Intersex vs Queer - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between intersex and queer

is that intersex is any of a variety of conditions (in a dioecious species) whereby an individual has male and female sex characteristics while queer is a person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualities.

As adjectives the difference between intersex and queer

is that intersex is having characteristics of both sexes while queer is weird, odd or different; whimsical.

As a verb queer is

to render an endeavor or agreement ineffective or null.

As an adverb queer is

queerly.

intersex

English

(wikipedia intersex)

Noun

(es)

Any of a variety of conditions (in a dioecious species) whereby an individual has male and female sex characteristics.

* 1953 , Time , 23 Feb 1953:

A Canadian believes that he has solved the diagnostic problem in human intersex . All human cells, says Dr. Murray L. Barr of the University of Western Ontario, contain something called sex chromatin.

* 2003 , Andrew J Lawrence et al., Effects of Pollution on Fish , p. 204:

A much more common condition caused by early exposure of fish larvae to oestrogenic substances is intersex , which in males usually takes the form of ovotestis.

* 2008 , Emine Saner, The Guardian , 30 Jul 2008, G2, p. 12:

It is thought that around one in 1,000 babies are born with an "intersex " condition, the general term for people with chromosomal abnormalities.

(biology, zoology) An individual with any of these conditions.

* 2009 , Mary C Smith & David Sherman, Goat Medicine , p. 609:

An intersex , then, is an animal that shows both male and female characteristics.

Adjective

(-)

(of an individual) Having characteristics of both sexes.

* 2006 , Alice Domurate Dreger, “Intersex and Human Rights: The Long View”, in Sharon E. Sytsma (editor), Ethics and Intersex , Springer, ISBN 978-1-4020-4313-0, page 81:

If you would not obfuscate the medical history of a person who was born without intersex, then you ought not to do so when dealing with a person born intersex .

* 2006 , Dean Spade, “Compliance Is Gendered: Struggling for Gender Self-Determination in a Hostile Economy”, Paisley Currah et al. (editors), Transgender Rights , University of Minnesota Press, ISBN 978-0-8166-4312-7, page 225:

His confidentiality was broken, and soon the entire staff and residential population were aware that Jim was intersex'. we faced the fact that most programs were gender segregated and would not be a safe place for Jim to be known as ' intersex .

* 2010 , Sean Saifa Wall, “I am the ‘I’”, in Kate Bornstein and S. Bear Bergman (editors), Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation , Seal Press, ISBN 978-1-58005-308-2, page 109:

When I had learned that I was intersex , I brought this issue to my mother.

* 2010 , The Age , 3 Jun 2010:

A survey of 1100 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people by Griffith and Bond University researchers found that the overwhelming majority had been victims of targeted harassment as well as physical and sexual abuse.

Usage notes

* Recently the term intersex'' has been preferred to ''hermaphrodite as being more scientifically and politically correct.

Synonyms

* indeterminate, X (passports and identification documents) * hermaphroditic * intersexed * intersexual * pseudohermaphroditic

Derived terms

* intersexed * intersexuality

queer

English

(wikipedia queer)

Adjective

(er)

(now, slightly, dated) Weird, odd or different; whimsical.

* (Washington Irving)

* 1865 , (Lewis Carroll), (w, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That will be a queer' thing, to be sure! However, everything is ' queer to-day.”

* , chapter=5

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. […] When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose.}}

(slightly, dated) Slightly unwell (mainly in'' ''to feel queer ).

* , chapter=5

, title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Of all the queer collections of humans outside of a crazy asylum, it seemed to me this sanitarium was the cup winner. … When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer , I suppose.}}

(colloquial) Homosexual.

More broadly: pertaining to sexual behaviour or identity which does not conform to conventional heterosexual standards, assumptions etc.

*1999 , (Judith Butler), Gender Trouble , Routledge 2002, Preface to 1999 edition:

*:If gender is no longer to be understood as consolidated through normative sexuality, then is there a crisis of gender that is specific to queer contexts?

Synonyms

* See also those of strange.

Derived terms

* queercore * queer fish * queerplatonic * queerish * queerly * queerness * queer theory

Noun

(en noun)

(colloquial) A person who is or appears homosexual, or who has homosexual qualities.

(colloquial) A person of atypical sexuality or sexual identity.

(colloquial, vulgar, derogatory) General term of abuse, casting aspersions on target's sexuality; compare (gay).

Counterfeit money.

* 1913 , edition, ISBN 0786704446, page 133:

You're shoving the queer .

Usage notes

* The use of this word to mean "homosexual" was formerly, and is often still, considered pejorative. However, in the way that all language is dynamic and pliable, the word is also sometimes now used (primarily as adjective) as a neutral or even positive descriptive term, including by some (primarily younger) homosexuals. In its pejorative use, it is applied usually to males. In its modern neutral use, it is applied to all genders. * Some LGBT individuals now use the term as an all-inclusive term for the GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, Intersex, Queer) etc. community. This may include people who consider themselves to be politically (or otherwise sociologically) GLBTIQ without necessarily displaying, or even simply inclined towards behavior that is not heteronormative. This new usage is again by primarily younger people. * 'Queer' is also used as a positive term for people, some of whom reject mainstream-gay values and culture as exclusive and limiting. People who identify with this version of queer distance themselves from the commercialisation and (relatively) conformist values of the gay mainstream and embrace fluid and unconstrained definitions of sexuality and gender. There is some common ground between this definition of queer and the punk and DIY scenes. See also "genderqueer". * In the English dialect of the southern United States, the two senses of the adjective queer'' (''homosexual'' and ''weird, odd, different, or unwell'') are sometimes distinguished by pronunciation. Queer (''homosexual'') is pronounced (kwîr), queer (''weird, odd, different, or unwell'') is pronounced (kwär). This is generally considered old-fashioned and is only used when the word is emphasized, as in the phrase "''that's awful queer " (pronounced TH?ts ôr'f?l kwär). The distinction is dying out as that latter sense of the word dies out.

Hypernyms

* LGBTQ

Derived terms

* (l) * (l)

Verb

(en verb)

To render an endeavor or agreement ineffective or null.

* 1955 , edition, ISBN 0553249592, page 78:

I was a lot more apt to queer it than help it.

To reevaluate or reinterpret a work with an eye to sexual orientation and/or to gender, as by applying queer theory.

* 2003 , Marcella Althaus-Reid, The Queer God (page 9)

If I go, for instance, to the history of the church in Latin America, and decide to queer the history of the Jesuitic Missions, I may find that, in many ways, the missions were more sexual than Christian.

* 2006 , Carla Freccero, Queer/Early/Modern (page 80)

Jonathan Goldberg further explores the implications of queering history in his essay in the same volume.

Synonyms

* invalidate

Adverb

(en adverb)

queerly