Why do Dataloungers hate the term "queer" so much?

Because I don’t identify with the type of people who use the term

Cute obtuse OP.

This question has been asked a few times here.

Bored, OP? Need to troll?

People use the term tend to think of themselves as weird, special, distinct, or non-mainstream. I don’t see myself that way. I like identifying with the mainstream and being assimilated with my peers. Queer is not me

"Gay" was never a slur on the level of "queer" or "faggot" or "pansy."

"Queer" now means straight people who want to larp as oppressed. To me, that makes it doubly offensive.

Queer was an improvement on faggot.

It also means trans.

Last year I heard a guy scream, “You goddamn fucking queer” at a motorist. This was in Philly. The guy shouting was no more than 30. It’s still a slur and it’s hipster shit.

Because nowadays, OP, "Queer" means straight people cosplaying as gay.

Even my bf calls me queer.

I would be more miffed if I were called fatso.

I don’t know who in their right mind would want to be called “queer”. It’s a slur that will never lose its hateful connotations in my view.

I don't dislike the term when it was for gays, lesbians and bisexuals who didn't fit the box and were part of the radical activist movement or underground publishing, arts and music scene. Like queercore, New Queer Cinema, genderqueer, queer zine etc.

I have no problem with the term queer, though I don't use it on myself. If straights want to call themselves queer that's up to them, in a way I'm glad they feel comfortable using the term as a self description because it shows how far we've come, being associated with, or seen as gay is no longer a bad thing.

I prefer faggot. My UK friends say that 'pooftah' is a thing there.

I rarely hear queer used as a slur. But faggot, homo, fudgepacker, cocksucker, sodomite, fruit and bitch are still used.

Well, that's what makes it so problematic and debatable r14. Is it really an "inclusive" term that shows that now everyone is comfortable with being gay, and actual real life gay sex and romance, or is it a way to shove everything into some much more vague category where, sure, I'm "queer" cause I'm quirky and fun and sex positive and body positive and the rest of it, but don't worry, I'm not gonna do any of that actual gay stuff.

Some of the original Pride and Act Up marches used the slogan "We're here, we're queer, get used to it". The "We" that is referred to there is gay men and lesbians. "Queer" has a long history as a slur against gay men in particular, and they are the only ones who can "reclaim" it. Not women pretending to be gay men, not straight people who dye their hair cotton candy colors, not trannies, or enbys, or any of the other imaginary identities. Homosexuality is an orientation, not an "identity".

The word "queer" has been appropriated by these stupid cunts who have no business using the word. It disgusts me.

Before I hate or like the term queer, I need to know what it actually means. Lately it's been used in so many different ways that I don't know anymore what it stands for. At this point it just seems to mean 'I feel special'.

I have generally been fine with the term in the past when, as the OP says, it was a catch-all term for non-heterosexual sexuality. Even though I never used it to describe myself, I did think it was a good term to cover us, rather than listing the letters which sounded cumbersome. So if it was just as the OP says I think I'd have no problem with it.

I'm just repeating the other posts, but I feel similarly: once it gets to straight people calling themselves queer to seem special, well it just seems to have lost any point. Also, it gets thrown around so much in cases where it doesn't need to be - by that I mean, if you're talking about gay men specifically, or lesbians specifically, I think you can say 'gay' or 'lesbian' rather than 'queer', because that is a broader term to me. For example, talking about "gay men's history" shows specifically what you mean. Using 'queer history' to talk solely about gay men doesn't really explain to your audience who you're talking about as well.

You know how bitchy fags can be!

My biggest problem with it is that its intentional vagueness permits anyone to co-opt gay experience. I see this all the time, where someone says "I'm queer, and I don't have a problem with x" or "I'm queer, and I support y." Very often, these people are talking about things that impact upon gay and lesbian individuals (usually disproportionately, sometimes exclusively), yet theyre straight or straight-leaning bisexual. "Queer" allows them to elide and obfuscate the stark disparity that exists between gay people and everyone else (bisexuals, while they experience same-sex attraction, still benefit from heterosexual privilege). Being gay is distinct and nothing like the experience of a middle-class white chick who had a girlfriend for a hot minute once in college. But since she's "queer," she gets to co-opt my experience to say what is and is not homophobic, what is and is not Bury Your Gays, what is and is not queerbaiting of mlm relationships--even, at its most extreme, what is and is not gay sex. "Queer" is XX individuals declaring that penis in vagina intercourse is "gay sex."

I also share many of the other sentiments in this thread, even though my father's favorite slur for me was "faggot" rather than "queer."

[quote]Before I hate or like the term queer, I need to know what it actually means.

It's part of the benediction you receive as someone is fixes to kill you with his tire iron: "Die, you queer motherfucking faggot. DIE, QUEER!!!!"

I find queer offensive. You can’t tell me what definition to ascribe to it. Please don’t call me queer any sooner than you would say n*****.

Not cool with me.

I am really sorry for you R22, esp your hateful father. Sex is something you do, not who you are so people have to get over 'queer' and 'faggot' as mere labels.

Exactly r22. I don't care if you're "fluid." I want to know when the Man go up into the Man, are you either man in that scenario? Or are you just some guy who wants some vague "queer" cred when you are commenting on gay issues.

No idea, OP.

The Under-40s picked it up in college (Queer Theory; Queer Studies, etc ) when "That's so gay!" was a perjorative catchphrase. Then the str8s adopted it to explain why they were "bi/fluid/questioning/asexual/pansexual/transsexual...").

Now we're stuck with it.

Queer seems to be a radical term that's pushed on us, whereas gay seemed to happen naturally among same-gender-loving people. I tolerate that queer is used positively these days, but I still feel uncomfortable with the forceness of it.

[Quote]By 1955, the word gay now officially acquired the new added definition of meaning homosexual males. Gay men themselves seem to have been behind the driving thrust for this new definition as they felt (and many still do), that “homosexual” is much too clinical, sounding like a disorder.

There is a missing step there r28. "Gay rights" organizations also adopted it as a way of expanding the donor base and the influence base, as happens in politics with often counterproductive results.

The trick with minority advocacy is to be small enough for victim status but large enough for political influence. It's a tricky balance, and can lead to weird and stupid results, as with "queer."

[quote] Very often, these people are talking about things that impact upon gay and lesbian individuals

Oh, [italic]dear.[/italic]

I can think of words I object to far more than "queer"...

If you’re gay, say you’re gay. Be specific and be proud of who you are because queer can mean fucking anything these days. And maybe because it used to be a slur and people (especially older) still have a negative connotation to the word.

"Queer" just means "narcissistic straight people who want to self-identify into a protected group in order to seem more interesting / have power over others" now. It's the name of the alphabet folk, the LGBTQIAU2S+ people.

I feel sorry for clueless gays who use it unknowingly.

Because you can't define it nowadays, it's meaningless as a word. I hate all this stupid 'non-binary' 'queer' nothingness. You're not some mysterious, unique new breed of human being.

And straight married people who've never even touched a member of the same sex glom on to it in order to make themselves feel special, different and supportive.

It's ridiculous and anyone who can't see that has gone off the deep end.

When was 12 I told my best friend's mother that Charles II was very gay. She said, how many boyfriends did he have? My best friend explained to his mother that I meant that he had lot of girlfriends. Does anyone else remember Charles II being called the Gay King?

[quote] "Queer" has a long history as a slur against gay men in particular, and they are the only ones who can "reclaim" it.

Thank you! All these straights glomming on to "queer" is IMO the equivalent of me (a pasty, damn near translucent Caucasian) suddenly "identifying" as Black, and throwing around the N-word. That shit would get shut down real quick, as it should.

[quote]Because you can't define it nowadays, it's meaningless as a word.

Right. Which is why it's puzzling that a generation that has to label EVERYTHING to microscopic specificity has taken to it so much.

There must be a new forum rule specifying that this precise conversation must be had at least twice a day.

What about HOMO?

Honestly, it's going to be a topic on a gay (not always queer) forum r38. It's actually becoming a big issue for a lot of us, as is Trans, as is everything else that goes along with the discussion.

I'm a queer nonbinary in my heterosexual relationship with my vagina-haver!

What would you call a book like "Another Country" by James Baldwin? It has straight love relationships in it, and bi love relationships, and gay love relationships.

I would call it mote properly a queer novel rather than a gay novel.

[quote] Does anyone else remember Charles II being called the Gay King?

Not having lived in the late seventeenth century, I can say with honesty "no."

[quote]All these straights glomming on to "queer" is IMO the equivalent of me (a pasty, damn near translucent Caucasian) suddenly "identifying" as Black, and throwing around the N-word. That shit would get shut down real quick, as it should.

I was coming here to say the exact same thing! There's this weird thing happening at the moment where the things that we agree are not ok to do or say with some communities are apparently a free-for-all in the gay/lesbian community. It's just so [italic]weird[/italic] to me to have these young women, who aren't gay, glomming on to this term, using it in the way they do and talking over the rest of us. I mentioned on another thread here recently about how I am seeing more and more of these young 'queer' women using homophobic language ('fag') and then going on long screeds about how gay men are terrible and part of the problem.

Last night I found a clip the ABC had put on YouTube of the first Mardi Gras in Sydney, where 55 people were arrested, police had taken gay men into vans and beat them up, it was horrifying to hear about and also made you so proud to see the gays of the previous generations standing up for us all, being strong in the face of all this.

Now we have young people who aren't even really part of the community jumping in and saying they are 'queer' and telling our history in a way that centres people like them rather than the reality. I heard some of them referring to the fights that gays had in the past as 'quaint' - because their issues are so much more serious these days, according to them. It's so odd. I can totally see why older gay men would find this extremely offensive, actually. I hope I'm expressing my thoughts clearly here.

[quote]If you’re gay, say you’re gay.

I have become much more vocal about referring to myself as 'gay' now than I was 10 years ago when I thought 'queer' was a good idea. It's just changed too much and no longer represents me, so 'gay' it is!

R42 So just because it has bi and gay people in it, it's "queer"? Why not just call it a novel featuring LGB characters? It's even shorter!

R44 I go with "gay" or "homosexual" because of the attempts from Stonewall, GLAAD, HRC, Trevor Project, and other LGBT organizations to redefine "gay" as "same-gender attraction" rather than same-sex attraction.

They try it with homosexual too, but it's less effective because it has the word "sex" in it.

[quote]there does indeed need to be an inclusive term for gay, lesbian, and bisexual.

Back before many of you were born, we simply said "gay and lesbian." "Bisexual" was something people grew out of. There was no need to encourage it.

People who aren’t gay say they’re queer or gay men uncomfortable with being gay.

By their nature, "gay, lesbian, and bisexual" terms are exclusive. Not everything has to be inclusive.

But r47, back in those days a bicycle was called a velocipede and a turkey was called a walking bird.

R47 it's been extra funny watching the bisexuals shriek on social media about how they're left out of everything or how they are stigmatized. They really want to be the most oppressed group, but no one's buying.

I wondered how long it would be until the gaylings found this thread and started making "eldergay" jokes and trying to demean anyone who isn't firmly following the herd.

I'm 56.

R53 but you look 25!

R50- and a car was called a Horseless Carriage

Nope. I look 56.

I'm concerned Charlie Puth is about to announce he's "queer":

R56 it's good to have a healthy realistic self-image.

R56- That's cute that at R56 you say you look 56. By the way I'm 56 too.

I'm gay. "Queer" is for bored larper straights who want to feel special and persecuted for awhile, so they adopt a cute labels like queer, non-binary, trans or poly and slum with us actual gay people, whoring-it-up, invading and destroying our safe gay spaces and organizations with their intensely-obnoxious straight-privilege, loudly demanding all the attention and air in the room, and shaming actual gay people into invisibility and silence when we don't want to sleep with them or give them the attention they feel they are rightly entitled to.

Then when they reach a certain age they revert back to their default straight identify (having conveniently never committed to any pesky gender reassignment surgery) and start pumping-out babies, which was the plan all along. "Queers" are asshole fake gays temporarily using the gay community to add some kinky flavor to their dull straight lives, and they are going to be the death of the real gay community.

What R12 says...back in Philly, you DID NOT want to be called QUEER!!

They were "fighting words" in East Falls. QUEER was the word you had to fight if you wanted to survive in any neighborhood. GenZ'ers& Millennials know that "QUEER" is the "one word" that you had to defend your reputation. Not Gay, Homo, even Faggot , you could argue, QUEER was fighting!!,

I don't remember how many teenagers I had to hurt (broken jaws, elbows, knees, legs arms, shattered skulls) but to be told by a Gen Z or millennials that QUEER is the word I have to tolerate....I DON'T THINK SOOO..HOMIE DON'T LIKE DAT!!

This person has an... um... interesting? take on people who don't like the word 'queer':

[quote]A reminder that "Queer should never be used and is a slur" is radfem rhetoric and is a hot topic in radfem spaces. They associate 'Queer' with erasure, trans-ness,and "taking over" and they hate it: (ex. doing a search for 'Queer' on radfem message boards)

I think this is a good example of the disconnect from history that some younger people have - otherwise surely they would understand why some people don't like the term, particularly from more senior generations? Or am I giving them too much credit?

R62, they want any opposition to the "queer" shit framed as old lady radical feminism, which is just the new way of being sexist. Any opposition is "uncool". They ignore all opposition from actual gay men and lesbians and try to frame it as "Karen" behavior.

They hate women and gay people.

Yeah I've noticed there's an ongoing trend to label anything that isn't in line with the "progressive" opinions on things as being TERF words or RadFem words or somehow "dog whistles" of their rhetoric and therefore transphobic.

They did it with "biological sex" which now gets you accused of being a TERF, as well as any number of other things they want to squelch because they don't have good arguments for it. It's just another tool in the "no-debate" strategy.

"It's transphobic for queer men to prefer referring to themselves as gay rather than queer, as they should so that they're On The Right Side Of History™!"

The funny thing about that thread is that someone calls that person out, mentioning that there are people who have been beaten up with that slur being used and maybe they don't like it for that reason, which causes the OP to go on a patronising (and partially ahistorical) lecture about the use of the word 'queer' and at one point points out a 'common radfem symbol' that the other person had on their Twitter as a way to discredit them.

This 'common radfem symbol'? The symbol for female!

^

[quote]I mean you have a common radfem ♀ symbol on your profile. And the way you're now talking about the "WE" and "YOU" so aggressively while associating Queer with being 'weird' and demeaning pretty much confirms that so.

Ad hominem attacks are what they go to when they are losing the argument.

I've known people who are obviously lesbians use the term "queer" and even "nonbinary." In fact rarely do I see gay men call themselves "queer" at least anymore. Only straight or bi white men use that term.

[quote] invading and destroying our safe gay spaces

"Safe spaces"? You sound like a student at Oberlin or Sarah Lawrence.

This 'no-debate' strategy is a good way of putting it and it is widespread across any kind of discussion these days, it seems. On any topic. I guess no one is taught actual debating in school anymore, because the whole idea of losing a debate as soon as you invoke a logical fallacy seems not to be understood anymore. It's more like you need to invoke one as fast as you can and then refuse to engage anymore.

"It's not my job to educate you!"

Oh god I love that one r71. It's also funny when one of their own asks them a real question and prefaces it with grovelling such as "I realize I'm asking you to do some extra work by asking this question and requesting a response, and it's definitely not your job to educate me, so please dont feel obligated to respond, but ____?"

Because it's widespread use is yet another sign that the world has changed and left them behind.

Haha, indeed R72! By which time they're run out of their character limit, heh!

R73, r52 is for you.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie had a good response to people who say "it's not my job to educate you", can't quite remember it at the moment, but it was very good. However, she's now persona-non-grata too, apparently.

Exactly r71, yes, in fact, yes it is your job to educate us all on whatever point you think you are making. I realize people like that probably have no actual point to make, but to the extent they think they do, yes, part of the job is educating everybody about it.

Ahh found it:

[quote]She is particularly scathing of “people who ask you to educate’ yourself… while not being able to intelligently defend their own ideological positions, because by ‘educate’, they actually mean ‘parrot what I say, flatten all nuance, wish away complexity’”.

Oh, and just as hilarious is of course our very own Roxane Gay's "It's not my job to do your emotional labor!"

There is, R75, a marked difference between hating a term "so much" and merely deciding you personally do not want to use it.

R73 is the anti-gay YourMillennialCunt.

Why doesn’t he sign his hate-filled posts anymore?

Professional Queers wanted Chimamanda to be brutally attacked with a machete for her literally violent comments.

It's Saturday night, shouldn't UWS rich masc Jew alleged power tops be pounding a bottom right about now?

R80 is also the anti-gay YourMillennialCunt.

Why doesn’t he sign his hate-filled posts anymore?

He's probably fucked off to call Mommy and Daddy's lawyers so they can get this thread deleted.

I miss the days when queer meant odd, rainbows were for everyone, and gay meant happy!

I hate that the American Flag is becoming a symbol for hatred and bigotry!

Jesus Christ, I can't say "queer" now either!

Because, in America for generations that word has been used as a slur for LGB people. DUH. It's an emotional reaction that can't be turned off at will. So don't use it, unless you want to hurt someone here.

The etymological history of the word "gay" shows that it was a positive word for hundreds of years. "the gay 20s". "Happy and Gay". It didn't come to mean homosexual til the 20th century if I recall.

In contrast, Queer's history has been a NEGATIVE one for hundreds of years. Something is "queer" meaning odd, different in a bad way etc. The first known use of it to add a "homo" connotation had to do with the reporting of Oscar Wilde's trials (I heard a lecture on this). I forget the year. So then it became negative and gay, thus the use of it as a slur for most of the 20th century. Then in the 90s some folks tried to "reclaim it" as in Queer Nation, Queer Cinema etc.

But the bottom line, Queer has a long history of being a negative word. And it only got empraced recently (the 90s) by SOME gay folks.

No in the 21st century, it's a bullshit, meaningless word as others have already pointed out, used by larping str8s.

[quote] And it only got empraced recently (the 90s) by SOME gay folks.

The 90s is "RECENTLY"?

Only on Datalounge...

In the early 90s, I went to a super gay-friendly university (at a time when society was calling for all fags be put to death in giant ovens) and there were a ton of "Queer Studies" courses and majors. The word ceased to be traumatizing for me and I was glad it was being rebranded and becoming integrated into mainstream normal conversation.

We needed a word that encompassed all the colors of the rainbow and academia made "Queer" painless to say.

The only other fitting word I've heard bandied about lately is the "Pride Community".

Queer isn't an issue for me (I'm almost 30, so I was never familiar with it as a slur). But my issue is as long as I remembered queer just meant gay and bisexual. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk, Queer Studies, New Queer Cinema, queerpunk, etc. When straight people started calling themselves queer is when I started getting annoyed by it. Being polygamous, kinky, androgynous and being transgender isn't queer to me either because it's not based around sexual orientation.

[Quote]Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, Queer as Folk

For some reason, it didn't bother me when queer was used in the titles of those shows. I also wasn't bothered by the organization Queer Nation, and their chant of "We're here, we're queer, get used to it." But the way it's used today does bother me. Maybe it's because the shock value seemed necessary at the time, but doesn't seem necessary today.

DLers hate the “queer” slander because it was used while actual literal violence was committed against us. The LGB were never queer and never will be. I will not allow anyone to call me that insult. Go ahead and pretend to shamed when you’re misgendered when you foolishly try to look like the gender you are not. Your obvious body dysphoria is a sad condition and you should seek treatment instead of validation.

The "that's so gay" or just "gay" wasn't used in my schools. Queer, fag, faggot, bulldyke, etc. One kid at a public school called three quiet boys (I was 1 of them) "Chester Chester Child Molester". I was so young I had no clue what a child molester was (this was before the late 80s when child sexual abuse became big topics on talk shows).

Queer means "not normal, strange, deviant, low moral character" in the dictionaries that I used to look the word up in back in the day.

Who in their right mind would want to have that word described to them (a word heteros invented to use against us).

I never see the folks who want to take back the slur "queer" try to take back other slurs that we've been called in the past couple of decades like "pedo, pedophile, child molester, etc.". I wonder why that is?

We gays call each other "faggots" and it's funny to us, though this silly banter seems to be fading away.

I hate being called "sister" or "queen" or "she" or "bitch", but "queer", I'm fine with. It doesn't carry the same impact that it did in the 80s. It's totally meaningless now, because it's not used as a slur anymore. It's used as a "category heading".

The word (like so much from US academia) has also colonized its way around the world. I'm continually hearing/reading it being used in European countries. Sometimes in the meaning so many have mentioned (I'm not plain vanilla--I'm special!) and sometimes as a replacement for the word "gay/lesbian". An article about Berlin's former gay mayor was peppered with "queere Gleichberechtigung" and "die queere Szene" (queer equal rights, the queer scene).

R88 what's bizarre is that it's being used by the generation that claims to be super sensitive to all word usage to the point they have redefined pregnant women as pregnant people, vagina-havers, uterus-havers etc. because they might offend a trans man or woman otherwise.

Yet anything like this - where people tell them "this word is traumatic for me" they get defensive and aggressively attack. I assume this is because the people telling them that it hurts them are older, and they have no respect at all for older people or even people who have viewpoints that weren't formed in the past decade or two, such as young second-wave or fourth-wave feminists.

They seem to like to blame older people for all of the world's problems, including their own, Boomer this and Boomer that, and think they truly have things worse than anyone else who came before them. Because "old people" did this to them.

It's acceptable in their group to be as nasty and dehumanizing as they can to those who they blame for their problems. In their minds, it's not extremely hypocritical, because they are the victims.

Can we just agree that the word "queer" means different things to different generations and, depending on the historical context, can be problematic for some and not others?

R99 yes. However, the generations using are also telling us at the same time to avoid using any language that might traumatize or marginalize others, setting up yet another giant hypocritical conflict. They can't have it both ways.

r62 r65 Of course that mental account belongs to a queer caricature who's into "BL" and "Fujoshi"...

If anyone called me queer, it'd be a fucking problem.

It's a slur and I refuse to indulge you I'm any further explanation.

[quote]However, the generations using are also telling us at the same time to avoid using any language that might traumatize or marginalize others, setting up yet another giant hypocritical conflict. They can't have it both ways.

This appears to be the issue. Why can't people express that the word hurts them? Similar to others here, I'm not of the generation that had it used as a slur against me, I grew up in the time of it being attached to gay and bi cinema, literature, etc. but I can totally understand that others have had different experiences with it.

[quote]It's acceptable in their group to be as nasty and dehumanizing as they can to those who they blame for their problems.

It's like the witch in Into the Woods, pointing out that everyone else just needs to have someone to blame and to hang the truth of it all.

[quote] they have no respect at all for older people

This is such a shame, there is SO much you can learn from talking to older generations. I don't know if it's weird that I have a lot of respect for those who've come before me? But I think their stories and experiences are such an important part of gay history.

And of course the younger generations change things and perhaps that is part of what the battle was - so that we can live in a 'taking things for granted' way. I just think it's a shame.

When DL sisters were little girls the other kids at school called them queer.

Queer = odd, different. Not specific.

Pedo = child fucker.

You can't compare the two. They're not the same.

r96, That is something I wish I had not been so troubled by and would have lightened up. My roommate would call me a fag and then go shake his ass at gay bars. I was hurt by it. You're calling me a fag lounging around in a sarong and discussing needlepoint??

OP: I don't see what the problem is with the word "queer."

You are the problem OP. Fuck off.

Because it means "WEIRD". Would you like someone to call you a fuckin' weirdo all the time?

[quote]Professional Queers wanted Chimamanda to be brutally attacked with a machete for her literally violent comments.

I remember this! Like, they literally spoke about using a machete, it was freaky. She's very strong to stand up to that and remain unmoved.

"Queers are just better!"

If you want to use her term For yourself, knock yourself out. Just never use it to refer to me. Respect boundaries

OP- My hate is reserved for the word HOMOSEXUAL

R105 the q-word used to - and still does to many, who remember - have a very bad meaning that isn't properly defined by a dictionary term, when you are having it shouted at you by a group of boys who are shoving your face at high velocity into the pavement. You can debate the technical meaning of the word but that is just a smokescreen for never understanding the real-life application of it, the emotion and physical abuse behind HOW the word is used in practice, in many cases.

R113 homosexual has some utility now that the activists have been redefining "gay" as "same gender attraction". You can't do the same with the homosexual word because it has "sex" right in it. I don't think it was used as pejoratively as queer, the f-word, etc., although I realize it was wielded by Christian fundamentalists most of all, that word is a scientific word.

I have never been called queer as an insult, but I recall how many guys have hurled the term as a potent insult against Effeminate or outcast males. It really was stinging. I know some gay men embrace being non-mainstream, different, weird, or quirky, but that is not who many gay men are today.

R70 When I use the phrase "safe spaces" I'm referring to gay clubs where we are free to be gay without being murdered by straight people. ACTUAL and necessary safe spaces, not the indulgent fake versions where privileged students ban language in specific settings so that they don't have to experience the "violence" of hearing words that that don't like.

The scars from the knife attack when some angry straights tried to kill me are my daily reminder that it's not safe to be gay in public.

Your definition is not correct, OP. Straight people can be "queer", too.

And that's the problem r117. I do understand what people are saying about how nasty that word has been historically, but right now it's more the vagueness, bullshit aspect to it that bothers me most.

[quote]I rarely hear queer used as a slur.

When I was a kid in the 70s, we played "Smear the Queer" during recess and people yelled it as an insult/prelude to a fight. It may not be a slur now, but it certainly was back in the day. If other people want to use it as their identifier, that's fine, but I'm not comfortable with it because of its past history.

That was really helpful, r99. Thanks. That had been my understanding of why "queer" was being used widely (and non-disparagingly) since the 90s.

Queer and fag were the go to insults of the '80s and '90s I remember. They don't deserve to be reclaimed.

Agreed, r114. I call myself "gay" or "homosexual," and I love that the latter is such a clinical term, it gets right to the essence of the fact.

'Queer' is harmful, hurtful and derogatory. It's an ugly word. I don't want to own it, use it or have anything to do with it.

'Queer' should be buried in ashes of history just as the 'N-word' is for blacks. I am not comparing 'queer or the 'N-word.' I am simply saying that both words belong in the ash heap of history. I hate the word the 'q-word.'

I don't even know why "queer" has to be associated with the gay movement. It's a horrible word. Throw it away. It's garbage. I don't wanted it forced on me. And no, I don't want to own it. It's an insulting word. Get it the fuck away from me.

No one wants to label themselves gay anymore because of perceived negative connotations. Gay is what queer used to be. It’s time people reclaimed gay.

Queer and cis go hand in hand. It’s hipster bullshit.

[quote]Why do Dataloungers hate the term "queer" so much?

Why does a little shit start its thread with a defiant interrogative based on an imagined or dishonestly disingenuous claim, like a spamming social mediatrix?

It's been so long since I've heard anyone use the term "homosexual" in actual conversation.

I can only think of it the way Julie Andrews pronounces it in "Victor/Victoria": "ho-mo-SEKS-syuu-uhl."

R124. "Queer" is older in the sense it has been used to mean homosexual since at least the 19th century. "Gay" didn't really adopt such meanings until the 50s.

And if we really drill down into the connotations behind words, "gay" has had negative connotations associated with sexuality for a long time and even today.

Homosexual sounds a bit clinical but I like it. I'd argue it's the most accurate as well.

[quote] "Gay" didn't really adopt such meanings until the 50s.

Actually it was in the 1930s. If you look at novels from that era about homosexuals and cross-dressers (which in those days were often conflated), they use the term "gay" all the time: a classic example in the recently re-discovered and re-published novel "A Scarlet Pansy" by Robert Scully, where we are constantly told by the narrator that the hero/heroine Fay Estrange is having "gay times" and trying for "gay looks" in her clothes.

Cary Grant's famous explosive declaration as to why he is wearing a maribou-trimmed peignoir in "Bringing Up Baby" in 1938--"Because I just went GAY all of a sudden!"--is often taken as the moment when the word started to signify for straights the same meaning as it had in the homosexual subculture

It seems that a big part of the problem is that a lot of other terms that communities reclaim don't have widespread use outside of the community - like, you wouldn't see the community referred to that by journalists or whatever. But 'queer' is being used like that, which is understandably annoying for many people who don't like the word. It's harder to just brush off and say: "well, that's what the younger generation want to use" or whatever, when society at large is using it too. If that makes sense?

[quote]like, you wouldn't see the community referred to that by journalists or whatever. But 'queer' is being used like that...

Yeah, but that's just it. What exactly is the "community" we are referring to here?

100% R126

R99, we also have to acknowledge that queer is very white and woke and not everyone in the younger generation accepts it.

R99 we also have to acknowledge that it is very white and woke. Not everyone in the younger generation identifies with it.

"faggot" can be sexy

r136 Jokes have a lifespan, r136. Yours ended in March.

I find that many of my generation (X) preferred queer over gay for another set of politics and just not feeling festive enough but as words do, the definition that (X) used changed... just as they had changed it from the generation before them.

And now everybody is gay. Everybody is queer. Anyone can be trans. Anyone can be a lesbian. No requirements. No restrictions. It's all completely irrelevant.

So now it's a war between two idiots - one group that's a self defeating, early to grave, crowd playing into the far right's hands and the other has embraced every dsm label ina bid to be the greatest tankie and also plays intot he hands of the right as they weasel their way into journalism and believe that media shapes the world. . . while the rest of us don't rightly care because it's not a conscious thought day in, day out. We just have to confront it because others have decided to weaponize it.

r134 Ah, yes, us brown folks called ourselves fudgepackers because we weren't allowed to be gay in front of the massas, they always kept us in the back of the warehouse. we is fudgies not only for us colored but for booty lovin'

r136 I prefer it. . harsh, gutteral and ever so british school reform. But perhaps homophile should make a comeback but alas, lesbians would like to coopt it too.

Whatever happpened to "bum chum"? Was that just an Australian thing?

"Are you and Mikey bum chums?"

Urings and their love Uranus

Queer is a slur. It's what the breeders say before they gay bash us.

Or maybe the we skip the names and go back to the communist scare with the hipster thin red ties that some gay men wore to discretely identify themselves as...

of course, nothing is quite counter-cultural, anymore. . . none of the right people are horrified as they should, hence how many has proclaimed music genre _____ is dead and comedy, too.

words are worse than murder this last decade... or a few, is Tipper Gore is still around, how come she hasn't run for president?

r141 "breeders" is a slur. Oh wait, privilege stack... except now it's not enough alone. .

everyone below the top point of the pyramid scheme has been declared "white"

^ and "white" means cis, str8, male.

Get rid of the word "queer." It's disgusting, harmful and insulting. I never use it--and I won't. I don't want to own or have it part of the discussion. The word "queer" repulses me.

I'm sticking with gay. I hate that horrible word queer.

The Trans Industry needs "Queer" as an umbrella term to lump in AGPs and pedos with the LGB. It's also why they have completely appropriated (and literally purchased) the original Black Lives Matter and turned it into something that actively harms black women and children. It's why they infiltrated and destroyed 3rd Wave feminism. These are the same rich white straight male colonizers we've known for most of recorded history. They rename our cultures, wear our cultural dress as costume, invade our spaces, forbid us our language and rights. And make a lot of money doing it.

Fag, pansy, Nancy boy, poof, shirt-lifter, turd burglar, queer. Those are all slurs. All are equally offensive and OP can go do one if he thinks any of these are acceptable.

[Quote]Whatever happpened to "bum chum"? Was that just an Australian thing?

R139 In America, we still say "butt buddy" for that.

R148 Nailed it.

[quote]In America, we still say "butt buddy" for that.

Ahh, yes, I can see that. We also used to use "to bum" as a verb, like "are you and he bumming?" As a kid not knowing exactly what people were getting at, it connjured up images of two boys rubbing their arses together, haha.

I once worked with a guy whose name was Buddy Butts. No lie.

Carry on.

The popular grocery chain in Texas, H.E.B., stands for Howard R. Butt 🍑

^ *E.

R93, I remember back then "queer" had a kind of a punk edge to it. It was used in a very different way that, for my generation of young gay men at least, seemed to be really life-affirming, us standing up and saying: "this is who we are, and fuck off if you don't like it".

Now it's used by straight women wanting to be edgy.

[quote]there does indeed need to be an inclusive term for gay, lesbian, and bisexual.

No there really doesn’t.

Queer can literally mean anything. You like to eat the contents of gay men's diapers? You're queer.

R98 nails it

I have a neutral reaction to “queer,” 1.) because I was never taunted with that word (I think it’s more 50s/60s/and before) and 2.) I lived in NYC when the gay advocacy group Queen Nation was around, so it had a more positive association.

I’ll never warm to the words “fag” or “faggot,” though. I heard those too much growing up.

Queer sounds a little antiquated to me, almost dear.

Because troll op, str8s used queer as an insult and now their children use it to insult us by claiming to be "queer" aka str8 but want to be labeled minorities.

"Queer" was always a slur for gay men. Gay men reclaimed it during the AIDS crisis when it was completely ignored, through ACT UP and the original Pride marches, by saying "We're here, we're queer, get used to it". That was an honest reclamation of the word by the gay men who were targeted by the word as a slur.

Then there were straight people who got a haircut and thought that made them different, and targeted, in the same way that gay men were different, and targeted, and now these straight fuckers think that they get to use the word "queer" and they can fuck themselves.

These same straight fuckers think they're allowed to use the word "faggot" without consequence. It won't be long before we have "faggot studies" in the colleges.

Any straight mother fuckers who call themselves "queer" need to be kicked in the cunt bone.

Because the average DLer is over 55, politically conservative, and lives within 50 miles of where they were born, usually some small town in Ruralville USA. They have few gay friends, hate women, hate non-white people, and hate trans people with a ferocity that matches the likes of Ron Desantis. They're somewhere to the right of Mitt Romney and they hate ANYTHING that isn't exactly the same as it was 40+ years ago.

I'm 53 and "queer" was an in-joke among gay people since at least the early 80s. Think "Johnny are you Queer" (an old song, google it). I never heard it used as a slur, it was always in jest. "Faggot" and "fag," and "dyke" or "lesbo/lezzie" were the slurs I grew up with in the 80s. "Queer" ranked with "negro" or "women's libber" in terms of being ante-diluvian and archaic. Like calling Vietnam "Nam" or a Chinese person a "Chinaman." It was language our grandparents used and they always sounded stupid using it. It had no sting. It was ripe for reappropriating. The people reacting negatively are hopelessly backwards and live in the past.

Queer was a slur thrown around during my teenager years in the early 80s and I've never shaken off the PTSD from hearing that word. Plus, it's such a broad term now, it's used as fad slang for every fad gender swap, purple hair, they them zee za zou pronoun BS and I just can't stand the phrase. I do not need to own the word queer, I do not need to use the word queer, and I won't incorporate the word into my lexicon.

[quote]r165 I do not need to own the word queer, I do not need to use the word queer, and I won't incorporate the word into my lexicon.

So don’t. Do you think the world will stop turning?

Because it sounds too femmy-gay.

Crotchety.

I had "queer" hurled at me in hate in 2019 by a redneck mouth-breather. So, no, it hasn't been reclaimed.

The term Queer is completely meaningless now that it represents self-obsessed straight people.

Because it's been used as a slur on us? How's that sound? If you think I'm wrong or weak, then use the word. Why should you care if you hurt others? Free speech, right? Forget me and all the generations of folks like me. I expect it from young, self-righteous, insensitive asses.

I'm talking to Brits, too. They know, some of them, that it hurts Americans, but they use it anyway. In their culture it isn't a slur and never was a slur. But not everyone who uses English is from England. In fact, most English speakers do not live there.

Because it means FAG retard

BUMP for the idiot who couldn't be bothered to do a search.

And r181: you're botching about the term 'queer" and yet you're using the word 'retard"? Hypocrite.

I have no problem with"queer" and prefer it for the reasons OP mentions.

On the website Autostraddle, the writers and people behind the site explain why they identify as what they identify as, and the number of them that say they want to identify as "queer" because it makes straight people uncomfortable probably says it all.

BUMP