tenderqueer

T1E1N1D2E1R1Q10U1E1E1R1

noun

An LGBT+ person with a gentle, sensitive, openly emotional disposition, particularly when cultivated as an insincere or self-serving affectation.

Scrabble 21

Meanings

nountenderqueer (plural tenderqueers)

plural tenderqueers

  1. derogatoryoftenslangAn LGBT+ person with a gentle, sensitive, openly emotional disposition, particularly when cultivated as an insincere or self-serving affectation.

    Sad Boi extraordinaire, reproductive justice fighter and unabashed tenderqueer—Fallon Simard is a rare voice within Indigenous art.

    2017, Lindsay Nixon, "Fallon Simard – Monetized, But Agential, Bodies in Ghost Worlds", Esse, Number 91, Fall 2017, page 70
    2 more examples

    Carrying your comfort with you is protection for the sweetly sensitive bull. You're a tenderqueer of few words, and you always make them count.

    2016, Sally Mulligan, "Turn A Look: Taurus", PQ Monthly, April/May 2016, page 21

    Tenderqueers are especially adept at using the watery language of therapy as a means to get out of most things. They’ll ghost you for three weeks then, when you call them out on it, will reply something like, “Your negative energy is affecting my ability to heal from past life trauma.”

    2020 January 24, Daisy Jones, “Introducing: The Tenderqueer, the Softboi of the Queer Community”, in Vice

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

tenderqueer. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tenderqueer

MLA

“tenderqueer.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tenderqueer. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tenderqueer,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tenderqueer.

Source: tenderqueer on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.