We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it

The word ‘queer’ has been reclaimed by members of our community since the 1970s and we now use it to signify pride, power and resistance, says Emma Joliffe

Karl Lockwood, who asks you not to use “the Q-word” (Letters, 13 January), was born in the late 1950s. He would have come of age with the gay rights movement, through the decriminalisation of homosexuality, towards gay power. “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” was, of course, a well-known chant. “Queer” has been reclaimed by members of our community since the 1970s.

It is unfortunate, then, that for him, the word clearly still holds some pain and distress. For the rest of us, we use it to signify our pride, power and resistance.

Personally, as a woman married to a woman, and as a feminist, socialist and believer in challenging and changing the status quo, I think “queer” represents me, my life and my politics, better than any other term I might use.

Rather than policing the terms used by others – especially considering that for millennials, the word they were most likely to hear as a term of abuse was “gay” in the early 00s – perhaps Karl should accept that the word, and the world, has moved on.
Emma Joliffe
St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex

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