Queer Science

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities. It is alternately used to refer to people who reject sexual and gender norms and share radical politics characterized by solidarity across lines of identity. Queer is also a self-identity term for many people (similar to but distinct from gay, lesbian, and bisexual), characterized by rejection or disruption of binary categories of sexual orientation and gender. Originally meaning 'strange' or 'peculiar', queer came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to reclaim the word as a neutral or positive self-description. In the 21st century, queer became increasingly used to describe a broad spectrum of non-heteronormative sexual or gender identities and politics. Academic disciplines such as queer theory and queer studies have emerged to examine a wide variety of issues, either informed by this type of perspective, or to examine the lives of LGBTQ people. These share a general opposition to binarism, normativity, and a perceived lack of intersectionality, some of them connected only tangentially to the LGBTQ movement. Queer arts, queer cultural groups, and queer political groups are examples of modern expressions of queer identities. Critics include LGBTQ community members who associate the term more with its colloquial, derogatory usage; those who wish to dissociate themselves from queer radicalism; and those who see it as too amorphous or trendy. Supporters of the term include those who use it to contrast with a more assimilationist part of the gay rights movement, and to signify greater willingness to defy societal norms in pursuit of gender and sexual identity liberation. They may associate it with the advancement of radical perspectives that were also present within past gay liberation movements, such as anti-consumerism or anti-imperialism, or with events such as the Stonewall rebellion. Queer is used in a number of ways that overlap and sometimes conflict—it is used as an umbrella term, as a political identity, and as a personal identity or "anti-identity". It is sometimes expanded to include any non-normative sexuality expression. Some people self-identify as queer due to the relative ambiguity of the term and its rejection of explicit categorization, compared to labels such as lesbian and gay. PFLAG states that as such a personal identity, queer is "valued by some for its defiance, by some because it can be inclusive of the entire community, and by others who find it to be an appropriate term to describe their more fluid identities". Recent studies have found that 5–20% of non-heterosexuals and 21–36% of transgender, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming people identify as queer.