– adj – A reclaimed, positive, and affirming term that is commonly used by people within the LGBTQ+ community despite its historical use as a pejorative slur. Often, the term queer is used to refer to people who are neither cisgender or heterosexual as a unifying umbrella term inclusive of everyone in the LGBTQ+ community. Many (but not all) LGBTQ+ people are comfortable using this term under its reclaimed meaning. In some cases, the term queer is used to describe multiple people (e.g., “the queer community”); in other cases, individuals use it as their term of choice in describing their personal sexual orientation and/or gender identity (e.g., “she is a queer woman”; “they are queer”).
