This quirky, mighty word carries so much meaning. Self-identity, umbrella term, academic discipline, political orientation, verb, and—yes—slur.
Yet more than three decades after a fundamental shift in what this word communicates, the mainstream still resists acknowledging the fullness of what queer means. What’s this resistance to queer really about? And how should this complexity be navigated?
Let’s start from the beginning.
Continue reading “What’s in a Word: Queer”
What does it mean?
Mx. is a non-binary or gender-neutral title of courtesy, equivalent to Ms., Mrs., and Mr. It’s most often pronounced “mix” or “məx” (with a schwa, or toneless vowel sound).
Continue reading “What’s in a Word: Mx.”What does it mean?
The word enby, alternately spelled enbie or enbee and pluralized as enbies or enbys, refers to a non-binary person (someone whose sense of self is not exclusively girl/woman or boy/man). Continue reading “What’s in a Word: Enby”
What does it mean?
White supremacy is a system or social order that keeps power and resources consolidated among white elites, using an ideology (or way of understanding the world) that upholds whiteness—including white people, white cultural values, and white institutions—as being best or most “normal.”
Continue reading “What’s in a Word: white supremacy”
What does it mean?
White nationalism is a sector of the U.S. right-wing political sphere that is characterized by a white supremacist ideology.
As Chip Berlet explained, in a 1992 piece co-authored with Margaret Quigley, white nationalism “oscillates between brutish authoritarianism and vulgar fascism in service of white male supremacy” and white nationalists believe that “social problems are caused by uncivilized people of color, lower-class foreigners, and dual-loyalist Jews.” Continue reading “What’s in a Word: white nationalism”
What’s in a Word?
“ALT-RIGHT”
What does it mean?
The term alt-right, short for “alternative right,” refers to a recently developed affiliation of far-right conservatives, organized largely by way of social media, whose primary common ground is white supremacy. Continue reading “What’s in a Word: alt-right”
Q: Alex, your recent share from Laverne Cox included the phrase “trans folx.” Is this a thing?
Continue reading “Ask a Radical Copyeditor: Folx”
Ask a Radical Copyeditor
“LATINX”
Q: I’ve seen you and a bunch of others post the word Latinx and I want to understand it. What does it refer to? And how would one say it? Continue reading “Ask a Radical Copyeditor: Latinx”
Radical Copyeditor 