Queer is the Q in LGBTQ. There’s also the chant “We’re here. We’re queer. Get used to it.” The word is used within the LGBTQ community as a catch-all umbrella term for any gender nonconformity–including LGBT, but also things that don’t quite fit neatly into those categories. Like all reclaimed pejorative terms, the meaning changes significantly depending on the context, and can present outsiders with some anxiety about when it’s okay to use it. For example, it also still gets yelled at LGBTQ-perceived people in a threatening manner (the pejorative usage). So if you’re not sure you’re using the word correctly, it’s probably best to steer clear. But the headline seems fine to me.
I really hate this LGBTQIA-EIEIO business. I wish they would just use the word “gay” and have done with it. Sheesh.
Accurate terminology is important–for example, calling everyone under the LGBTQIA umbrella “gay” would be pretty dismissive/marginalizing to those who aren’t gay. But it’s also pretty well acknowledged that things that start out in a relatively small group of people with specialized knowledge rarely make it out the door making very much sense to the general population–copping to not really getting the terminology is pretty much a rite of passage for straight people. And there are times when the whole mouthful doesn’t apply, so it’s completely appropriate to just say “gay”.
It’s also (at least to me) interesting from a historical perspective: read from left to right, the acronym is basically a timeline of the larger society realizing that people like this existed. First came L & G, then B, then T, then Q, then really just a few years back I broke popular consciousness (“Middlesex” hit Oprah’s book club, etc), and now we’re on to A.