How would you define “queerness”? Is it the state of simply being “not straight” or something more complex, like challenging the mainstream normative notions of gender and sexuality? The former definition can be very restrictive because a) it places more focus on sexuality and does not include non-normative gender identities as well and b) it reinforces the binary of “straight” vs “queer”, the very worldview that the term “queerness” tries to dismantle. The latter definition, therefore, is probably how I would define it although here it is also important to include how other identities intersect with queerness as well since those other identities like race, class, and ethnicity influence how a person presents themselves.
“Queerness” is used by people all over the world because of its inclusivity since it acts as an umbrella term to include all identities instead of only using terms like “lesbian” or “bisexual” or “transgender” which can be restrictive and may not encompass all the nuances from a person’s diverse racial and cultural background. However, while it may be liberating to some people, it can also be offensive to others due to its history of being used as a derogatory slur.
Billie Olsen breaks down the etymology of the word “queer” in an article, in order to explain whether the term is considered offensive. The word was first used around 1513 to describe something as unusual, peculiar, or odd but the term was first used as a slur in 1894. American newspapers then later started to use this term derogatively in order to portray homosexuality as something unnatural and outside of the norm and over the years it started to become increasingly associated with homophobia. However, this word was then reclaimed in the late 1980s by folks in the LGBTQ+ community in order to describe their identities in a more positive connotation. Since then, it has been used by people as an all-inclusive term to describe those with non-normative identities.
In another fascinating article however, Alexander Cheves gives evidence how even after this development of “queerness” in the recent decades, people have mixed opinions about what it means to them, due to its problematic history. There are people who embrace this term with pride now after experiencing it being used as a slur growing up since “queerness” seems to represent everyone in the community and has “undefined abstractness” instead of forcing anyone to fit their identities into fixed boxes like “woman” and “bisexual”. This is not to say that queerness is an “identity-less non-definition” as one of the interviewees in the article, Jason Orne, talks about. Instead of meaning “no definition”, it should be seen as “all definitions”, an umbrella term of overlapping identities. However, then there are others who are more reluctant because this reclamation might erase the history of those who struggled and died because of their identities as they were continually called “queer” as a slur along with being victims of physical violence.
Even though queerness is perceived as an umbrella term, it is important to note that it is still heavily influenced by American and eurocentric notions. So in addition to having a problematic history, it might also cause a universalization of all human identities and experiences by perceiving all identities elsewhere through the lens of western queerness.
In other words, queerness contains all non-normative identities and yet most people still think of the term as some combination and overlap of the labels contained in the English language acronym LGBTQIA+ which leaves little room for identities that use a different vocabulary and language that cannot be directly translated without doing injustice to those unique identities. Due to popular media such as movies, tv shows, the internet, and current politics, the western notions of queerness are now circulating globally to assimilate non-western notions, which causes erasure of local, unique identities.
For instance, there are many diverse categories of identities in India that cannot be contained under any of the western labels that seems to represent the majority of what being queer and queerness means. Hijras, kothis, kinnars, panthis, jogtas, dangas, alis, chhakkas, dhuranis and other local identities cannot be accurately represented using any of the western labels of queerness, yet these labels are widely used to categorize them in conversations about human rights movements and HIV/AIDS discourses in India. The different local identities listed above are all put under the fixed category of “transgender”, but this category does not leave space for the ambiguity and uniqueness of these identities that originate from their culture. For instance, hijras are an all encompassing term for those who are male-assigned women, those who identify with both genders, or those who identify with neither whereas kinnars are exclusively north-Indian hijras. Furthermore, hijras as a community have their own practices and culture wherein they do a performative hand-clapping, dance at special events like weddings, and give their blessings to newly weds and newborn babies. All of these practices are an important and equally valid part of their identity as a hijra that the word “transgender” cannot completely represent. Queerness being an umbrella term would therefore work to represent this identity but it needs to start being perceived globally as a term that includes identities outside of the english/western acronym.
Similar to how the diverse, local identities are all put under the category of “transgender”, other identities that describe same-sex relationships are put under the fixed label of “gay” or “lesbian” which are also Western labels to describe queerness. For instance, Evelyn Blackwood in her novel Falling Into the Lesbi World makes queerness as experienced by people in Indonesia more visible by describing how same-sex relationships form between tombois (a person with masculine traits) and femmes (a women with normative, feminine traits). These relationships blur the lines between homosexuality and heterosexuality since they align with normative sexual identities and subvert them at the same time but categorizing them using western labels like “lesbian” is restrictive and does not encompass the rich, complex, and contradictory practices of these queer subjects. The term “queerness” thus need to be perceived more transnationally to include identities outside of western nomenclature that defines same-sex relationships.
The English language labels like LGBTQIA+ that seem to dominate what queerness means due to the globalization of Western culture thus need to be adjusted in order to make other, equally valid and prominent queer identities in non-western cultures more visible. This is because the current monopoly of western standards of what it means to be “queer” causes other non-western identities to be perceived as backward or in need of education or erases their uniqueness by assimilating their identities with the dominant Western definition of “queerness”. Even though queerness by definition is an umbrella term for all identities, it needs to also be perceived as such so that all the diverse identities can be included and recognized in the global queer space.