ABSTRACT
Most modern scholars and popular purveyors of the term ‘queer’ agree that its use is by defi nition an alternative reinterpretation of standard categories, a questioning and re-analysis of standard views about culture and peoples. The signifi cance of ‘queer’ is that it is also a re - action. It is an active response to the standards and customs of social non-inclusion, against marginalization and against discrimination. The use of queer as a concept and proclamation stems from the gay and lesbian movements for equality that started well before but are symbolically dated to the Stonewall riots. It was the general uprising in the public sphere that reclaimed ‘queer’ from being a derogatory label and symbolically re-positioned the term for positive resistance against normative exclusion.
