The Similarity between Quaker and Queer

In Japan, media tends to call LGBT+ community as a whole as ‘sexual minority‘, while I don’t like the term: I think sex is too diverse to divide it into majority / minority thing.

I would rather call the community as ‘queer people‘. The word ‘queer‘ was once used to insult people who have same-sex desires, but nowadays many people use it as positive umbrella term for calling LGBT+ community.

You might think there is no need to choose insulting words as a common name. However, historically, there are precedents which people under discrimination resist it through adopting insulting words as their common name. A famous example is ‘Quakers‘, which is one of Christian denominations.

Their name originated from the fact that they faced severe persecution in 17th England. George Fox, the founder, was once caught and drawn to the court. He called out to the judge that `You should tremble under the name of the god!’. So, the judge tried to insult him by calling him ‘quaker’. But then, Fox and his followers started to call themselves ‘Quakers’ proudly, like Queer people started to say ‘we are queer’ proudly.

This is wonderful counter attack to discrimination. People who insult you as being queer want to mount on you, so, you can mount back on them by saying ‘Yes, I am queer, and what?’ Such epic recovery can make us feel great.

However, it should be noted that such terms can ignore the feeling of people get hurt by the insulting words. In the end, every term has pros and cons. I would like to become a queer who can always be conscious about the limitation.

[Written by: Chihiro]