I understood it as a word designed to make me ashamed not only of my homosexuality but of my voice, my appearance and my behaviour I grew up believing that ‘queer’ was a term used only to express hatred, anger and prejudice.
It’s a word that was shouted angrily at me on the street, a mark of disrespect used to goad me into arguments in nightclubs and, most frequently, a term spat in disgust whenever I indulged in public displays of affection. It’s a term I encountered occasionally throughout my adolescence, always as an insult, a slur.
