A recent survey done by the website The Gay UK has found that 60% of those polled find using the term “Queer” to describe members of the LGBT community is offensive and inappropriate.
The poll which was done in July 2017 asked over 200 people whether they thought queer as an umbrella term for the LGBT+ community was acceptable and sixty percent did not. Some commented that the word was “deeply offensive”, particularly to men who identified as gay.
The word queer is still used as a slur against many people in the community, particularly gay and bisexual men, and although some may refer to themselves in this way, the website says it’s probably best not to use language that causes offence to others.
Only seven percent of the gay men surveyed thought that the term “queer” was acceptable
Case in point: John Kichi, a 66-year-old writer and marketing expert in Sewickley, Pa., recalled how decades ago he was thrown out of an apartment and later lost a prestigious job because he was gay.
So when he began an online application for a job at Colorado College recently, he was shocked by a question that asked applicants to check one of five genders: “not disclosed,” “male,” “female,” “transgender” — or “queer.”
“It would be like if they put down for race: ‘white,’ ‘Latino,’ ‘black’ and then the ‘N’ word,'” Kichi told ABCNews.com. “Every one of my gay friends is appalled by this.
“I think queer harkens back to a time when being gay was a documented medical abnormality,” he said. “Queer is also not a gender, and if you want to list sexual orientation, that’s even more egregious.
While certain direct action groups began in the late 1980’s like Queer Nation used the word in the militant vernacular. Lately many QPOC (LGBT people of color), and millennial have begun to reclaim queer in response the ever widening LGBTQ!A+ umbrella without any thoughts or concern to those in the LGBT community that were harassed and harmed in the past and many who still are in the present by the word “queer”.
With PRIDE month coming fast everyone should be proud of who they are. Gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, transgender.
I am a proud gay man.
Proud of the word “queer”?
Not so much.
How do you feel about the queer? Sound off in the comments below.
“Yes, my gay son was known in our family for bringing me flowers on my birthday and Mother’s Day. He also was known for careening down the rugby pitch, and, on the morning of September 11, 2001, for charging unarmed down the aisle of a doomed Boeing 757 to face knife-wielding Islamist thugs in a hijacked cockpit.”