Is queered a word

Queering is the verb form of the word queer and comes from the shortened version of the phrase queer reading.^{[1][dubious – discuss]} It is a technique that came out of queer theory in the late 1980s through the 1990s^[2] and is used as a way to challenge heteronormativity by analyzing places in a text that use heterosexuality or identity binaries.^[3][4] Queering is a method that can be applied to literature as well as film to look for places where things such as gender, sexuality, masculinity, and femininity can be challenged and questioned. Originally, the method of queering dealt more strictly with gender and sexuality, but quickly expanded to become more of an umbrella term for addressing identity as well as a range of systems of oppression and identity politics.^[1][2] Even the term queer itself can be queered, because much of queer theory involves working to fight against normalization even in the field itself.^[1][5] In the context of queer theory, «queering is something we do, rather than something we are (or are not).»^[1]

An example of queering would be to reexamine the primary sources from the life of King Richard I of England, to search for evidence that he exhibited homosexual behavior or attitudes. Queering, as a tool of historical analysis, does not necessarily mean an attempt to determine if historical figure actually engaged in homosexual behaviors. It embraces a more fluid spectrum of gender attitudes which may have been entirely emotional, e.g., if celibate monks who wrote letters of intimate affection could be said to be exhibiting a form of romantic love, even if they never engaged in intimate physical behavior, or even consciously considered their behavior to be a parallel of romantic physical relationships.

Historically, queer was a word that referred to something as odd or strange. As the verb form of queer, queering can refer to the act of taking something and looking at it through a lens that makes it strange or troubles it in some way.^[6] By the 1940s (in the United States), queer came to be used in reference to sexuality that deviated from heterosexual norms.^[7] It was in the period of the late 1980s and early 1990s when LGBT AIDS activist groups, such as Act Up and Queer Nation, began to reclaim the term queer as a positive identifier and as a process of questioning mainstream ideas about what was considered normal.^[1][2][3] Cathy Cohen argues that groups like these also extended the use of queer to move past “assimilationist tendencies» present in AIDS activism.^[2] This is based on sentiments expressed by groups like Queer Nation who felt that queer as a word and a sentiment was too focused on assimilation of non-normative sexualities and identities.^[2] Within such groups, queer as a noun was reclaimed again to mean something radical. Queering then became a tool for social and political subversion of dominant culture. Because it is rooted in queer theory, it is also closely tied into queer politics and queer activism.^[1]

Because the idea of queering comes from the term queer, it has a wide variety of definitions as well as uses. For example, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, a foundational theorist of queer theory^[1][4] says that queer can mean «the open mesh of possibilities, gaps…and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made (or can’t be made) to signify monolithically.»^[4] Literary critic Michael Warner offers this definition: «Queer gets a critical edge by defining itself against the normal rather than the heterosexual.»^[8] Judith Butler, another theorist credited with the founding of queer theory, talks about queer as being an act that can be performed.^[5] In a more current context, methods of queering extend beyond critiquing literature to examine topics from popular culture to more abstract topics like theology and time.^[6][9] In her essay about the benefits of queering theology, Thelathia «Nikki» Young, says that queering is a way to «[deconstruct] the logics and frameworks operating within old and new theological and ethical concepts.» In addition to these deconstructions, she argues that queering «dismantles the dynamics of power and privilege persisting among diverse subjectivities.»^[6]

Uses in literatureEdit

In Pia Livia Hekanaho’s essay «Queering Catcher: Flits, Straights, and Other Morons,» she uses queering to analyze “the leaking boundaries of ‘straight’ (heterosexual) masculinity and the queer identities that may lie beyond those boundaries” in J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel Catcher in the Rye. In it, she looks at how the narrator Holden Caufield is caught between the strictness of normative masculinity and a fear of non-normative sexualities and manhood.^[7] Judith Butler uses a queer reading of the 1929 novel Passing by Nella Larson to see the possibilities of blurring the binaries of both race and attraction.^[10]
Genre literature such as fantasy and science fiction also remain popular texts for queer analysis. In Anna Bark Persson’s article «Home and Hell: Representation of Female Masculinity in Action-Driven Science Fiction Literature,» she explores the narratives of characters Nyxnissa so Dasheem from the series The Bel Dame Apocrypha by Kameron Hurley and Catherine Li from the series The Spin Trilogy by Robert Charles Wilson. Persson examines their roles as masculine women who take up space and hold positions of power, and how their science fiction settings are used to reject cis and hetero-normative conventions.^[11]

Uses in designEdit

There is a growing movement to queer design seen in initiatives like Queering the Map and work by designers and design researchers like Ece Canli, Emeline Brulé, Luiza Prado de O. Martins and Tiphaine Kazi-Tani. Isabel Prochner wrote that queerness and queer theory have radical, chaotic, and deconstructive potential in design by «engaging critically with design goals, challenging their assumptions, and encouraging greater multiplicity.»^[12]

Disco musicEdit

Queering also occurred in popular music in disco culture. Prior to the Stonewall Rebellions in New York that arguably mark the birth of disco, heterosexual norms dominated the club scene. It was only after disco music came out did queering begin to take its mark. This was seen especially on the dance floors at straight and gay clubs alike. Whereas before, the norm was for a man and a woman to dance together, queering allowed for individuals to dance by themselves, or for dance partners of the same gender to take the floor.^[13]

queer

 (kwîr)

[Perhaps from Low German, oblique, off-center, from Middle Low German dwer; see terk^w— in Indo-European roots.]

queer′ish adj.

queer′ly adv.

queer′ness n.

Usage Note: A reclaimed word is a word that was formerly used solely as a slur but that has been semantically overturned by members of the maligned group, who use it as a term of defiant pride. Queer is an example of a word undergoing this process. For decades queer was used as a derogatory adjective for gays and lesbians, but in the 1980s the term began to be used by gay and lesbian activists as a term of self-identification. Eventually, it came to be used as an umbrella term that included gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender people. Nevertheless, a sizable percentage of people to whom this term might apply still hold queer to be a hateful insult, and its use by heterosexuals is often considered offensive. Similarly, other reclaimed words are usually offensive to the in-group when used by outsiders, so caution must be taken with their use when one is not a member of the group.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

queer

(kwɪə)

[C16: perhaps from German quer oblique, ultimately from Old High German twērh]

ˈqueerish adj

ˈqueerly adv

ˈqueerness n

Usage: Although the term queer meaning homosexual is still considered highly offensive when used by non-homosexuals, it is often used by homosexuals themselves as a positive term, as in queer politics, queer cinema

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

queer

(kwɪər)

adj. queer•er, queer•est,
v.
n. adj.

1. strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint; unusually different; eccentric.

2. of a questionable nature or character; suspicious; shady: something queer in the wording of the document.

3. not physically right or well; giddy, faint, or qualmish.

4. mentally unbalanced or deranged.

6. Slang. bad, worthless, or counterfeit.

v.t.

7. to spoil; ruin.

8. to put (a person) in a disadvantageous situation as to success, favor, etc.

n.

9. Slang: Usually Disparaging and Offensive. (a term used to refer to a homosexual, esp. a male.)

[1500–10; perhaps < German quer oblique, cross, adverse]

queer′ly, adv.

queer′ness, n.

usage: queer has been used as an adjective and noun meaning respectively “homosexual” and “a homosexual” since the 1920s, and for much of the time has been used in a disparaging manner. Since about 1990 the word has increasingly been adopted as a preferred term by young or radical homosexuals and in the academic community. In the mainstream homosexual community, however, gay and lesbian remain the terms of choice.

Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

queer

— Comes from the German root quer, «across, oblique, perverse.»

See also related terms for perverse.

Farlex Trivia Dictionary. © 2012 Farlex, Inc. All rights reserved.

queer

Past participle: queered
Gerund: queering

Collins English Verb Tables © HarperCollins Publishers 2011