The reason why I like the word "queer" is because it's all encompassing. What is considered legitimate and accepted sexualities has changed over the years, from being solely heterosexuality, to both homosexuality and heterosexuality, and soon after included bisexuality and transgenderism. However, binaries still exist within the concept of sexuality, that a person is either one or the other, without any room for fluidity. Society has a tendency to try to label and squeeze people into a rigid box that has precise characteristics boundaries, but in all truth, that is not how sexuality works. The gay-straight binary often causes other alternative sexualities to become invisible, such as the "BT" in "GLBT" (which are acknowledged, but misunderstood and often overlooked), asexuals, pansexuals, ect. However, since each person's sexuality is unique as each person themselves, it's impossible to expect everyone to exactly into a certain category in "the rainbow." This is why "queer" is awesome. It is descriptive of anything that doesn't fall into "the norm" of sexuality or gender expression. It is descriptive of anything that doesn't fall into "the norm" of "abnormal" sexuality or gender expression. So suppose a woman is lesbian, but doesn't adhere to the Hollywood perpetuated butch stereotype. Suppose a gay man prefers sitting down and watching the football game with a beer rather than a day out shopping that a more effeminate or "sissy," as the book would say, gay man would enjoy. Suppose a bisexual has a preference to one gender consistently, or maybe his or her preference changes from day to day. It doesn't matter. Every example offered above falls under the rainbow umbrella of queer, and it's wonderful.
This really reflects a compassion for humanity that would be nice to see more frequently. By saying that you like "queers," you are saying that you like everyone, as everyone has some aspect of queerness to their nature.
I like that you mention the sexuality stereotypes because I see this as extremely prevalent. I have never, in my life, met someone who adheres strictly to their sexual stereotype. I have never met a gay man (or a straight woman) who is not, at the very least, intrigued by things deemed typically masculine. Nor have I ever met a lesbian (or a straight man) that is unable to/uninterested in fulfill typical feminine roles. Yet these same people that themselves do not perfectly fulfill what is expected of them, judge others who do not "play the part." Femme lesbians judge other femme lesbians. Masculine gay men judge other masculine gay men. I think this is related to the fact that while we do not want others to categorize us, we would like to have the ability to categorize and understand them at all times.
I really enjoyed this post. After reading several other responses I do not feel that other blogs completely understand the inclusions that are given to the word queer, and instead focus on a scale of ranging from gay-to-straight and sometimes people fall in the middle. Which of course is an inaccurate depiction of Queer; as, it needs to include fluidity and gender identity as well.
Society has always neededto form culture into small, neat and comformed boxes. The thought that queer encompasses many different forms of sexuality isrejected by those that think in these boxes. I loved this post as much as the aforementioned.
I argue though that queer is synonymous with the GLBT community. I don't think sexuality is percieved as fluid by the general community. It is more likely that fluid sexuality is as unacceptable as homosexuality.