How to explain Queer?

Feministing Community… I definitely need help!  Let me explain the full story.

I was walking on campus today with Friend Who Says Offensive Things (but has been really good lately).  We pass by some chalk on the ground and he says “Ugh I hate this stuff.”  We take a look, and it says “Calling All Queers!” and then the info for some kind of get-together or meeting.  My boyfriend and I were like, “What do you hate?” and he says “I know it’s probably for a pro-gay thing, but I hate when they use a derogatory term to try to reclaim it.”

Now, I don’t expect all people to be familiar with how the word queer can be used.  I probably mostly know of it from an academic setting, or from feminist blogs.  So I say, “Actually, a lot of people self-identify as queer, it’s not necessarily derogatory.”

I would expect most people to either respond “Oh” or “Really?” and
either ask more questions or leave it there.  But not FWSOT.  Instead,
he says straight to my face, “You’re wrong.”

“What?”

“I don’t believe you.  Nobody does that.”

“WHAT??  WTF?”

Now I think this is probably the MOST OFFENSIVE part of the story,
that someone who has NO familiarity with this would say to someone who
does that they are WRONG.  But anyway… he continues to say, “That’s
like black people calling themselves n*****s.”

Okay.  So there are 2 major issues here… the disbelief that people
actually do use “queer” as descriptive and identifying, and the whole
can of worms that goes along with the discussion of reclaiming a word (I
think the N-word is far more charged of a topic than queer).  

I ask, “Why would I make this up???” and he says “I don’t think you
made it up, I just don’t believe you… it’s not one of the letters.”
 (He’s referring to LGBT, which is funny, b/c he’s never heard of
LGBTQ!!!)  I try to explain that queer is different, it’s not about
being gay or straight but feeling as though you don’t necessarily
identify with the normal ways of things… actually, I didn’t even get
that into it.

When I get back to my office, super fired up, I go to the Wikipedia
page for “queer” to show that it is indeed used in this way.  In fact,
the majority of the page is the section “As a contemporary antonym of
heteronormative,” so I feel sufficiently vindicated and ready to show
this to him.  Instead, he on his own went to Wikipedia, and sent me the
like one sentence that says that is used to be derogatory (duh, I knew
that).  He tells me that “commonplace doesnt have anything to do with
whether its a good word to use, neglecting a words history just causes
confusion.”  I say that some confusion and discomfort is maybe okay, to
which he says “that is an opinion” which in arguments generally means
“it is an incorrect opinion,” to which I respond back frustratingly
“Well you have your opinion, and you don’t get to say what other people
call themselves, if they think it’s a perfectly descriptive word,
especially if you are not part of that community and are clearly
completely unaware of it in the first place.”

Now I’m embarrassed that I
got all huffy, but I was trying to make a point.  To which he signed
offline.

My question for you, community, is this: how do I explain the concept
of reclaiming words?  How do I explain the difference between queer and
the n-word (I am truly at a loss for that one)?  Or better yet, any
good articles or resources that I can just toss at him and say “Here,
the argument as better than I could put it, try to learn but please
don’t talk to me about it again?”