In Tendencies, Eve Sedgwick provides a variety of meanings of queer, one of which is:
the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made (or can’t be made) to signify monolithically. The experimental linguistic, epistemological, representation, political adventures attaching to the very many of us who may at times be moved to describe ourselves as (among many other possibilities) pushy femmes, radical faeries, fantasists, drags, clones, leatherfolk, ladies in tuxedoes, feminist women or feminist men, masturbators, bulldaggers, divas, Snap! queens, butch bottoms, storytellers, transsexuals, aunties, wannabes, lesbian-identified men or lesbians who sleep with men, or… people able to relish, learn from, or identify with such. (8)
I’m also fond of Alison Bechdel’s definition from Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic:
Queer: v.t. “To spoil the effect or success of; to thwart, ruin; to put (one) in a bad position“ (57)
Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Mariner, 2006.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Tendencies. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 1993.
