What "queer" means and why it is such a useful word

 

"Queer" is a great word that can be used to describe those who not belong to the heterosexual/non-transgender majority.

Sometimes, but just sometimes, the queer debate becomes so neurotic that it does more harm than good. The discussion about the term queer can serve as one example of this. We have become so afraid of offending anyone that we dismiss terms that can serve us well, because they were once used as slurs.

"Queer" originally meant strange or odd. In the US it became a slur used against everyone cisgender/heteronormative people saw as gay. 

Since the early 1990s, however, an increasing number of gender diverse and non-heterosexual people have been using it as an umbrella term for all kinds of variance in the realms of sexuality and gender. 

Is queer a slur?

How can you use a slur to describe a group of people that is constantly bullied, harassed and invalidated? The answer: Because we can. 

Transgender and nonbinary news curation in social media

We provide links to the latest transgender and queer news and resources through our social media channels on twitter, tumblr, Flipboard and Telegram.

Anyone who wants to keep track of the transgender and queer debate – whether this applies to culture, politics, health or models of understanding – is facing a serious challenge as to how to find relevant news and quality content.

Search engines like Google are becoming increasingly irrelevant in this respect, as few of us go beyond the first two pages of search results and because so much of the content delivered is produced by anti-trans and anti-queer activists.

This is why we need curators who can identify and share relevant content with those who want to know more about trans, nonbinary and queer issues.

Here's the problem: There is, to our knowledge, very few who provide such services. Reddit provides some input of this kind, but it is limited to the interests of those active there. Sites like Pink News, The Advocate, LGBTQ Nation, and Washington Blade provide a lot of useful information, but they are – for obvious reasons – focusing on their own content.

This is why we are providing transgender, nonbinary and queer news curation in several channels, the latest of which is our Transgender World Telegram channels.

Here are our our transgender and queer news sites and accounts:

Trans Express on twitter.
This is our most expansive and up to date news source. We post some five to ten links of relevant content every day.

Trans Express on tumblr.
On average we publish one new post presenting relevant transgender and queer content every day.

Transgender News on Flipboard
Here we present much of the same content as on twitter, but in a practical newspaper format.

Transgender World on Telegram
Telegram is our newest offering. We realized that there were no serious transgender news sources on this popular platform and decided to provide our own. This channel will present selected links from the sources mentioned above.

Photo: Alessandro Biascioli