The word _queer_ is elusive and confusing; its etymology is uncertain, and academic and popular usage attributes conflicting meanings to the word. It is often used as an umbrella term that refers to a range of “nonnormative” sexualities and genders—gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, and questioning (GLBTIQ). In other contexts, _queer_ is a term that resists identity categorizations based on sexual orientation (including heterosexual). As a theoretical strategy, _queer_ reveals the social and historical constructions of identity formation and dualistic concepts that govern normative notions of gender and sexuality. The _OED_ suggests that the earliest references to _queer_ may have appeared in the sixteenth century. These early examples of _queer_ carried negative connotations, such as “vulgar,” “bad,” “worthless,” and “strange.” The early nineteenth century, and perhaps earlier, employed _queer_ as a verb, meaning to “to put out of order,” “to interfere with.” The adjectival form also began to emerge during this time to refer to a person’s condition as being “not normal,” “out of sorts.” According to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, “the word ‘queer’ itself means _across_—it comes from the Indo-European root—_twerkw_, which also yields the German _quer_ (traverse), Latin _torquere_ (to twist), English _athwart_... it is relational and strange” (1993,...