Gardner quoted in BDN report about being queer in Maine
Susan Gardner, director of the University of Maine’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department, was quoted in the Bangor Daily News article “What it means to be a queer Mainer in 2019.” The focus of the article was on the word “queer” and how the meaning of the label has changed over time. “It really has become an umbrella term for anybody who doesn’t conform” to conventional heterosexual or cisgender identities, according to Gardner. The term had long been used to taunt those in same-sex relationships until the 1980s, when queer activists began working to reclaim it, and by the 1990s it began gaining popularity in academic circles, according to Gardner. But she said she knows people, especially those who are not millennials, who have negative or uncomfortable reactions to the word. “I try to explain, this younger generation of folks has embraced it. What I think is great is that there’s an entire community or communities of people who want to take back this term and use it in a positive way,” Gardner said. “Culture changes. Our society changes. It’s not a bad thing … When ‘Ms.’ came out, people thought it was like the end of the world. Now people don’t think twice about it. Language evolves, just like we do.”