Writing Queer

Ididn’t know it, but I was mentally ill until about age 16. Anybody queer was considered “mentally ill” until 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association removed the diagnosis of homosexuality as a disorder (though “sexual orientation disturbance” endured in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual until 1987). Like millions of LGBTQ children and adults, I knew I was different, and not in a socially acceptable way. We didn’t even know there were millions of us. We thought maybe we were the only one.

Back then, a person who wanted or needed to explore the queer lifestyle had to be extremely circumspect in their hunt for information and validation. The words queer, fag, homo and lezzie were dreaded slurs, used by even young children who didn’t know what the words meant.

The word “queer,” however, has emerged as an acceptable term for any kind of alternative sexuality or sexual orientation. LGBT, which stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, is the clunky yet useful initialism that surfaced in the 1990s. The addition of Q, meaning queer, includes pretty much any sexual/gender variation, including intersexual, asexual and cross-dressing. Not everybody agrees to these shorthand helpers, but in the interest of simplicity, I’m using queer here as an all-inclusive term.

Porn shops, peep shows and underground bars, of course, were