Queer is a good word. I really like it, of course I’m of the generation that has never really had it used against them in anger. Or at least when it has been that has been overshadowed by the fact that it’s been familiar to me as a reclaimed slur.
Queer.
It’s a weirdly friendly word to me, so much so that when I unthinkingly used it in front of my parents as a general term for my Quiltbag family they were horrified and corrected me.
I think that this comes down to the idea that coming out over and over again is exhausting and queer is enough of a shorthand that I don’t need to explain myself so much. It almost feels like not exactly coming out, just saying – I belong here not out there with the straights but it doesn’t give all the details like actually coming out would.
Queer.
It’s like Family, in the way that the quiltbage of the nineties and noughties used to use for Queer Family.
It means home to me.