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Queer-e Vol. 1. no. 1

1.		A Few Words About the "Queer" in *Queer-e*
  

   The word "queer" attempts to speak to the experiences of all
manner of sexual subjectivities: lesbians, gays, bisexuals,
transgendered people... an ever-expanding list. "Queer" tries to
take into account racial, class, gender, sexual and ethnic
differences across and within these distinctions.  It aims to
build bridges between the streets, the sheets and the academy.   
'Queer' seeks to rejoice in non-assimilation with 'the normal'. 
'Queer' and queer theory, then, explore both coalition and
alterity. This exploration of spaces 'in between', 'alongside',
'inside', 'outside' suggests exciting possibilities, new
opportunities for discovery. 
     The editorial collective of *Queer-e* recognizes, however, that
while 'queer' "sets out/attempts/seeks/and celebrates" it has done
so with varying degrees of success.  The word 'queer' has been
greeted with excitement and approval, but it has also inspired
suspicion and hostility. 
     In practice the 'open space' of 'queer', like all conceptual
umbrellas, can occlude difference; unity based on
non-assimilation alongside the 'straight' or the 'normal' and the
sharing of liminal spaces can closely resemble an injunction to
assimilate within the queer one.  
     ** 'Queer and lesbian'/'Queers of colour'/'young
     queers'/'Queer and Gay'/'White queers ** : the suspicious
     among us read only some of the terms as redundant. 
     We call our journal *Queer-e* knowing in advance that the
term "queer" is no panacea. We hope to generate both excitement
and suspicion.  Using the term queer is a way of inviting current
debates not only over this term, but across all of 'our' naming,
our politics, our academic work.  *Queer-e* is, ultimately, an
invitation to question (query)
-- and to resist.



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