Rent-lowering gunshots:
QUEER IS NOT A SLUR
We reclaimed it way back in the 1980's. It is the accepted term used in academia, in colleges and universities ALL OVER THE PLACE.
I can't believe we have to have this discussion AGAIN. During PRIDE month.
Reminder from someone who was there, "queer is a slur" discourse just was not a thing in this century until about 2013, when TERFs here on Tumblr started astroturfing it and insisting that "gay" was the required inoffensive term.
They'd go through the tags and search, and just attack anyone who used the word queer -- reblogs, asks, they'd keep repeating what they wanted to sell until people forgot it wasn't the truth. One minute it was "oh we're not saying you can't use it for yourself but you're evil to use it for anyone else" and the next minute it was "how dare you use it for yourself".
That was a coordinated campaign for trans exclusion, a first big step in the extreme transphobia we're dealing with now; it caught bi/pan and aro/ace queers in the crossfire, and that sure wasn't a drawback for its proponents either. They wanted (and still want) only cis, allo, gold star gays and lesbians to be the acceptable not-straights.
Like OP says, "queer studies" has been the polite, respected, academic term for over forty years. The people who oppose it, oppose it because they want to gatekeep our identities. Fuck that noise.
