Gay Stuff : “Queer” Is Here
While college organizations and some corners of the internet have been using the acronym LGBTQIA for some time now to represent the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual community, the acronym hasn’t actually been adopted by a lot of mainstream media.
However, it looks like it’s going to change as GLAAD, in the most recent edition of its Media Reference, has recommended to media organizations that the letter Q be added to the LGBT acronym to represent queer.
The addition of Q to the LGBT acronym is sure to be a conversation started between two different generations of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. For some, their experience of the word queer is of how it’s been used as an insult and a slur. And yet for a younger generation, queer has been something that they have reclaimed. For instance, 2012 saw Ezra Miller comes out as queer to Out Magazine. Shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Queer as Folk have also been reclaiming the word even earlier.
According to Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD’s president and CEO, it is precisely the younger generation’s reclaiming of the word “queer” that prompted the group to include the letter Q to the acronym. The Media Reference notes that young people use the word “queer” as they feel that the terms lesbian, gay, or bisexual are “too limiting and/or fraught with cultural connotations they feel don’t apply to them.”
The increased visibility of transgender issues in the news cycle has also prompted GLAAD to tackle terms associated with the transgender community. The Media Reference makes note of “cisgender”, which is used to describe people who are not transgender. As explained in the Media Reference, “cis-“ is a Latin prefix meaning “on the same side as”, which makes it an antonym to “trans-“.
The Media Reference also dedicates two pages on guidelines on how to cover the transgender community, as well as the social issues facing that particular community. Just some of these are the higher incidence of violence inflicted on transgender women of color, the high level of discrimination and poverty, as well as their limited access to healthcare.
What does the A4A community think about the inclusion of “Q” into the LGBT acronym? Has your experience with the word “queer” been a positive or a negative one? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!
What a bunch of horse shit! I’m bisexual, but since I like buttsex with guys, I’m gay…sorta. This alphabet sout includive bullshit’s making us look like morons. GET RID OF IT!
60 yrs ago gay was not in use came alone with marvin Gaye. back when you could not admit to being gay or you would be almost an outcast.
What exactly is intersex?
People like Sarah Kate Ellis are nauseating
We should be te NES (Non Exclusively Straight), that way any other tribe that wants to join us would’ve be welcomed and there will be no need to keep adding letters.
It is utterly ridiculous. Gay was always non-gender specific, only some radical Lesbians objected and forced their way by complaining constantly and being bitches in general. What is Q supposed to mean? It was already used for “questioning” and we are simply being fragmented by this. Who are GLAAD anyway, to presume they speak for others? They never asked me. They also never asked anyone expert in grammar. The letters are ridiculous and endless and it’s time to drop them all. Including anyone who isn’t gay. We do NOT represent them.
1) EVERYBODY is Bi- sexual or just plain sexual. The bottom line is preference. The “PROBLEM” is that people identify there sexual preference as if it’s supposed to dictate how one acts or what he/she should do like there is some official role rule. Gay men have been judged and treated badly because of perceptions so to hide out in THE NEW CLOSET they consider themselves “bi” but they can’t cop to it publicly or like the laughable discussion posted on here a few weeks back, “straight men who have gay sex”. Guys would be full-on, openly same gender attracted guys if there wasn’t a stigma or the words used to describe them weren’t pejorative.
2) Piggy-backing off my point in #1. I HATE the word “Queer” because it is pejorative! The word by definition denotes oddness or strangeness. Gay people are just different from straight people in a very small way. It doesn’t make it bad or good just DIFFERENT! Different is a bad thing, it is just distinct. Accepting it is like when black people accept the “N” word . . . Just plain stupid.
I abhor the word queer and fag and for the reason most of us my age would – we were taunted and very cruelly with those words as kids and it affected most of our lives in very adverse ways. But here’s who else it makes cringe – the straight people also of that age group. The ones who used it and are now sorry, don’t want to hear it again because they feel guilt having used it in a cruel way. Those who used it and still feel that way also cringe, because someone is using a word they know they don’t dare anymore like it is being thrown in their face. Rather than “reclaim” a word that makes EVERYONE uncomfortable except those that don’t remember those times, get creative and make up a new word – we make up new words all of the time.
I was just in a training session of college employees, professionals from academics and across the board in a university system. A young woman explaining resources for LGBT students used “queer”. I don’t think the room could have been any more uncomfortable every time she said it. Most of these people are accepting but also cannot disconnect themselves from the history of bad use of the word. Why purposely make people uncomfortable?
And I feel I am very conscious of everyone’s feelings and identities but this business of continually adding on initials to an already long list is ludicrous. We have always wanted to be an integral part of society without different designations yet we keep creating labels for ourselves. It is hard to get acceptance from straights when we keep adding all of these initials they will never remember and just makes them confused. We aren’t becoming inclusive; we are creating our own exclusion by pointing out our differences. I don’t think any of my straight friends are labeling themselves with specific initials making them different from other straights and keep coming up with more and more designations so why should we?
It was my understanding that the “Q” actually stood for “Questioning,” which is how I particularly like it’s inclusion in “LGBTQ” to mean. I am 65 years old and the term was, is and shall remain IMHO derogatory.
Personally, since college, I have been inclined to reclaim Queer. “Gay,” at one time, served essentially the same purpose, but came to represent only males, and in that process, perpetuates a very binary view of what is really a spectrum of sexual identities.
At some point, an umbrella term like Queer may replace what some call the Alphabet Soup, and I would be happy about that. For a term with less baggage, perhaps we could opt for Rainbow, or the more technical Spectrum — although, of course, that’s going to lead to confusion with Autism spectrum… Until we iron it out, we’re just going to have to live with an awkward handle, in the interests of standing up for one another.
Queer has been, as far as my experience shows me, always been the preferred term amongst more radical queer folk. “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.”
As far as I can tell, only those who celebrated being marketed to based on their sexuality ever preferred the term “gay” (which has had connotations of being happy-go-lucky and carefree, qualities that, in our culture based on environmental degredation and worldwide exploitation, should truly be considered pathological.)
As to the previous comment, the word “queer” is best used as a replacement for the alphabet soup, as “queer” is inclusive of male and female, cis and trans, asexual, bi, pansexual, bdsm, polyamorous, and even furries- basically anything different than cis hetero monogamy.
Unfortunately, however, we are still struggling under the weight of the goddamned baby boomers, who (with only a few exceptions) seem hell bent on destroying the economy and the planet before they die off. This is why we have an election this year that basically amounts to a choice between Hitler and Mussolini. (Without the goddamned boomers it would be between Bernie, Johnson, and Stein – Republicans would have ceased to exist several election cycles ago).
While the goddamned boomers celebrate the “victory” of being able to go kill brown people on the other side of the planet to enrich war profiteers and oil companies, today’s youth are coming up with ways to make both war and oil obsolete, and while the boomers celebrate the “victory” of getting government sanction for following heteronormative relationship patterns that are historically rooted in slavery (traditional marriage is a property exchange between two men, with the property in question beginning the transaction as the daughter of one of the men, and ends up as the wife of the other man, while she maintains the status of being little more than livestock throughout.) Young people are more and more embracing polyamory, whether they are hetero or queer.
In short, the eventual recognition of even the most corporate consumerist outlets that “queer” is a valid term is long, long overdue. I must wonder, however, if this recognition is somehow a warning that there will be an attempt to coopt and commodify it…
This is fantastic! It is a step in the right direction. And the way the direction is going, soon enough straight people will be accepted into this group.
Straight peoples’ rights have been legislated away. Socially, they have been told to shut up and live in a closet Look what happens when they march for that they believe in! They are labeled as bigots, as evil, as unacceptable.
I propose “LGBTQS” to represent ALL. And the LGBTQS leadership should fight unceasingly for the rights of all downtrodden people worldwide!!!
That’s so queer we don’t need it! We need to get MR.& Mr. fixed and used properly first. The word Mr. should be used with the young and males that have not been married before. The word MR. should be for those males whom are or have been married. Mr. comes from the word master and our Mr.s are mixed up.
Queer when they pass3ed gay marriage the first thing they did was attack the Boy Scouts. Not one word was said to the Girl Scouts now go figure that!
What we really need is the Wellness report to get updated to include people that were molested at youth. This would increase funding for consoling and explain why some process things differently. There is a school in Rancho mirage that counsel’s molested youth at a younger age. It would be nice if someplace like Eisenhower would pick this program up. But the word queer is not gonna do it for me. Try 98% twisted fairy but let me tell you that other 2 percent has a hell of a lot of pull.