Yes, I wrote the Q word. It used to be a great word, or so I thought. As a young teen, my friends and I said it all the time. "Isn't John so queeeer?" John was geeky, definitely not cool and therefore queer. We exclaimed "Eeeew, QUEER" when referring to some social gaff committed by a boy who was well, queer. The word was fun to say. (By the way, I never said it to anyone's face, ever!)
I don't know where I realized that queer had a meaning other than strange. I only know that I had no clue or even inkling about homosexuality until I was about 16. It was 1972 in Bloomington, Minnesota, and I heard a bunch of boys on "the triangle," our makeshift baseball field which was really a short section of boulevard, mercilessly teasing a boy with the scurrilous taunt, "What are you queer? You homo!" The kid protested that he was not a homo and the ruckus ended with him, playing first base, a yield sign.
I went home to think about what it meant to be a "homo." I opened my yearbook and paged through to see if any of my friends might be gay. There were a couple of guys who, now that I was aware of the concept, might be. As you might guess, no one was openly gay in my large suburban high school. I did't include girls in this search, because it didn't occur to me that girls could be gay too.
So I stopped using the word queer and became aware of other's sexuality and mine as well. And that's another story.
I don't know where I realized that queer had a meaning other than strange. I only know that I had no clue or even inkling about homosexuality until I was about 16. It was 1972 in Bloomington, Minnesota, and I heard a bunch of boys on "the triangle," our makeshift baseball field which was really a short section of boulevard, mercilessly teasing a boy with the scurrilous taunt, "What are you queer? You homo!" The kid protested that he was not a homo and the ruckus ended with him, playing first base, a yield sign.
I went home to think about what it meant to be a "homo." I opened my yearbook and paged through to see if any of my friends might be gay. There were a couple of guys who, now that I was aware of the concept, might be. As you might guess, no one was openly gay in my large suburban high school. I did't include girls in this search, because it didn't occur to me that girls could be gay too.
So I stopped using the word queer and became aware of other's sexuality and mine as well. And that's another story.
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