Queer: A Graphic History

People wouldn’t have to come out if heterosexuality wasn’t the assumed norm.

“Queer” is also often used as an umbrella term for anyone who is not heterosexual (attracted to the “opposite” sex) or cisgender (remaining in the gender that they were assigned at birth). It’s a snappier and more encompassing word than the ever-extending LGBTTQQIA, etc. alphabet soup.

In the 1980s, people in LGBT communities began to reclaim the word “queer” as either a neutral word to describe themselves, or as a positive form of self-identity. One early example was the activist group Queer Nation who circulated a “Queers Read This” flyer at the 1990 New York Pride march.

The earliest recorded use of “queer” as a form of homophobic abuse is said to be an 1894 letter by John Sholto Douglas, the Marquess of Queensberry. He was the father of Alfred Douglas and famously accused Oscar Wilde of having an affair with his son.
“Queer” quickly became a derogatory term for same-sex sex, or for people with same-sex attractions, particularly “effeminate” or “camp” gay men.

in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. There’s also the American phrase “queer as a three dollar bill”, from a similar time, suggesting something odd and suspicious

The original meaning of “queer”, in 16th-century English-speaking countries, referred to something strange or illegitimate, as in “there’s nowt as queer as folk” or being “in queer street”, meaning someone having financial difficulties.
Using queer to mean odd, in the 19th century, social reformer and founder of the cooperative movement, Robert Owen, famously said to a colleague: “All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.”

knowledge as always partial and contextual.

Although some scholars (notably Gloria Anzaldúa) were already using the term “queer theory”, most writers regard the birth of queer theory as happening at Teresa de Lauretis’s conference of that name at the University of California

Arguably, then, the focus should be on revealing the ways in which this hierarchical binary structure operates, and the other hierarchies of power and knowledge involved in this.

Coming out as gay risks reinforcing the hierarchical binary structure that underlies heteronormativity and homophobia.