LGBTQIA+ Resources and Information: Queer Theory

"Queer Theory - A critical discourse developed in the 1990s in order to deconstruct (or ‘to queer’) sexuality and gender in the wake of gay identity politics, which had tended to rely on strategic essentialism. Opposed to gender essentialism, queer theorists see sexuality as a discursive social construction, fluid, plural, and continually negotiated rather than a natural, fixed, core identity. ‘The representation of gender is its construction,’ declares the Italian-American feminist theorist Teresa de Lauretis, who coined the term ‘queer theory’ in 1990. Butler, seeking to destabilize binary oppositions such as gay/straight, introduced the key concept of performativity. Queer theorists foreground those who do not neatly fit into conventional categories, such as bisexuals, transvestites, transgendered people, and transsexuals. Existing movements which have been significant influences are feminism and poststructuralism (particularly the methodology of deconstruction). Foucault's influence has also been of central importance, particularly his argument that homosexuality (and indeed heterosexuality) as an identity emerged only in the late 19th century. Queer theory has itself been a significant influence on cultural and literary theory, postcolonialism, and sociology, and ‘queering’ is now applied also to the ‘boundaries’ of academic disciplines."

(Oxford Reference, 2023.)

Key Concept:  The idea of “heteronormativity,” which pertains to “the institutions, structures of understanding, and practical orientations that make heterosexuality seem not only coherent—that is, organized as a sexuality—but also privileged” (Berlant). Heteronormativity is a worldview that promotes heterosexuality as the normal and/or preferred sexual orientation, and is then  reinforced throughout society through the institutions such as marriage, taxes, employment, and adoption rights. Heteronormativity is a form of power that applies social and economic pressure to both straight and gay individuals, through institutional arrangements and defined social norms.

The Future - Queer theorists disagree about many things, but the one thing they do not disagree on is that if queer theory is to be understood as a way to test the established and stable categories of identity, then it should not be defined too early (or at all) because of the possibility of it becoming too limited. 

  Michel Focault

"Michel Foucault was a major figure in two successive waves of 20th century French thought–the structuralist wave of the 1960s and then the poststructuralist wave. By the premature end of his life, Foucault had some claim to be the most prominent living intellectual in France. Foucault’s work is transdisciplinary in nature, ranging across the concerns of the disciplines of history, sociology, psychology, and philosophy. At the first decade of the 21st century, Foucault is the author most frequently cited in the humanities in general." (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 Teresa De Laurentis

"American feminist and educator. Born 1938 in Italy. Work, influenced by poststructuralist theories, focuses on representations of women in cinema and exclusions of representations of lesbianism in many feminist theories; appointed professor of History of Consciousness at University of California, Santa Cruz; writings include La Sintassi del desiderio (1976), Umberto Eco (1980), Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema (1984), and Technologies of Gender: Essays on Theory, Film and Fiction (1987); edited Feminist Studies/Critical Studies (1986)." (Encyclopedia.com)

  Gayle Rubin

"Gayle Rubin is a cultural anthropologist and historian whose work centers on the politics of sexuality. She has conducted ethnographic research since the 1970s on gay male fetish subcultures as well as historical research ranging in topics from gay male leather history to the history of social scientific research on sexual subcultures. Rubin is perhaps best known for her two essays, “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex” and “Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality,” both of which continue to be influential works in feminist and queer studies. Rubin has also been a critical figure in feminist and queer activism, especially during the Feminist Sex Wars of the 1980s." (Wiley Online Library).

  Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

"Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (1950–2009) is best known as a key figure in queer theory. She was born in Dayton, Ohio and received her BA from Cornell University in 1971 and her PhD from Yale University in 1975. She taught at Hamilton College, Boston University, and Amherst College before moving to Duke University, where from 1988 to 1998 she, together with her colleagues Jonathan Goldberg and Michael Moon, helped to consolidate queer studies as a new paradigm of literary and cultural theory. On leaving Duke in 1998, she became Distinguished Professor of English at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York." (Wiley Online Library)

  Judith Butler

"Judith Butler, (born February 24, 1956, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.), American academic whose theories of the performative nature of gender and sex were influential within Francocentric philosophy, cultural theory, queer theory, and some schools of philosophical feminism from the late 20th century....One of her innovations was to suggest that gender is constituted by action and speech—by behaviour in which gendered traits and dispositions are exhibited or acted out. In particular, gender is not an underlying essence or nature of which gendered behaviour is the product; it is a series of acts whose constant repetition creates the illusion that an underlying nature exists." (Britannica Online)