Queer
Related: androgyny - eccentric - fetishism - gay - gender - heterosexuality - homosexuality - lesbian - LGBT - minority - orientation - paraphilia - perversion - queer cinema - queer horror - queer timeline - queer theory - sadomasochism - sexuality - sexology - transvestism
Queer canon: Despite being a queer author, Burroughs has, in the words of Jamie Russell (2001) "been totally excluded from the 'queer canon'". Russell’s study of Burroughs novels in Queer Burroughs attempts to explain this condition - for Burroughs has not been viewed as a gay author by many readers. Moreover, according to Russell, Burroughs's life and writing suggests a gay subjectivity which has been deeply troubling to many in the gay community. [Aug 2006]
The Queer Encyclopedia of the Visual Arts (2004) - Claude J. Summers [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Contrast: straight
Queer (1953, 1985) - William S. Burroughs [Amazon.com]
Definition
- Deviating from the expected or normal; strange: a queer situation.
- Odd or unconventional, as in behavior; eccentric. See Synonyms at strange.
- Of a questionable nature or character; suspicious.
- Slang. Fake; counterfeit.
- Feeling slightly ill; queasy.
- Offensive Slang. Homosexual.
- Usage Problem. Of or relating to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, or transgendered people. -- American Heritage Dictionary
"Queer" means unusual, and is controversial when used as an adjective or noun for people whose sexual orientation and/or gender identity are against the supposed normative. Queer is used as a unifying umbrella term for people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and also for those who are transgender, transsexual, and/or intersexual (although many transgender, transsexual and intersexual people identify as heterosexual or straight, and/or not queer). Queer in this sense is used as a synonym for such terms as LGBT or lesbigay. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer [Dec 2004]
Queer culture
Queer culture can include various elements, such as- the work of luminaries who were queer (such as Michelangelo Buonarroti, Oscar Wilde, Sappho, Gertrude Stein, William Burroughs and so forth);
- an understanding of the history of the gay rights movement;
- an ironic appreciation of things linked by stereotype to gay people;
- pop-culture icons who are queer or who have had a traditionally queer following (such as disco music, house music, Madonna, Judy Garland and so forth);
- works of art, literature, film, and so forth, that deal with the lives of Queer people;
- figures and identities that are present in the Queer community such as the gay village, drag, camp, and the fag hag.
The shifting meanings of the word "queer"
It is important to note the re-appropriation of the term "queer" in the post-Stonewall era and its contemporary use as an affirmative self-nominated identity label. Minorities have long expoused this strategy- pejoritives like 'dyke' and 'fag' have been turned into badges of pride, gangsta rappers have transformed 'nigga' into a fraternal greeting. After theories put forth by Judityutler, Teresa de Lauretis, Simon Wtney, Richard Dyer and others, "queer no longer indicates the biological sex or gender of the subject. Alexander Doty uses the term to describe a cultural commonground between lesbians and gays as well as other non-straights- a term representing unity as well as suggesting diversity. Most importantly, the term indicates " an ontological challenge to dominant labeling philosophies, especially the medicalization of the subject implied by the word 'homosexual', in the era of AIDS, as well as a challenge to discrete gender categories embedded in the divided phrase 'gay and lesbian'." (See Moe Meyer The Politics and Poetics of Camp, 1994) Most broadly, "Queer" stands for any alternative sexuality, whether or not lived, which includes bisexuality, transgender, transexual, and transvestite communities, the S&M movement, people of color, lesbians who sleep with men, radical sex, and any and all others who falls somewhere within what Adrienne Rich would call a queer "continuum." --Katie King, http://www.mith.umd.edu/fellows/king/katie/fwt/kk07/queer.html [Dec 2004]
See terms of abuse and reclaimed words