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Explaining Queer to Allies
So, I’m not going to go into details because the person concerned did the right thing in the end.
I discovered right at the start of Pride that in an online forum I’m in, the word queer had been censored, apparently as part of a “standard list of slurs.”
This put me in the position of having to explain to the moderator why this was actively harmful to queer people…and, of course, to the inevitable “But the word is used to harm people.”
So in the interests of saving time next time, I’m going to write up my personal explanation of the word queer, why it is important, when and how allies can safely use it, etc.
History of the word Queer
The word queer first shows up in the early 16th century. At this point it meant strange. Peculiar. Eccentric. “He’s a queer fellow” might be used to refer to somebody who never married and had an obsession with petunias. Socially awkward people might be called it.
In the late 19th century, the word queer became slang for gay men, specifically. The first actual record of it relates to the trial of Oscar Wilde, who is called a “snob queer.”
From there, it got picked up by the media, and spread into common usage by the start of 1914.