“We’re here, we’re queer” became a protest mantra while anarcho-queers rallied around “queercore,” the queer punk music scene, a term some credit to cult filmmaker Bruce LaBruce. “Queer” got rebranded in the ’90s during the AIDS crisis. The press recorded it and the slur stuck. So many zingers are recorded from those trials that this seems plausible: Sir John Douglas, the Marquess of Queensbury (seriously), who first called Wilde a sodomite and launched the gay playwright’s epic demise, reportedly called Wilde a “snob queer” during the proceedings. Some archivist or queer historian may corroborate or squash this idea, one I heard from a gay elder and pass on to you - that “queer” was actually the word preferred by the first wave of queens, fresh from the closet, sweating in word-of-mouth discotheques that migrated through the city.Īccording to the internet, “queer” first became an antigay slur during the trials of Oscar Wilde. I can find little evidence of this on the internet, but since gay culture is passed down through hearsay and gossip, I’m including this. In America, some say, “queer” was the first term.
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