Queer

Queer functions in contemporary usage two ways at once: as a broad, deliberately inclusive umbrella label that people apply to themselves when a more specific orientation or gender term feels too narrow, and as the reclaimed form of a word that spent most of the 20th century as an anti-gay slur. The Human Rights Campaign defines it as "a term people often use to express a spectrum of identities and orientations that are counter to the mainstream," serving as a catch-all for people who do not identify as exclusively heterosexual and for those with non-binary or gender-expansive identities (HRC). That breadth separates queer from a specific label such as gay, which HRC defines narrowly as attraction "to members of the same gender."

Because of that history, acceptance of the word is not universal even within LGBTQ+ communities. The APA Dictionary of Psychology notes that the reclaimed, affirmative sense "is not accepted by all LGBTQ+ people" and that it should be used to describe only those who self-identify with it, not applied to others by default (APA Dictionary of Psychology). GLAAD's style guidance likewise treats queer as an umbrella and academic term appropriate in some contexts but advises against using it to describe an individual or group unless they use it themselves (GLAAD).

Queer is also the root of queer theory, an academic field examining sexuality and gender as socially constructed categories rather than fixed, binary essences.

Examples

Queer does two jobs at once (a wide identity umbrella and a reclaimed slur), and the usage rules follow from the second.

What the term covers. Any orientation or gender outside heterosexual and cisgender norms, claimed by people for whom a narrower label feels too small or carries connotations they reject: gay, bisexual, pansexual, non-binary and transgender people all use it. It also names an academic field (queer theory, coined by Teresa de Lauretis at a February 1990 conference), which treats sexuality and gender as constructed rather than fixed.

What the term does not cover. It is not a synonym for gay, which names one specific pattern of attraction where queer specifies none. Questioning is uncertainty rather than an affirmative identity, though people sometimes use queer provisionally while exploring. And it is not a term to apply to someone who has not claimed it: both GLAAD and the APA advise using it only for people who use it themselves.

How the word is used. It meant "strange" in sixteenth-century English, acquired a pejorative sexual sense by the late nineteenth (an 1894 letter by the Marquess of Queensberry, read aloud at Oscar Wilde's trial, is an early instance), and spent most of the twentieth as a slur. Reclamation began in the late 1960s and accelerated during the AIDS crisis, above all through Queer Nation's 1990 flyer "Queers Read This".

History

The word entered English in the 16th century meaning simply "strange" or "odd," with no sexual connotation. By the early 20th century it had become common derogatory slang for gay men, used alongside terms like "fairy" and "faggot" to mark perceived deviance from masculine and heterosexual norms; historian George Chauncey describes this as "the predominant image of all queers within the straight mind" in that era (Wikipedia). Even so, some masculine-identified gay men in early 20th-century subcultures used "queer" self-referentially to distinguish themselves from more visibly effeminate "fairies."

The APA Dictionary of Psychology dates the beginning of reclamation to the late 1960s onward, when some LGBTQ+ community members began adopting "queer" as a term of inclusive identification and pride rather than shame (APA Dictionary of Psychology). Reclamation accelerated sharply amid the AIDS crisis of the 1980s. The activist group Queer Nation, formed in New York in March 1990, distributed a flyer titled "Queers Read This" at the city's Pride march that June, explicitly reappropriating the slur as a tool of solidarity and confrontation and popularizing the chant "We're here, we're queer, get used to it" (Wikipedia).

That same activist moment fed directly into the academy: in February 1990, literary theorist Teresa de Lauretis coined the term "queer theory" at a conference she organized at the University of California, Santa Cruz, with proceedings published the following year in a special issue of the journal differences (Wikipedia: Teresa de Lauretis). The same year produced two more foundational texts, Judith Butler's Gender Trouble and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet (Wikipedia: Queer theory); de Lauretis herself abandoned "queer theory" within three years, arguing mainstream institutions had already absorbed the term she had coined to resist them (Wikipedia: Teresa de Lauretis).

Demographics & research

Survey data show the word is now widely, though not universally, adopted. Gallup's aggregated 2023 telephone interviews found roughly 1%–2% of LGBT adults specifically choose "queer" as their identity, a share similar to those choosing pansexual or asexual, within the 7.6% of all U.S. adults who identify as LGBTQ+ that year (Gallup). Pew Research Center's January 2025 survey of 3,959 LGBTQ adults found the label contested even inside the community it names: 48% said they think of themselves as queer, 44% said they do not, and 8% were unsure. Acceptance skewed sharply by age, from 59% among 18-to-29-year-olds down to under half among older LGBTQ adults, while 82% of transgender adults said they also think of themselves as queer (Pew Research Center).

Terminology & related identities

As an umbrella term, queer can stand in for the full range of non-heterosexual orientations (homosexuality, bisexuality, pansexuality) as well as non-cisgender identities, without specifying which. GLAAD's reference guide notes that people who adopt the label often do so because lesbian, gay and bisexual feel "too limiting and/or fraught with cultural connotations they feel do not apply to them" (GLAAD). People who are questioning their orientation or identity sometimes use "queer" provisionally while exploring more specific labels, though the two are not synonymous: questioning names uncertainty, while queer is an affirmative identity for those who claim it. Because the word remains a live slur in some contexts, especially for older LGBTQ+ people who lived through its pre-reclamation use, style guides consistently caution that it be applied only to those who claim it for themselves (GLAAD; APA Dictionary of Psychology).

Common misconceptions

A persistent misconception is that "queer" and "gay" are interchangeable. HRC's glossary treats gay as one specific pattern of attraction and queer as a broader umbrella covering orientation, romantic attraction, or gender identity, without specifying which (HRC). A second misconception is that reclamation settled whether the word is offensive. GLAAD and the APA both caution that it is "not a universally accepted term even within the LGBTQ community" and that for many older LGBTQ+ people who experienced it as an attack on their identity, it can still carry that weight; both advise using it only for people who apply it to themselves (GLAAD; APA Dictionary of Psychology). Pew's 2025 data bears this out numerically: nearly as many LGBTQ adults reject the label for themselves (44%) as embrace it (48%) (Pew Research Center).