Квир: история и современное значение термина

Umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or not cisgender

Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Originally meaning or , queer came to be used pejoratively against LGBT people in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word as a deliberately provocative and politically radical alternative to the more assimilationist branches of the LGBT community. Academic disciplines such as queer theory and queer studies share a general opposition to binarism, normativity, and a perceived lack of intersectionality, some of them only tangentially connected to the LGBT movement. Queer arts, queer cultural groups, and queer political groups are examples of modern expressions of queer identities. Critics of the use of the term include members of the LGBT community who associate the term more with its colloquial, derogatory usage,

Entering the English language in the century, queer originally meant "strange", "odd", "peculiar", or "eccentric". It might refer to something suspicious or "not quite right", or to a person with mild derangement or who exhibits socially inappropriate behaviour. The Northern English expression "there's nowt so queer as folk", meaning "there is nothing as strange as people", employs this meaning. Related meanings of queer include a feeling of unwellness or something that is questionable or suspicious. The expression "in Queer Street" is used in the United Kingdom for someone in financial trouble. Over time, queer acquired a number of meanings related to sexuality and gender, from narrowly meaning "gay or lesbian" to referring to those who are "not heterosexual" to referring to those who are either not heterosexual or not cisgender (those who are LGBT+). The term is still widely used in Hiberno English with its original meaning as well as to provide adverbial emphasis (very, extremely).

By the late 19th century, queer was beginning to gain a connotation of sexual deviance, used to refer to feminine men or men who were thought to have engaged in same sex relationships. An early recorded usage of the word in this sense was in an 1894 letter by John Sholto Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry. Queer was used in mainstream society by the 20th century, along with fairy and faggot, as a pejorative term to refer to men who were perceived as flamboyant. This was, as historian George Chauncey notes, "the predominant image of all queers within the straight mind". Starting in the underground gay bar scene in the 1950s, then moving more into the open in the 1960s and 1970s, the homophile identity was gradually displaced by a more radicalized gay identity. At that time gay was generally an umbrella term including lesbians, as well as gay identified bisexuals and transsexuals; gender nonconformity, which had always been an indicator of gayness, as well as those who exhibited non normative gender expressions.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, queer, fairy, trade, and gay signified distinct social categories within the gay male subculture. In his book Gay New York, Chauncey noted that queer was used as a within community identity term by men who were stereotypically masculine. Many queer identified men at the time were, according to Chauncey, "repelled by the style of the fairy and his loss of manly status, and almost all were careful to distinguish themselves from such men", especially because the dominant straight culture did not acknowledge such distinctions. Trade referred to straight men who would engage in same sex activity; Chauncey describes trade as "the 'normal men' [queers] claimed to be. "</blockquote>

Beginning in the late 1980s, the label queer began to be reclaimed from its pejorative use as a neutral or positive self identifier by LGBT people. The flier included a passage explaining their adoption of the label queer:

blockquote|Ah, do we really have to use that word? It's trouble. Every gay person has his or her own take on it. For some it means strange and eccentric and kind of mysterious [ ] And for others "queer" conjures up those awful memories of adolescent suffering [ ] Well, yes, "gay" is great. It has its place. But when a lot of lesbians and gay men wake up in the morning we feel angry and disgusted, not gay. So we've chosen to call ourselves queer. Using "queer" is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world. The queer movement rejected causes viewed as assimilationist, such as marriage, military inclusion and adoption. This radical stance and rejection of U. S. imperialism The 'Q' in extended versions of the LGBT acronym, such as LGBTQIA+, is most often considered an abbreviation of queer. It can also stand for questioning.

Reclamation and use of the term queer is controversial; several people and organizations, both LGBT and non LGBT, object to some or all uses of the word for various reasons. Some LGBT people dislike the use of queer as an umbrella term because they associate it with political and social radicalism; they say that deliberate use of the epithet queer by political radicals has, in their view, played a role in dividing the LGBT community by political opinion, class, gender, age, and other factors. Sociologist Joshua Gamson argues that the controversy about the word also marks a social and political divide in the LGBT community between those (including civil rights activists) who perceive themselves as "normal" and who wish to be seen as ordinary members of society and those who see themselves as separate, confrontational and/or not part of the ordinary social order. Other LGBT people disapprove of reclaiming or using queer because they consider it offensive, in part due to its continued use as a pejorative. Some LGBT people avoid queer because they perceive it as faddish slang, or alternatively as academic jargon.

Queer is sometimes expanded to include any non normative sexuality, including (cisgender) "queer heterosexuality". This has been criticized by some LGBTQ people, who argue that queer can only be reclaimed by those it has been used to oppress: "A straight person identifying as queer can feel like choosing to appropriate the good bits, the cultural and political cachet, the clothes and the sound of gay culture, without the internalized homophobia of lived gay experience." Many queer people believe that "you don't have to identify as queer if you're on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, but you do have to be on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum to identify as queer." Many studies have acknowledged the problems that lie within the traditional theory and process of social studies, and so choose to utilize a queer theoretical approach instead. One such study was conducted in Melbourne in 2016 by Roffee and Waling. By using queer and feminist theories and approaches the researchers were better equipped to cater for the needs, and be accommodating for the vulnerabilities, of the LGBTIQ participants of the study. In this case, it was a specifically post modern queer theory that enabled the researchers to approach the study with a fair perspective, acknowledging all the varieties of narratives and experiences within the LGBTIQ community.

Several LGBT social movements around the world use the identifier queer, such as the Queer Cyprus Association in Cyprus and the Queer Youth Network in the United Kingdom. In India, pride parades include Queer Azaadi Mumbai and the Delhi Queer Pride Parade. The use of queer and Q is also widespread in Australia, including national counselling and support service Qlife and QNews. Other social movements exist as offshoots of queer culture or combinations of queer identity with other views. Adherents of queer nationalism support the notion that the LGBT community forms a distinct people due to their unique culture and customs. Queercore (originally homocore) is a cultural and social movement that began in the mid 1980s as an offshoot of punk expressed in a do it yourself style through zines, music, writing, art and film. The term queer migration is used to describe the movement of LGBTQ people around the world often to escape discrimination or ill treatment due to their orientation or gender expression. Organizations such as the Iranian Railroad for Queer Refugees and Rainbow Railroad attempt to assist individuals in such relocations.

The label queer is often applied to art movements, particularly cinema. New Queer Cinema was a movement in queer themed independent filmmaking in the early 1990s. Modern queer film festivals include the Melbourne Queer Film Festival and Mardi Gras Film Festival (run by Queer Screen) in Australia, the Mumbai Queer Film Festival in India, the Asian Queer Film Festival in Japan, and Queersicht in Switzerland. Chinese film director Cui Zi'en titled his 2008 documentary about homosexuality in China Queer China, which premiered at the 2009 Beijing Queer Film Festival after previous attempts to hold a queer film festival were shut down by the government. Multidisciplinary queer arts festivals include the Outburst Queer Arts Festival Belfast in Northern Ireland, the Queer Arts Festival in Canada, and the National Queer Arts Festival in the United States. Television shows that use queer in their titles include the UK series Queer as Folk and its American Canadian remake of the same name, Queer Eye, and the cartoon Queer Duck.