Meg-John Barker - Queer: a graphic history

WHEN YOUR APPETITE TO FIND OUT MORE (THERES A LIST OF ACCESSIBLE FURTHER RESOURCES AT THE END OF THE BOOK).
EXPLAIN HOW QUEER THEORY BECAME NECESSARY AS A WAY OF QUESTIONING POPULAR - PROBLEMATIC - ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT SEX, GENDER, AND IDENTITY.
INTRODUCE YOU TO SOME OF THE KEY QUEER THEORY IDEAS AND THINKERS - AS SIMPLY AS POSSIBLE - AS WELL AS TO SOME OF THE TENSIONS WITHIN QUEER THEORY, AND TO THE DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS THAT IT HAS TAKEN IN RECENT YEARS.
PULL OUT WHAT SEEMS MOST USEFUL FROM QUEER THEORY FOR OUR EVERYDAY LIVES, RELATIONSHIPS, AND COMMUNITIES.
THE IDEA IS TO INVITE YOU INTO QUEER THEORY AND TO ENCOURAGE YOU TO TRY THINKING QUEERLY.

Through the rest of this book were going to:

1. Explore the various meanings of the word queer.

2. Consider how wider Western culture came to understand sex and sexuality in the ways that it currently does, and how queer theory challenges this.

3. Introduce some of the scholars, writers, and activist movements which provided the foundations on which queer theory is built.

4. Explain some of the key concepts that queer theory initially put forward and where they came from.

5. Describe how queer theory has engaged with popular culture, biology, and sexology.

6. Cover some of the main criticisms of queer theory, and tensions within it, and how queer theorists have responded to these.

7. Outline some of the main directions queer theory has taken in recent years.

8. Suggest some ways in which you might think more queerly in your everyday life.

The word queer has had many different meanings in different times and places. It originally referred to strangeness or difference, and became a term of abuse. It has since been reclaimed as a positive word.

It can operate as an umbrella term for people outside of the heterosexual norm, or for people who challenge the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans) mainstream. It can also be a way of challenging norms around gender and sexuality through different ways of thinking or acting.

The original meaning of queer, in 16th-century English-speaking countries, referred to something strange or illegitimate, as in theres nowt as queer as folk or being in queer street, meaning someone having financial difficulties.

Using queer to mean odd, in the 19th century, social reformer and founder of the cooperative movement, Robert Owen, famously said to a colleague: All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.

Even in the early 20th century the word queer was still often used in this way, for example, in Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes stories. Theres also the American phrase queer as a three dollar bill, from a similar time, suggesting something odd and suspicious.

THE DIOGENES CLUB IS THE QUEEREST CLUB IN LONDON, AND MYCROFT ONE OF THE QUEEREST MEN.

QUEER AS HATE SPEECH

The earliest recorded use of queer as a form of homophobic abuse is said to be an 1894 letter by John Sholto Douglas, the Marquess of Queensberry. He was the father of Alfred Douglas and famously accused Oscar Wilde of having an affair with his son.

Queer quickly became a derogatory term for same-sex sex, or for people with same-sex attractions, particularly effeminate or camp gay men.

Queer was also used as a more general insult to make things questionable by associating them with same-sex attraction, in much the same way that the phrase thats so gay has more recently been used to imply that something is rubbish.

RECLAIMING QUEER

One activist strategy for dealing with racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression has been for people to reclaim the very words that are used against them. Examples include the reclaiming of words like nigger, slut, dyke, and faggot.