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witticaster
What's the history of the word queer?
Its original definition, according to the OED, was strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable character; suspicious, dubious.
Its meaning in reference to homosexuality was developing in the end of the 19th century. In 1894, the Marquess of Queensbury wrote a letter to his son, Bosie Douglas, using the word “queer” in that sense:
MARQUESS OF QUEENSBERRY Let. 1 Nov. in R. Ellmann Oscar Wilde (1987) xvi. 402, I write to tell you that it is a judgement on the whole lot of you. Montgomerys, The Snob Queers like Roseberry & certainly Christian hypocrite Gladstone.
Bosie was an intimate and friend and lover to Oscar Wilde, and when Queensberry says “like Roseberry,” he means like the man who allegedly corrupted Bosie's older brother. Apparently queering (or being queered upon), as it were, ran in the family. Gladstone was the Prime Minister of England at the time. >> This is the oldest written example of queer-as-gay the OED lists. From this point onward, while “queer” continued to mean peculiar, it also became a primarily derogatory term for “gay.”
So what is queer today?
At the end of the 20th century, “queer” began to be reclaimed by many of the people it was used to hurt. Today, it's often used as an umbrella term for people who identify outside the heteronormative mainstream. Some people who aren't considered “normal” in dominant culture, such as BDSM practitioners or polyamorous people, identify themselves as queer despite being gender-normative and heterosexual.
"Queer" provides a boundary-less spectrum that spares individuals from moments of identity crisis, keeps the palette of curious label-hunters at least momentarily satisfied and, fundamentally, provides freedom. [...] "It's a term that brings together a lot of people, and its attractions are that it says something about the nature of a community that it brings together, a community that refuses to be, and wants to celebrate in its refusal to have a desire to be, totally normal," says Barker, "That it actually is a term that's celebrating being outside the lines of what was traditionally an acceptable, recognizable identity." (“What Is Queer?” from filly.ca)
Some benefits to the word “queer”:
It covers all identities outside what society considers the “norm,” catching those who might fall through the cracks in alphabet-soup phrases like LGBT (or, for the hardxcore amongst us, GLBTQQIAPA or Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Pansexual, Ally)
The fact that it doesn't apply only to one specific gender identity or sexual orientation allows for fluctuation and change in a person's identity, reflecting the emphasis on fluidity of orientation and identity.
It (theoretically) turns the word “queer” from a brand of shame to a brand of pride.
Some drawbacks:
Its history as a slur can make it uncomfortable for members of the LGBTQAI community who have been hurt by the word in that context—see our reclaiming-bitch conversation.
If the definition is so open, then can't just about anyone—even possibly heteronormative straight people—decide to call themselves queer? How do we feel about that? See our defining-lesbian conversation earlier in the semester.
It isn't entirely umbrella-able; plenty of members of the LGBTQI community would prefer not to be called queer for any number of reasons (too broad a category, history of hurt, etc).
On to queer theory!
The OED defines queer theory as an approach to social and cultural study which seeks to challenge or deconstruct traditional ideas of sexuality and gender, esp. the acceptance of heterosexuality as normative and the perception of a rigid dichotomy of male and female traits.
So queer theory looks a lot at issues like:
Representations of non-heteronormative people in culture;
Queer readings of texts;
How gender is “done,” identifying it as not a natural state but a learned and modifiable performance;
How genders and sexualities are categorized;
Thinking about identities as multiple and fluid as opposed to fixed and static.
I hate to quote wikipedia, but I like how they phrased this particular quote: “It could be argued that queer theory's main project is not the interrogation of homosexuality, but the subverting and challenging of heterosexuality as 'natural' and 'unmarked'.” Being queer is about defining oneself, giving oneself an identity. Queer theory is about critiquing the concept of identity.
A few important queer theorists:
Teresa de Lauretis – coined the phrase “queer theory” but disowned it three years later, saying it had “very quickly become a conceptually vacuous creature of the publishing industry”
Judith Butler – Gender Trouble
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick – Epistemology of the Closet
Annamarie Jagose – Queer Theory
