Queer- [kweer] verb..

What is queer? Queer is a complex word with a powerful and painful history that resists definition and reification. Historically, queer was a derogatory epithet for individuals and behavior perceived to be non-normative—particularly regarding gender and sexuality. Queer was reclaimed by various circles in the 1980s to indicate a new incarnation of the lesbian and gay political movement.[i] As a linguistic reclamation, queer often has the un/intended effect of reinforcing the insider/outsider dichotomy, by which self-identified queers have cultural “permission” to use the word while sympathetic non-queer individuals employ the word with discomfort. A product of postmodern “decentering” and constructionist Weltanschauung, queer has many subjective, and often contradictory, definitions. Queer denotes change, instability, provocation, and anti-assimilation. Queer resists the commodification of the mainstream gay and lesbian movements. Yet, ironically, “queer” has become increasingly co-opted into mainstream media and culture. Queer is also a marker of generational difference—to linguistically announce the deviation from the more mainstream gay and lesbian movements. Queer signifies fluidity: dissolving the barriers between gay/lesbian, male/female, masculine/feminine, and (often) hetero-/homosexual. Queer is also comprehensive, an umbrella-term for all who experience non-normative sexualities[ii]. As a new moniker, queer is often critiqued for erasing the diversity (especially race, ethnicity, class) that it was resuscitated to highlight[iii]. What does it mean to queer? With this plethora of significations in mind, this project uses the word queer as a verb to denote the way individuals accept, reject, subvert, invert, and destroy dictums of normative identities and behaviors—specifically of drag and masculinities. Queer subjectivities often occupy multiple, contradictory positions. This broad definition of “queering” allows for the instabilities and paradoxes so common of queer subjectivities.




[i] Steven Epstein, “A Queer Encounter,” in Queer Theory/Sociology, ed. Steven Seldman (Blackwell Publishers, 1997), 152.


[ii] Ibid., 153.


[iii] Ruth Goldman, “Who Is That Queer Queer? Exploring Norms around Sexuality, Race, and Class in Queer Theory,” Queer Cultures, eds. Deborah Carlin and Jennifer DiGrazia (Pearson/Prentice Hall Publishers, 2004), 86.