On the Uses of “Queer” in Demography

The phrase “queer demography” appears in conference sessions, scholarly groups, and peer-reviewed journal articles. Critically engaging with terminology matters as the field unfolds. Drawing on precedents from family studies, we map, rather than fix, how “queer” is used in relation to “demography”: queer as a noun (the demography of queer populations); queer as an adjective (demography merged with queer epistemology); and queer as a verb (to queer demography). Rather than settling on a definition of “queer,” we take its resistance to definition and its commitment to unsettling identity categories seriously, reading these uses against demography’s legacy of enumeration and classification and alongside other critical orientations to population studies. We invite those in and outside the field to reflect on what is gained and lost when “queer” is attached to “demography,” and on how current discourse might keep the subfield’s meaning open rather than settled.