Queerhood

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The state or condition of being identified with or belonging to sexual and gender minorities, encompassing the culture, identity, and social experience of those outside heteronormative and cisnormative frameworks
2. The quality, identity, or lived experience of existing outside conventional heterosexual and cisgender norms, including one's personal relation to queer community and culture
3. The social condition and personal reality of identifying as sexually or gender nonconforming, involving both individual consciousness and participation in queer communities and movements

Etymology: "Queerhood" is a plain compound: the adjective "queer" with the suffix "-hood", which turns a noun or adjective into a word for a state, condition or collective identity, as in "childhood" or "brotherhood." The adjective itself has a longer and more surprising past. It arrived in English in the 16th century meaning "strange" or "odd," and for much of its life it carried no sexual meaning at all, its core sense being something out of keeping with the norm. The word "queerhood" applies that pattern to the community and identity that the adjective came to name. Because "queer" was reclaimed in the late 20th century as an umbrella term for sexual and gender minorities, adding "-hood" allows speakers to talk about that shared condition as a whole, much as "brotherhood" names a fellowship of men. The noun therefore describes a collective state rather than a single trait.