Unlike gay identity, which, though deliberately proclaimed in an act of affirmation, is nonetheless rooted in the positive fact of homosexual object-choice, queer identity need not be grounded in any positive truth or in any stable reality. As the very word implies, queerdoes not name some natural kind or refer to some determinate object; it acquires its meaning from its oppositional relation to the norm.
Queer is by definition whatever isat odds with the normal, the legitimate, the dominant. There is nothing in particular to which it necessarily refers. It is an identity without an essence. Queer, then, demarcates not a positivity but a positionality vis-a-vis the normative; a positionality that is not restricted to lesbians and gay men but is in fact available to anyone who is or who feels marginalized because of his or her sexual practices: it could include some married couples without children, for example, or even (who knows?) some married couples with children - with, perhaps, very naughty children.