Consider how your congregation’s welcome, advocacy, witness, and/or service around LGBTQ issues can be more grounded in the experiences and needs of those who are most marginalized, such as queer and trans youth, queer and trans people of color, and undocumented queer and trans immigrants.Since the late 1980s, theories of Gender and Sexuality have redefined how we think about culture and society.
Include the word queer in the language you use to talk about sexual orientation and gender identity: “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer” or “LGBTQ.”.Do personal, gentle, deep work in order to honor and respect those who use queer to describe themselves. If you personally have negative associations with the word queer, find ways to open yourself to new understandings of the word.Respect queer as a valid sexual orientation and identity label.Many people who have had the word queer used against them are understandably very uncomfortable with the word.ġ0 Ways to be More Welcoming and Inclusive of Queer People Queer is still sometimes used as a derogatory term. Queer (n.): an epithet or slur for someone perceived to be gay or lesbian.UU seminarian Elizabeth Nguyen has preached: “Queer, for many folks, is about resistance-resisting dominant culture’s ideas of ‘normal,’ rejoicing in transgression, celebrating the margins, reveling in difference, blessing ourselves.” Many people claim the label queer as a badge of honor that has a radical, political edge. Queer (adj.): transgressive, revolutionary, anti-assimilation, challenging of the status quo.Queer is sometimes used as an umbrella term to refer to all people with non-heterosexual sexual orientations or all people who are marginalized on the basis of sexual orientation. Similarly to the above, queer can be a label claimed by a person who feels that they personally don’t fit into dominant norms, due to their own gender identity/expression, their sexual practices, their relationship style, etc. Queer (adj.): not fitting cultural norms around sexuality and/or gender identity/expression.Queer can be a label claimed by a person who is attracted to men, women, genderqueer people, and/or other gender nonconforming people. Queer (adj.): attracted to people of many gendersĪlthough dominant culture tends to dictate that there are only two genders, gender is actually far more complex.Here are some ways that queer is used today: Queer is a multi-faceted word that is used in different ways and means different things to different people. One of the more complex of these words is queer, a word that entered the language of sexuality and gender as a derogatory term but is now worn and embraced with pride by many. New words have been born other words have changed meanings and usages. Over the last 50 years, language around sexuality and gender has shifted and changed in incredible ways.