The arguments against using queer are wrong.
ââGayâ and âLesbianâ are words we chose ourselvesâ
Gay was used to mean promiscuous and morally destitute. A âGay womanâ was a prostitute. A âGay manâ was a philanderer. A âGay houseâ was a brothel. Later the term meant uninhibited, sexually active, and hedonistic. By the mid-20th century it came to mean all those things AND engaged in sexual relations with people of the same gender. It largely supplanted âhomophileâ as a descriptor of LGBTQ people in the 70s but has been used as a slur since, especially during the 90s and 00s.
Queer gained a pejorative meaning in the early 20th century, meaning sexually deviant. It was reclaimed in the 80s, and quickly rose to prominence. âWeâre here, weâre queer, get used to it,â became a rallying cry at pride marches. It was especially used by those who worried that the policies of some LGBTQ rights groups were verging toward conservatism and assimilation which was leaving people of color, trans people, immigrants, etc. out of the loop. Queer became an identity that stoop opposed to the cry to keep your head down and be presentable and quiet and private to garner the tolerance of straight society. The Queer identity was seized on by trans rights activists, people who did not neatly fit the labels of âgayâ and âlesbian,â and people passionate about political causes (especially AIDS).
Like âgayâ and âlesbian,â queer has continued to be used as a slur by straight people. The only difference between the reclamation of âgayâ and the reclamation of âqueerâ is a couple years.
âReclaiming slurs is individual, you canât apply it to everyone.â
Queer has been used as an umbrella term longer than most of the people who call it a slur have been alive. Having lived through the 90s and 00s I remember when âgayâ meant bad, when everything bad was âgay.â People sneered âgayâ at me when they tried to beat me up as a kid and teenager. Gay and Lesbian are every bit the slur today that queer is, yet anyone who said that âgayâ shouldnât be used because of its history as a slur would be laughed at.
âIt excludes people who donât want to be called âqueerâ.â
Refusing to allow queer to be used in public discourse and robbing it of its history and use excludes queer people.
âLGBT is better because itâs been an umbrella longer and no one takes offense to it.â
LGBT has been used since the 1990s.
Loads of people take offense to it and its adoption was and is a fight in activist circles. There are dozens of different variation, addition of + and *, both of which are celebrated and decried in equal measure. There is endless argument over whether the âTâ belongs there, whether the âBâ belongs (traditionally you see most of the anti-queer rhetoric in-community coming from people who want to pare down to âLGâ). People have pitched MOGAI and MOGII and GSM and GSRM. MLM/MSM and WLW/WSW get tossed around. âLGBTâ has been fraught with discourse.
âAcademia appropriated âqueerâ without asking, had they talked to actual (LGBT/Queer/MOGAI/MOGII/GSM/GSRM) people theyâd have know it was a slur.â
When Queer Studies began in the 1970s who do you think was teaching it? Who was taking it?
So sure, Queer is a slur, Gay is a slur, Lesbian is a slur, newsflash, to the straight world WE are slurs. All our words are taken from the slurs they called us, our identities themselves are reclaimed.
So kids, go learn your own history.Donât listen to people on the internet making arguments in bad faith. Donât make assumptions about what is and isnât ancient history, or what is or isnât settled fact.
