be one of the more boring and ordinary descriptors used in her peer group.

Anyway... her queerness probably doesn't extend to wanting a sexual dalliance with someone the OP's age so maybe it's best considered an irrelevance for this social context.