Towards a TS dictionary --- the letter Qq+

 BOLD=cross reference, see item when appropriate letter posted

Qa'cikicheca

Qa'cikicheca (=similar to a man) are assigned-female shamans among the reindeer-herding Chukchi in the very far east of Siberia, who took a young woman as wife with social approval.

Quariwarmi

Assigned-male shamans in female dress in the pre-colonial Inca civilisation who mediated between the symmetrically dualistic spheres of Andean cosmology and daily life. 

Queen. Quean

Both words are descended from Proto-Germanic *kwenon or similar, "wife, woman"; which in turn is descended from Proto-Indo-European *gwen- "woman".  In addition to meaning a woman, especially a robust or spirited one, they came to mean:

a)     A ruling woman or consort of a king

b)    A prostitute, an impudent or disreputable woman

c)     An effeminate gay man

d)    A rather camp rock group

e)     A female impersonator

f)     A trans woman

The Queen, 1968

A film about the Miss All-American Camp Beauty Pageant final, which went on to be a sensation at the Cannes International Film Festival, and made a star of Rachel Harlow.

Queens Liberation Front (QLF)

The major New York social and activist group for trans persons in the 1970s.  It was founded in 1970 by Barbara De Lamere (using her stage name of Bunny Eisenhower – she was a a member of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company), Lee Brewster (who ran Lee’s Mardi Gras transvestite boutique), Bebe Scarpinato (a teacher), Vicky West (artist) and Chris Moore (performer).   They campaigned and hired lawyers to de-criminalise cross-dressing in New York, which was achieved in 1971. Previously, under city ordinances a bar or club could be closed and patrons arrested, simply because a single person, deemed to be cross-dressed, was present.  Furthermore the words "homosexuals, lesbians, or persons pretending to be ..." were also struck, thus decriminalising gay clubs and parties. In addition, the still extant 1965 Anti-Mask: New York Penal Law criminalising "the wearing of mask or disguises by three or more persons in a public place" was found inapplicable to those in drag.  The QLF publication was Drag, a magazine of Transvestism.

Queer

Possibly from the Indo-European twerkw -> Latin torquere (to twist) and early English cwer (crooked, not straight). 

a)     16^th century: strange or illegitimate, and in Scottish as an adjectival form of ‘query’

b)    19^th century: odd.  “It was a queer sensation having a woman in the pew beside me”.

c)     Late 19^th century: contrary to one’s wish

d)    Early 20^th century: sick or ill.  Until the 1960s the following was a perfectly innocent remark with no suggestion of sexuality: “Yesterday I felt quite queer, but after a good night’s sleep, today I am completely gay”

e)     Mid 20^th century: a pejorative and offensive term for gay or trans people.

f)     Late 20^th century: gay and lesbian activists reclaimed the term as an empowering self-designation.

g)    Any person whose sexual orientation or gender identity is other than that of the heterosexual mainstream and/or the gender binary.

h)    GLBT persons who are not Homonormative.

While many, perhaps older, persons still refuse the term Queer as they were subjected to it as a painful slur, others appreciate it as term of defiance, and also as an inclusive term whereby one need not specify oneself as gay, bi, trans, nonbinary or whatever.

It is particularly useful in distinguishing modern queer persons from Heteronormative Sodomists.

Queer as Folk; Nowt so Queer as Folk

An old English expression, usually spoken in a mock-Yorkshire accent, indicating how strange other people are—thus, until recently not a sex or gender term at all.  A longer version is: “th’whole world’s queer ‘cept for me and thee, and oft I wonder about thee”.

In 1999 Russell T Davis produced a television series on Britain’s Channel 4 about life in Manchester’s gay village.  He wanted to call it ‘Queer as Fuck’ but settled for the expression “Queer as Folk”. The title was retained for the US remake, set in Pittsburgh, but actually filmed in Toronto’s gay village, despite most US audiences probably not understanding the allusion.

Queerbaiting

A film or television program hints that a character is gay or trans but does not follow through, because keeping its Straight audience is more important.  See Queer Coding.

Queer by Choice

A web site for gay and trans person who are not at all satisfied by the supposed Biologistic explanations of being gay or trans.  http://www.queerbychoice.com.  See Choice.

Queer Coding

Gay or Trans characters in a film or television program when such was illegal or forbidden by the studio bosses.   Gay characters such as Disney villains or minor characters in Hitchcock films would signal by dress, comportment or facial expression such that only a minority of viewers caught on.  See Queerbaiting.

Queer Heterosexuality

Heterosexuals who are non-traditional in their gender expressions, including masculine women and feminine men, and are Queer positive in their opinions.   Many actual Queer people contest this usage maintaining that it is Appropriation.

Queer Music Heritage

An archive compiled by JD Doyle of queer musicians and their music.  Includes both drag performers and trans musicians, as well as gay and lesbian musicians.  www.queermusicheritage.com.

Queer Nation

An LGBTQ direct-action organization founded in 1990 in New York in reaction to the escalation of anti-gay violence on the streets and prejudice in the arts and media. The group was known for its confrontational tactics, its slogans, and the practice of outing.  In 1993 Trangender Nation was founded after dissatisfaction re the groups attitude to trans issues.

Queerphobia

Fear and hatred of all persons whose sex and/or gender is not the standard Cis Heterosexuality. 

Queer Street

Not a gender term at all.  An old expression for money troubles or even bankruptcy.  ‘Queer’ implies contrary to one’s wish.

In 19^th century boxing the term was also used for a boxed who was ‘out on his feet’ – that is stunned but still standing and unable to defend himself.

Some modern writers use 'queer street', ironically or otherwise, for a person's encounter with queer culture.

Queer Theory

An academic discipline that began in the 1980s influenced by philosopher Michel Foucault.  Generally they study Gender and sexuality practices other than Cis Heterosexuality as social and cultural phenomena.

Queer, Transgender and Intersex People of Colour (QTIPOC)

An Umbrella term that puts transgender and intersex in focus, rather than gay and lesbian.

Questioning

A person, probably nominally straight, who is exploring and perhaps trying out different labels.

Quim (noun)

Female genitalia, the vulva.  More used in the 19^th century by speakers wanting to be naughty.   Connected to ‘queem’ a term used in carpentry for an exact fit.  See also the cognate term Queen.

Quim (verb)

What a woman does during heterosexual genital sex.  (The word ‘fuck’ is more correctly used only for what the man does).   In neither standard English vocabulary of literature and science, nor the vernacular vocabulary of uncensored speech, are there other terms for this, except for Swive.

Estelle Asmodelle (1964 - 2026) dancer, activist, model, physicist, artist, musician.

Original version. January 2009.

Croot was raised in small towns in New South Wales, and at 16 was seriously ill with spinal meningitis, and spent a year in hospital.

Croot transitioned to Estelle Maria Croot while at Wollongong University studying science and maths. She also started creating abstract art on large canvases, and was in a music group that played experimental and avant-garde music. Because of discrimination Estelle left university, and studied dance at Sydney Dance Company and also belly dancing with an Egyptian Dance instructor.

As Estelle Asmodelle she worked as a belly dancer in variety shows in Australia and in East Asia. She was detained in Singapore and elsewhere because her passport had an ‘M’ for gender. She, and others, lobbied the Australian and the New South Wales governments that she be allowed to amend her birth certificate. In 1987, she was the first Australian transsexual to get her birth certificate, and then her passport changed. She also lobbied for changes to the anti-discrimination laws and for research into ectopic pregnancies for transwomen. This resulted in a media storm which she was able to ride appearing in hundreds of magazine articles and frequently on Australian and Japanese television.

She took up modelling to promote her dancing, but it became her more important career. She was the first Australian transsexual to appear nude in a mainstream magazine, Australian Playgirl.

She lived in Japan 1988-1992 working as a model. She had a walk-on part in the Japanese film Ai to heisei no iro – Otoko, 1989, a transgender sexual fantasy that mainly played in art galleries. She also did some technology consulting.

In Australia she was in Secret Fantasies, 1992, and the belly-dance instructional film, The Enchanted Dance, 1994 that was controversial purely because Estelle was trans. She also made an appearance as 'girl on beach' in one episode of the television soap opera Home and Away.

In 1998 she published an autobiographical novel, An Aesthetic Dream - an autobiography. Also that year she founded the internet company Ellenet Pty. Ltd.

In 2000, Estelle lived and modelled in Los Angeles, and took acting classes at the Lena Harris Workshop.

She had continued large canvas abstract art, and was exhibited in Tokyo, Melbourne and Sydney, and Los Angeles. Her first art book was Transience, 2010.

Since 2005 Estelle has been composing electronic music, and has released 11 albums.

In 2008 she took a course in Astronomy at the University of Central Lancashire. She was interested in special and general relativity and its relationship to cosmology and time, and published papers in the Journal of the Institute of Science and Technology and the Asian Journal of Physics. In Cosmos Magazine she published "Neptune's day measured to the second", and "The Milky Way is a galactic cannibal", both June 2012. In 2013 she published Cosmology - the Ultimate Introduction. In June 2012 she became a Member of the Australian Society of Gravitation and General Relativity, and in May 2013 also became a Member of the International Society on General Relativity and Gravitation (ISGRG).

In 2016 her internet company Ellenet Pty. Ltd was sold.

In 2018 Estelle started a PhD at the Centre for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology, School of Mathematics and Physics, University of Queensland, working in the field of quantum mechanics and relativity.

Estelle died, age 62, in 2026.

Music albums:

2009 – Electronic Mischief 2010 – Transelectric 2010 – Dark Universe 2012 – Asmelectrix 2013 – Grooveatropolis Vol I 2013 – Electronic Mischief II 2014 – Near Earth Landscape 2015 – Dark Universe II 2015 – Monotonic Meditations 2015 – Improvera - Quite Moments 2016 – Grooveatropolis Vol II

Some of her newspaper and magazine articles:

Cleo (May 1987), People (Nov 1985 & 1993), Post (Dec 1988 Sep 1992), Penthouse Forum (1986 & 1991), New Idea (March 1986), She (July 1996), New Woman (June 1992 & 1998), Naughty Sydney (Cover – November 1991), Tomadachi (June 1991), Wellbeing (May 1989 & 1993), Nature & Health (November 1997).

EN.Wikipedia.     www.asmodelle.com    IMDB    Alchetron  

Wilma Creith (1933-1980) electrican, bus driver

Creith, an electrician, was married and they had two children, and lived in Belfast. However Creith increasingly could not continue as a man. After Creith did some electrical work for Werner Heubeck, the German managing director of Ulsterbus, Heubeck considered her situation, and offered that she should train as a bus driver. She first drove as a man.

She was assigned to the school run for pupils of Sullivan Upper and Sacred Heart of Mary Grammar in Holywood/Ard Mhic Nasca and St Columbanus in Bangor, both in County Down. 

Photo in the Sunday World

Cara-Friend had been set up in 1974 as a volunteer counselling service for GLBT persons in Ulster. In 1976, a separate transsexual support group was formed – Wilma was part of the team.

In 1977, when she socially transitioned Heubeck gave her support. He provided a specially made uniform and shoes for her, and the union and the other drivers followed his lead. In December that year the Belfast Sunday World, outed Wilma on its front page “ ‘Call me Wilma’ says bus man Bill”. Despite this only a few adults objected to her, although some of the children were rather rude.

In 1980 Heubeck gave Wilma five weeks sick pay to travel to England, to St James Hospital, Leeds for completion surgery, and to recover afterwards. The operation apparently went well – making her the first Northern Ireland trans woman to have the operation. Heubeck was the first to phone her after the operation.

But there was a minor complication, and a second operation was carried out. A few days later she died from what was determined to be a pulmonary embolism from high levels of estrogen.

---

In November 2024 theatre director Paula McFetrige put on a play loosly based on Wilma Creith in an actual Ulster Bus from the 1970s parked in the grounds of Belfast Castle.

• Sean Boyne. “ ‘Call me Wilma‘ says bus man Bill”. Sunday World, December 1977.
• “Ulster sex change man dies“. Belfast Telegraph, 29 August 1980.p1.
• “Inquest on sex change victim“. Bradford Telgraph and Argus, 30 August 1980, p13.
• Andrew McNair. “The transgender bus driver in 1970s Belfast”. BBC, 18 November 2024. Online.
• Bronagh Lawson. “ARTS: All aboard for an inspirational slice of trans history”. com, November 22, 2024. Online.
• Paula McFetridge (dir). Suspected Device. Raphaël Amahl Khouri (scr) with Mariah Lauca as Wilam Creith. Performed at Belfact Castle 1 November-1 December 2024.

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Heubeck was renowned for many things, including redesigning all Belfast bus routes to go in and out of the city centre, and getting Ulsterbus to turn a profit despite the Troubles. But he's best remembered for actually carrying bombs from buses during the Troubles.

In total, 17 employees from both Ulsterbus and Citybus were killed during The Troubles, with 1,484 buses in total being maliciously destroyed from 1964 to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

St James Hospital, Leeds later became the location for the Leeds Gender Identity Service.

When I had surgery a few years later, I was told to stop taking estrogen before and during the operation. I thought that this was standard practice after the unfortunate death of Peggy Wijnen in 1967. I found no discussion of this aspect re Wilma.