THE SHIFTING MEANINGS OF "QUEER"
It is important to note the re-appropriation of the term "queer" in
the
post-Stonewall era and its contemporary use as an affirmative
self-nominated identity label.
Minorities have long expoused this strategy-
pejoritives like 'dyke' and 'fag' have been turned into badges of pride,
gangs
ta rappers have
transformed
'nigga' into a fraternal greeting.
After theories put forth by Judityutler,
Teresa de Lauretis, Simon Wtney, Richard Dyer and others, "queer no
longer indicates the bioilogical sex or gender of the subject. Alexander
Doty uses the term to describe a cultural commonground between lesbians
and gays as well as other non-straights- a term representing unity as
well as suggesting diversity.
Most importantly, the term indicates " an
ontological challenge to dominant labeling philosophies, especially the
medicalization of the subject implied by the word 'homosexual', in the era
of AIDS, as well as a challenge to discrete gender categories embedded in
the divided phrase 'gay and lesbian'." (See Moe Myer The Politics and
Poetics of Camp, 1994) Most broadly, "Queer" stands for any alternative
sexuality, whether or not lived, which includes bisexuality, transgender,
transexual, and transvestite communities, the S&M movement, people of
color, lesbians who sleep with men, radical sex, and any and all others
who falls somewhere within what Adrienne Rich would call a queer
"continuum."
Click here to visit more queer sites!
Patsy ans Eddie hang out around
London
when they should be "setting a good example" for women- or should they?