quousque:

profoundplatypus:

wild-west-wind:

The arguments against using queer are wrong.

• “’Gay’ and ‘Lesbian’ are words we chose ourselves”
• Gay was used to mean promiscuous and morally destitute. A “Gay
  woman” was a prostitute. A “Gay man” was a philanderer. A “Gay house” was a
  brothel. Later the term meant uninhibited, sexually active, and hedonistic. By
  the mid-20^th century it came to mean all those things AND engaged in
  sexual relations with people of the same gender. It largely supplanted “homophile”
  as a descriptor of LGBTQ people in the 70s but has been used as a slur since,
  especially during the 90s and 00s.
• “Queer is a slur”
• Queer gained a pejorative meaning in the early 20^th
  century, meaning sexually deviant. It was reclaimed in the 80s, and quickly
  rose to prominence. “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it,” became a
  rallying cry at pride marches. It was especially used by those who worried that
  the policies of some LGBTQ rights groups were verging toward conservatism and
  assimilation which was leaving people of color, trans people, immigrants, etc.
  out of the loop. Queer became an identity that stoop opposed to the cry to keep
  your head down and be presentable and quiet and private to garner the tolerance
  of straight society. The Queer identity was seized on by trans rights
  activists, people who did not neatly fit the labels of “gay” and “lesbian,” and
  people passionate about political causes (especially AIDS).
• Like “gay” and “lesbian,” queer has continued to be used as
  a slur by straight people. The only difference between the reclamation of “gay”
  and the reclamation of “queer” is a couple years.
• “Reclaiming slurs is individual, you can’t apply it to
  everyone.”
• Queer has been used as an umbrella term longer than most of
  the people who call it a slur have been alive. Having lived through the 90s and
  00s I remember when “gay” meant bad, when everything bad was “gay.” People
  sneered “gay” at me when they tried to beat me up as a kid and teenager. Gay
  and Lesbian are every bit the slur today that queer is, yet anyone who said
  that “gay” shouldn’t be used because of its history as a slur would be laughed
  at.
• “It excludes people who don’t want to be called ‘queer’.”
• Refusing to allow queer to be used in public discourse and
  robbing it of its history and use excludes queer people.
• “LGBT is better because it’s been an umbrella longer and no
  one takes offense to it.”
• LGBT has been used since the 1990s.
• Loads of people take offense to it and its adoption was and
  is a fight in activist circles. There are dozens of different variation,
  addition of + and *, both of which are celebrated and decried in equal measure.
  There is endless argument over whether the “T” belongs there, whether the “B”
  belongs (traditionally you see most of the anti-queer rhetoric in-community
  coming from people who want to pare down to “LG”). People have pitched MOGAI
  and MOGII and GSM and GSRM. MLM/MSM and WLW/WSW get tossed around. “LGBT” has
  been fraught with discourse.
• “Academia appropriated ‘queer’ without asking, had they
  talked to actual (LGBT/Queer/MOGAI/MOGII/GSM/GSRM) people they’d have know it
  was a slur.”
• When Queer Studies began in the 1970s who do you think was
  teaching it? Who was taking it?

So sure, Queer is a slur, Gay is a slur, Lesbian is a slur, newsflash, to the straight world WE are slurs. All our words are taken from
the slurs they called us, our identities themselves are reclaimed.

So kids, go learn your own history.Don’t listen to people on the internet making arguments in bad faith. Don’t make assumptions about what is and isn’t ancient history, or what is or isn’t settled fact.

To the people who stomp their feet and demand queer never be used when ever given chance: if your argument against using queer is only that it was/is a slur, then you do not have an argument. If what you are trying to argue is instead that queer is too inclusive for your personal preference and that you would like to pick and choose who can be a member of “your” community, then please just say that.

best most succinct argument i’ve ever heard for “queer is not a slur”: universities don’t have fag studies