different between queer vs transgender

English

Alternative forms

• qwer (Bermuda)

Etymology

Attested since about 1510, from Scots, perhaps from Middle Low German (Brunswick dialect) queer (“oblique, off-center”) (also compare with German quer (“diagonally”)), from Proto-Germanic *þwerhaz, from Proto-Indo-European *terk?- (“to turn, twist, wind”). Compare Latin torqueo. Related to thwart. Began to be used to describe gay people in the late 1800s, see usage notes for more.

Pronunciation

• (General American) enPR: kwîr, IPA^(key): /kw??/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: kwîr, IPA^(key): /kw??/
• Rhymes: -??(?)

Adjective

queer (comparative queerer, superlative queerest)

1. (dated outside Scotland) Weird, odd or different; whimsical. [from 16th c.]
   • 1865, Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

     “I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.”

   • 1877, Ulysses S. Grant, page 252, The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: November 1, 1876–September 30, 1878

     One thing has struck me as a bit queer. During my two terms of office the whole Democratic press, and the morbidly honest and 'reformatory' portion of the Republican press, thought it horrible to keep U.S. troops stationed in the Southern States, and when they were called upon to protect the lives of negroes–as much citizens under the Constitution as if their skins were white–the country was scarcely large enough to hold the sound of indignation belched forth by them for some years. Now, however, there is no hesitation about exhausting the whole power of the government to suppress a strike on the slightest intimation that danger threatens.

   • 1885, David Dixon Porter, page 274, Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War

     It looked queer to me to see boxes labeled "His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America." The packages so labeled contained Bass ale or Cognac brandy, which cost "His Excellency" less than we Yankees had to pay for it. Think of the President drinking imported liquors while his soldiers were living on pop-corn and water!

   • 1927, J. B. S. Haldane, “Possible Worlds” in Possible Worlds and Other Papers, London: Chatto & Windus,^{[5], [6]}

     Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.

2. (Britain, informal, dated) Slightly unwell (mainly in "to feel queer"). [from 18th c.]
3. (Britain, slang) Drunk.
4. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) Homosexual. [from 19th c.]
5. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) Not heterosexual, or not cisgender: homosexual, bisexual, asexual, transgender, etc.
6. (broadly) Pertaining to sexual or gender behaviour or identity which does not conform to conventional heterosexual or cisgender norms, assumptions etc. [from 20th c.]
   • 1999, Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, Routledge 2002, preface to 1999 edition:

     If gender is no longer to be understood as consolidated through normative sexuality, then is there a crisis of gender that is specific to queer contexts?

Usage notes

• Queer, in the sense of "gay" or "non-heterosexual", has gone in and out of use as a pejorative and as a self-identifier a number of times: it began to be used to describe gay people in the late 1800s (e.g. in an 1894 letter by John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry), and became more widespread in the US and became used as a self-identifier by American gay men by the 1910s, continuing into the 1950s, though by the 1940s younger ones considered it pejorative and preferred gay, which had been in used since the 1930s, and had come by the 1950s to encompass the whole LGBT community. Queer began to be reclaimed as a neutral or positive descriptor by the 1980s, at first most prominently by those who wanted to distinguish themselves from gay-identified people they felt had become too conservative and assimilationist. Some other people oppose the term as being still pejorative, or too radical, too informal, or too technical. The pejorative applied mainly to those assigned male at birth who were perceived as homosexual or effeminate; the reclaimed term is used by people of any sex or gender. Sometimes, the word refers only to nonheterosexual people and sexuality (and thus, speakers may contrast e.g. "queer trans women" with "straight trans women"), while at other times the word includes noncisgender people and is analogous to LGBT. (Compare genderqueer.)
• See also Wikipedia.
• The word queer is still in regular, everyday use in Scotland in its original meaning of strange or weird.

Synonyms

• (weird, odd or different): See Thesaurus:strange
• (unwell): See Thesaurus:diseased
• (homosexual): See Thesaurus:homosexual
• (unconventional sexual behavior):

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? German: queer
• ? Swedish: queer

Translations

Noun

queer (plural queers)

1. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualities.
2. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A person of any non-heterosexual sexuality or sexual identity.
3. (colloquial, sometimes derogatory) A person of any genderqueer identity.
4. (definite, with "the", informal, archaic) Counterfeit money.
   • 1913, Rex Stout, Her Forbidden Knight, 1997 Carroll & Graf edition, ?ISBN, page 133:

     You're shoving the queer.

   Synonyms: funny money, snide

Usage notes

• See the notes on the adjective (above) for more on the meaning of the term.
• Regarding the use of the term as a noun, compare the usage notes about gay.

Synonyms

• (homosexual person): See Thesaurus:homosexual person or Thesaurus:male homosexual

Hypernyms

• LGBTQ, QUILTBAG

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

queer (third-person singular simple present queers, present participle queering, simple past and past participle queered)

1. (transitive, dated) To render an endeavor or agreement ineffective or null.
   • 1955, Rex Stout, "When a Man Murders...", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 78:

     I was a lot more apt to queer it than help it.

   Synonym: invalidate

2. (Britain, dialect, dated) To puzzle.
   • 1887, G. W. Appelton, A Terrible Legacy: A Tale of the South Downs, London: Ward and Downey, Chapter II, page 12, [8]:

     "But lor-a-mussy, Jacob, how could a woman get away from here with all her boxes in the middle of the night?"

     "That's what queered me," and Spink slowly shook his head, "and queered a good many; for of course it got newsed about […] "

   • 1894, Ivan Dexter, Talmud: A Strange Narrative of Central Australia, published in serial form in Port Adelaide News and Lefevre's Peninsula Advertiser (SA), Chapter III, [9]:

     "Where do you come from?" Stanley queered.

3. (slang, dated) To ridicule; to banter; to rally.
4. (slang, dated) To spoil the effect or success of, as by ridicule; to throw a wet blanket on; to spoil.
   • 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Book Two, Chapter IV, pages 270-271, [10]:

     "Food is what queered the party. We ordered a big supper to be sent up to the room about two o'clock. Alec didn't give the waiter a tip, so I guess the little bastard snitched."

   • 1926, D. H. Lawrence, "Glad Ghosts" in The Complete Short Stories, Penguin, 1977, Vol. 3, page 678:

     Well, then I got buried—shell dropped, and the dug-out caved in—and that queered me. They sent me home.

5. (social sciences) To reevaluate or reinterpret (a work) with an eye to sexual orientation and/or to gender, as by applying queer theory.
   • 2003, Marcella Althaus-Reid, The Queer God, page 9:

     If I go, for instance, to the history of the church in Latin America, and decide to queer the history of the Jesuitic Missions, I may find that, in many ways, the missions were more sexual than Christian.

   • 2006, Carla Freccero, Queer/Early/Modern (page 80)

     Jonathan Goldberg further explores the implications of queering history in his essay in the same volume.

   • 2013, Mark Davidson, Deborah Martin, Urban Politics: Critical Approaches, SAGE (?ISBN), chapter 8:

     We might say that there has been a ‘queering’ of urban studies insofar as the metropolitan lives, subcultures and social movements of gays and lesbians are now seen as valid objects of study.

Derived terms

Translations

Adverb

queer (comparative more queer, superlative most queer)

1. Queerly.

Translations

References

• queer at OneLook Dictionary Search
• queer in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• queer in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Etymology

From English queer.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kwi?/

Adjective

queer (invariable)

1. queer (not conforming to traditional sexuality)

German

Etymology 1

Borrowed from English queer.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kvi???/

Adjective

queer (not comparable)

1. (colloquial) queer
   • 2019, metamorphosen 23 – Queer: Magazin für Literatur und Kultur, metamorphosen im Verbrecher Verlag (?ISBN), page 5:

     Die nachvollziehbare Gegenwehr macht queer zu einer immer verbisseneren Chiffre für eine vermeintlich klar abgegrenzte Identität: anti-rassistisch, anti-kapitalistisch, radikal. QUEER IST UTOPISTISCH. Bin ich queer genug?

Declension

Etymology 2

Adjective

queer

1. Alternative form of quer

Declension

Adverb

queer

1. Alternative form of quer

Further reading

• “queer” in Duden online

Polish

Etymology

From English queer, from Scots, perhaps from Middle Low German (Brunswick dialect) queer, from Proto-Germanic *þwerhaz, from Proto-Indo-European *terk?-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kwir/

Noun

queer m inan (indeclinable)

1. queerness (quality of being queer, in the sense of not conforming to sexual or gender norms)

Derived terms

• (adjective) queerowy

Further reading

• queer in Wielki s?ownik j?zyka polskiego, Instytut J?zyka Polskiego PAN
• queer in Polish dictionaries at PWN

English

Etymology

From trans- +? gender. First used in English by John Oliven in 1965, the term had acquired its current senses by the 1990s (by which time it had also largely displaced the earlier term transsexual; see usage notes).

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /t?ænz?d??nd?/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /t?anz?d??nd?/
• Rhymes: -?nd?(?)

Adjective

transgender (not comparable)

1. (strictly) Having a gender (identity) which is different from the sex one was assigned at birth: being assigned male at birth but having a female or non-binary gender or vice versa; or, pertaining to such people. (Compare transsexual, and the following sense.)
   • 2010, Jessica Green, "I'm sorry, I'm not lesbian", The Guardian, 3 Mar 2010:

     One head of a small gay charity visibly flinched when I mentioned my boyfriend and has been cold towards me ever since. I've even caught someone staring down my top to see if I'm transgender.

   • 2010, Natasha Lennard, "City Room", New York Times, 7 Apr 2010:

     But the inclusion of the word “trannie” — a pejorative, in some circles — in the title, and the film’s parodic representation of transgender women, has offended many people.

2. (broadly) Not identifying with culturally conventional gender roles and categories of male or female; having changed gender identity from male to female or female to male, or identifying with elements of both, or having some other gender identity; or, pertaining to such people. (Compare genderqueer, transsexual.)
   • 1998, John Cloud, "Trans across America", Time, 20 Feb 1998:

     Their first step was to reclaim the power to name themselves: transgender is now the term most widely used, and it encompasses everyone from cross-dressers (those who dress in clothes of the opposite sex) to transsexuals (those who surgically "correct" their genitals to match their "real" gender).

3. (of a space) Intended primarily for transgender people.
   • 2001, Walter O. Bockting, Sheila Kirk, Transgender and HIV: Risks, Prevention, and Care, page 46:

     In Boston, no AIDS prevention messages are posted at the primary drag queen and transgender bar.
4. (of a space) Available for use by transgender people (in addition to non-transgender people).
   • 2002 October 2, Boston Globe, Group wants transgender bathrooms for UMASS, quoted in 2010, Sheila L. Cavanagh, Queering Bathrooms ?ISBN
   • 2010, Harvey Molotch, Laura Noren, Toilet: Public Restrooms and the Politics of Sharing, page 199:

     Why the sudden outcry for transgender bathrooms?

   • 2013, William Keith, Christian O. Lundberg, Public Speaking: Choice and Responsibility:

     In contrast, in a democratic conversation or dialogue, the speaker would begin by identifying the larger public issues that connect to the availability of transgender bathrooms: equality, civil rights, […]

Usage notes

• The term transgender was coined in 1965 and popularized in the late 1970s, and by the 1990s it had largely displaced the older, narrower term transsexual. Transsexual is now often considered outdated although some people still prefer it; see its entry for more. Neither term should be confused with transvestite (which see for more).
• For the usage of this word (and similar adjectives) as a noun, see below.

Hypernyms

• LGBT
• LGBT+

Hyponyms

Synonyms

• TG (abbreviated form)
• trans (abbreviated form)
• trans* (abbreviated form, broad sense)
• transgendered (uncommon, offensive)

Antonyms

• cisgender

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• Japanese: ????????? (toransujend?)

Translations

Noun

transgender (usually uncountable, plural transgenders)

1. (countable, now often offensive) A transgender person.
   • 2005, Walter Bockting & Eric Avery, Transgender Health and HIV Prevention, page 116:

     In a patriarchal society in which machismo rules, MTF transgenders represent a challenge to traditional masculinity due to their renouncing of the male position of social power.

   • 2014, Sheila Jeffreys, Gender Hurts (page 70)

     This public presentation of the mutilation of the penis is not obviously very different from the forms of disassembly of the penis engaged in by male body modifiers – particularly nullos and transgenders – on the Body Modification Ezine website.

   • 2015, Helen Davies, Transgender woman forced to move house after death threats and knife in her front door (in The Liverpool Echo)

     Nat spent years being victimised as a male to female transgender but was too scared to report it.

2. (uncountable, rare) Transgenderism; the state of being transgender. (Compare transsex.)
   • 2007, Alison Stone, An Introduction to Feminist Philosophy ?ISBN, page 41

     Before we can answer this question, we need to consider two other phenomena – transsex and transgender – which also expose the muddle within conventional categories of sex.

Usage notes

• In Western countries, many transgender people consider the use of transgender (and similar adjectives) as a noun to be offensive, and several guides advise against such usage. "A transgender man" (for a man who was assigned the female sex at birth) or "a transgender woman" (for the reverse) is frequently more appropriate.

Hypernyms

• LGBT

Coordinate terms

• two-spirit, berdache
• hijra

Translations

Verb

transgender (third-person singular simple present transgenders, present participle transgendering, simple past and past participle transgendered)

1. (uncommon) To change the gender of; (used loosely) to change the sex of. (Compare transsex.)
   • 2005, Sue Tolleson-Rinehart, Jyl J. Josephson, Gender and American Politics ?ISBN, pages 15 and 205:

     […] and one that is still dominated by male nominees, women nominees might be seen as either contributing to the regendering, or the transgendering, of the Cabinet.

     […]

     This chapter examines women secretaries-designate in terms of their contributions to regendering or transgendering a cabinet office, to a gender desegregation or integration of the cabinet.

   • For quotations using this term, see Citations:transgender.

Usage notes

• In Western countries, many transgender people consider the use of transgender (and similar adjectives) as a verb in reference to transgender individuals to be offensive, much the same as its use as a noun. "A transgender man" (for a man who was assigned the female sex at birth) or "a transgender woman" (for a woman who was assigned the male sex at birth) is frequently more appropriate.

Related terms

See also

• LGBT, LGBTQ, LGBTQIA
• crossdress; drag
• SRS
• intersex
• acault
• sworn virgin

References

Afrikaans

Adjective

transgender

1. transgender

Dutch

Etymology

From English transgender. See also gender.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?tr?ns.??n.d?r/, /?tr?ns.d??n.d?r/

Adjective

transgender (invariable, not comparable)

1. transgender

See also

• transseksueel