The Queens' English: The Young Readers' LGBTQIA+ Dictionary of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases

by Chloe O. Davis

Overview

This young readers adaptation of The Queens’ English is a nonfiction illustrated reference guide to the LGBTQIA+ community’s contributions to the English language.

This playful, richly illustrated visual dictionary is the perfect book for anyone who has ever wondered about the origin of phrases like “boi,” “drag,” or “demisexual,” the history of the word “queer,” and the wonderfully diverse, wide-ranging histories that have contributed to LGBTQIA+ culture and vocabulary.

Drawing from traditions as divergent as the ancient poet Sappho to the underground ball scene of the 1980s, from the Stonewall Riots to RuPaul’s Drag Race, this glossary is a colorful compendium—and a celebration of every king, queen, butch, femme, trans, folx, and enby who has shaped the history, identity, and limitless imagination of queerness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781665926874
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
Publication date:	04/29/2025
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	448
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.84(d)
Age Range:	10 - 18 Years

About the Author

Chloe O. Davis is an author who works in the entertainment industry in New York. A graduate of Hampton University and Temple University, she has centered her creative platform on amplifying the narratives of Black culture and heightening the awareness of the LGBTQIA+ community. Davis’s work as a dancer, actor, and creative has allowed her to travel to all fifty states and internationally where she has spent fifteen years researching, writing, and creating The Queens’ English: The LGBTQIA+ Dictionary of Lingo and Colloquial Phrases.

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Editorial Reviews

2024-02-03
A compendium of LGBTQ+ definitions for younger readers adapted from the 2021 adult original.

Using a standard A-to-Z format interspersed with lessons, charts, and tables, this dictionary attempts to explain “over eight hundred terms used to describe our collective gay and queer experience.” A note on appropriation acknowledges the origin of many terms in ballroom, drag, working-class lesbian, and/or Black cultures, yet this book also introduces readers to what may otherwise be unfamiliar vocabulary words without sufficient context or advice on their use. Confusingly, tame entries, such as allosexual and closet case, are labeled “mature,” while explicitly sexual terms (for example, spaghetti, stone butch, and fish) are given desexualized—and often misleading—definitions. Some inaccurate claims (defining pup as a “slender… baby gay” man instead of as someone who’s into puppy play) are given without citation. Controversial descriptions (like the statement that AFAB and AMAB are preferable to FTM and MTF, because they acknowledge “the binding nature of being assigned a specific gender at birth”) are presented as facts. Most entries include additional information, but it’s frequently an unhelpful or tautological description (the “bear community” definition, which follows the entry for bear, is contextualized as “those who celebrate the bear necessities during P-Town Bear Week,” with no further explanation of “bear necessities” or “P-Town”), and painfully corny dialogue provides contextual usage. Additionally, the author deadnames Joey Soloway and mistakenly identifies Tom Phelan as a trans man.

Riddled with inaccuracies; not recommended. (author’s note, resources) (Nonfiction. 11-18)

Kirkus Reviews