Editing Queer (section)

=== Early pejorative use ===
By the late 19th century, ''queer'' was beginning to gain a connotation of sexual deviance, used to refer to feminine men or men who were thought to have engaged in same-sex relationships. An early recorded usage of the word in this sense was in an 1894 letter by [[John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry]], as read aloud at the trial of [[Oscar Wilde#Trials|Oscar Wilde]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Foldy |first=Michael S. |title=The Trials of Oscar Wilde: Deviance, Morality, and Late-Victorian Society |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1997 |isbn=9780300071122 |pages=22–23}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Robb |first=Graham |title=Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=2005 |isbn=9780393326499 |pages=262}}</ref>

''Queer'' was used in mainstream society by the early 20th century, along with ''fairy'' and ''faggot'', as a pejorative term to refer to men who were perceived as flamboyant. This was, as historian [[George Chauncey]] notes, "the predominant image of ''all'' queers within the straight mind".<ref name="Chauncey">{{Cite book|title=Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940|last=Chauncey|first=George|publisher=Basic Books|year=1995|isbn=9780465026210|pages=[https://archive.org/details/gaynewyork00geor/page/13 13–16]|url=https://archive.org/details/gaynewyork00geor/page/13}}</ref>

Starting in the underground gay bar scene in the 1950s,<ref name=GrahnGay>{{cite book |title=Another Mother Tongue - Gay Words, Gay Worlds |last=Grahn |first=Judy |author-link=Judy Grahn |publisher=Beacon Press |year=1984 |isbn=0-8070-7911-1 |location=Boston, MA |pages=[https://archive.org/details/anothermotherto000grah/page/30 30–33] |url=https://archive.org/details/anothermotherto000grah/page/30 }}</ref> then moving more into the open in the 1960s and 1970s, the [[homophile]] identity was gradually displaced by a more radicalized ''[[gay]]'' identity. At that time ''gay'' was generally an umbrella term including [[lesbian]]s, as well as gay-identified [[bisexuality|bisexuals]] and [[transsexual]]s; [[gender nonconformity]], which had always been an indicator of gayness,<ref name=GrahnGay/> also became more open during this time. During the [[endonym]]ic shifts from ''invert'' to ''homophile'' to ''gay'', ''queer'' was usually pejoratively applied to men who were believed to engage in receptive or passive [[Anal sex|anal]] or [[oral sex]] with other men<ref>{{cite journal|last=Robertson|first=Stephen|year=2002|title=A Tale of Two Sexual Revolutions|journal=Australasian Journal of American Studies|publisher=Australia and New Zealand American Studies Association|volume=21|issue=1|jstor=41053896|pages=103|quote=The most striking addition to the picture offered by D'Emilio and Freedman is a working-class sexual culture in which only those men who took the passive or feminine role were considered 'queer.' A man who took the 'active role,' who inserted his penis into another man, remained a 'straight' man, even when he had an on-going relationship with a man who took the passive role.}}</ref> as well as those who exhibited non-normative gender expressions.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Czyzselska|first=Jane|year=1996|title=untitled|journal=Pride 1996 Magazine|location=London|publisher=Pride Trust & Gay Times|page=15}}</ref>