The room is bustling with first grade energy. Six-year-olds are scattered about, playing and fighting, wrestling over games and toys. From the corner of the room a high-pitched scream pierces the din made by the class, and the volume drops dramatically. A startled boy looks at his teacher, perhaps expecting a reprimand on the appropriate use of an indoor voice. Instead, she turns to him and says, “My God, Roberto, do I need to buy you a little skirt?”

Roberto Ordeñana is now 29, and the director of community programs at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center. He remembers this moment as a catalyst for what would become years of discrimination.

“I have been teased and taunted for what people perceived as my sexual orientation since the first grade,” Ordeñana says, emphasizing it was an age when he had not even begun to process what sexual orientation was. It would not be until after Ordeñana graduated from Riordan High School (an all-boy’s school in San Francisco also commonly pronounced “Queer-or-dan”), that he would find friends and support at SF State.

Residents of the Bay Area often pride themselves on being sensitive and open-minded individuals. Even so, we all have those moments when we are acutely aware of what a jerk we must look like when we’re trying too hard to appear sensitive or open-minded. It is sometimes difficult to detect the subtle difference between being and trying too hard. The latter is almost contemptible, but sometimes you get points for effort.

One of the situations that trips up a lot of people on their sensitive and open-mindedness score cards, is the language often associated with the LGBT community. When talking formally about this subject, it sometimes feels as though one is approaching a bed of eggshells. Words like “fag,” or phrases like “that’s so gay” are generally known to be unacceptable, but in recent years the appropriateness of others like “homosexual” and “queer” have come into question.

One way to relate to these words is to compare them to language we are more familiar with, such as the evolution that descriptors of the black community have undergone. The word “homosexual” is becoming dated like the word “negro,” and “queer” is being reclaimed like the word “nigga.”

“Queer,” though, is special. It is unclear to many what it means and who it refers to. Is it a reclaimed word that can only be used by the in-crowd? Is that in-crowd the LGBT community?

According to The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader, edited by Henry Abelove et al., “Queer identities are characterized by their standing against the normal. As such, queerness is not defined in opposition to heterosexuality.”

While it is a word that can include LGBT persons, it doesn’t exclude anyone else. I’m queer, you’re queer, we’re all queer to some queer.

Chris Bull, author of the recently released book, Man in the Middle, is also the co-founder and editorial director of QueerCity.com, a sort-of MySpace for the LBGT community. Bull says he chose this title for his Web site because, “it had an implication of softness and openness.”

Bull also agrees that queer is not an exclusive word, rather it has “become the whole philosophy of the urban experience.”

The word has come a long way from its former derogatory meaning. Bull remembers in middle school when the kids got together on the playground, a popular game was “smear the queer,” a bigoted version of dodge ball.

“It was sort of a gay bashing thing,” Bull explains, ironic laughter accompanying his speech. “You can’t forget the gay bashing. People were eviscerated because they were queer.”

The word “queer” was reclaimed by LGBT communities in the late 1980s, and was widely written about as a theory and identity by academics such as Judith Butler into the 1990s.

The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader points out that queer evolved to include all persons because some felt LGBT language was becoming fractured and segregated.

“Some analysts object that the terms ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’ might be exclusionary; some argue that such terms necessarily imply that sexual identity is an essential attribute rather than a social construction. In the late 1980s and 1990s, certain scholars responded to these concerns by developing ‘queer theory,’ which seeks to include bisexual, transgendered, or even non-normatively heterosexual people as subjects for critical examination, at the same time as it rejects the essentialism perhaps implicit in ‘gay/lesbian’ definitions of sexual identity.’”

Although “queer” has roots in academia, some think the word really became a tour de force as a result of younger generations taking it up and running with it.

“In the mid-90s when I was a youth, I witnessed a lot of the young activists use it as a word not only to identify their gender or sexual identity, but to challenge the oppression they heard in the halls of their schools and in government,” Ordeñana says.

“I really feel like it’s generational,” says Michael Medina, 44, an account executive for Channel One Releasing, a gay porn production company. “Definitely today’s generation, you know, gay America, they totally reclaimed it.”

Perhaps this was made possible by all the progress the movement made throughout the past two decades, via small struggles of the sort Ordeñana and his peers undertook. By 2000, it was clear queer had entered the mainstream. Shows like Queer as Folk and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, garnered rave reviews and a devoted audience.

But this is where queer diverges from other reclaimed words. “Nigga” also entered the mainstream some time ago, riding the waves created by the popularization of hip-hop and rap music. It’s impossible to board MUNI without hearing it hollered out at least once, but even so, everyone knows it as an in-crowd word.

“You can’t get away with using the ‘n’ word or the ‘f’ word, you know?” says Bull. “‘N— as Folk’ just doesn’t work.”

Although many believe “queer” has transcended its painful past, Ordeñana and Medina both agree the context of how it’s used today is still important.

“I think it’s less of an issue of who’s using the word ‘queer,’ than what context they’re using it in,” Ordeñana says. “It’s a word that has so many different meanings for so many people, I use it interchangeably at times.”

This sensitivity to the word and the people who are commonly associated with it is crucial. Although each generation has seen progress on behalf of the movement, and perhaps even lent their voice to strengthen it, there is still a long way to go. It is nice to think LGBT youth today can walk down the halls of their schools loud and proud, but as Bull says, you can’t forget the gay bashing.

Jodi Schwartz, executive director of San Francisco’s Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center (LYRIC), describes basic obstacles youth face on a daily basis. It is an unaccommodating and confrontational world, one where sexual identity is regularly mistaken for sexual activity and where bathroom signs force an adolescent mind to decide on the spot who they are.

She agrees that “queer” is a term generally used by younger generations, but points out that, “Most of the youth who come here don’t identify as queer – they really represent the whole spectrum.”

In fact, Schwartz says the percentage of the youth who initially identify as being straight at LYRIC, is the same as those who identify as being queer.

Schwartz feels one problem with the movement is that recent discussions on issues like gay marriage have left many with the distinct impression that things are drastically improving for youth today.

“You have a part of society who thinks everything’s hunky-dory and says, ‘we don’t have to focus our energy on that anymore,’” Schwartz says. “There’s a lot of conversation happening without the awareness or the skills to lead the conversation in a way that will bring about positive change.”

For instance, Schwartz says hate-speech has become commonplace. For youth today, “that’s so gay” would be one of the first expressions listed in a high school phrase book.

“When it comes to LGBTQQ (Queer and Questioning) youth, it’s gotten better but it’s not enough,” says Schwartz.

Despite all of this, “queer” is there for those who want it, regardless of in-crowd or out-crowd usage.

“Instead of saying, ‘Never use that word’ and ‘Oh, we’re victims,’ we’re saying call us what you like,” Bull says.

And maybe this is what makes it special. When “nigga” is uttered, only one group comes to mind and it is thought of either as hate-speech or a reclaimed word; but anyone can be “queer” if they want to.