QUEER THEORY
What's even is 'normal'?
WHAT IS QUEER THEORY?
The origins of queer theory are hard to specifically define. It comes from many different and multiple cultural contexts. Some of these include feminism, post-structuralist theory, radical movements for people of color, the gay and lesbian movements, AIDS activism, and sexual subcultural practices like sadomasochism and postcolonialism. However, queer theory would have its beginnings in education as an academic tool for gender and sexuality studies, which in turn would originate from lesbian and gay studies and feminist theory. Though, queer theory is more recent.
Queer theory would be established in the 1990s, emerging from gender/sexuality studies and scholars. There are many interpretations of queer theory, as well as many different uses. But, a broad definition of queer theory can be understood as the studies of gender practices/identities and sexualities that exist outside of cisgender and heterosexual 'norms'. Those who study queer theory think about critical views of sexuality and gender and their concepts on constructed social and cultural phenomena.
Queer theory encourages people to examine and view the world and society through new lenses and avenues. As described by Indiana University Bloomington: "It is a way of thinking that dismantles traditional assumptions about gender and sexual identities, challenges traditional academic approaches, and fights against social inequality." Queer theory provides a lense for people to 'queer' ideas and works in their own disciplines. Using this method, 'queering' is not able imposing queerness on an area or idea, but about utilizing the ideas of queer theory to imagine brand new, unidentified possibilities.
The existence of queer theory is to antagonize norms, normativity, and the normal. That is, anything that can be considered normal in society and carries a normative explanation which deems it intrinsically oppressive. This can be best explained in the binary - 'normal' versus 'abnormal'. When something is 'normal', there is usually a positive connotation to it in comparison to something that is 'abnormal'.
Queer theory also deliberately confuses anything that is descriptively normal. An example of this is heterosexuality or the sexual binary, with the sense that automatically carries an impocation that any variation that falls from the general norm is understood and determined to be illegitimate. It also looks at if society has strong expectations, maybe even requirements, for people to be able to fall in the 'normal' range and to not be 'abnormal' in any way. This creates dominance and oppression.
The centerpiece of queer theory is the intentional conflation of 'normal' in a descriptive sense and 'normal' in a moral (normative) sense. This is because there are both reasonable and unreasonable applications of normativity as a result of normalness. This way, it's easy for queer theory to keep on muddying the water for it's own activist purposes.
For more resources on Queer Theory, click on these links!
QUEER THEORY THEORISTS
Information quoted and provided from the Illinois Library.
MICHAEL FOUCAULT
"Michael Foucault’s work on sexuality said that it was a discursive production rather than an essential part of a human, which came from his larger idea of power not being repressive and negative as productive and generative. In other words, power acts to make sexuality seem like a hidden truth that must be dug out and be made specific. Foucault refuses to accept that sexuality can be clearly defined, and instead focuses on the expansive production of sexuality within governments of power and knowledge."
GAYLE RUBIN
"Rubin's essay, Thinking Sex, is identified as one of the fundamental texts of queer theory. It continues Foucault’s rejection of biological explanations of sexuality by thinking about the way that sexual identities as well as behaviors are hierarchically organized through systems of sexual classifications. She demonstrates in her essay the way that certain sexual expressions are made more valuable than others, and by doing that, allowing those who are outside of these parameters to be oppressed. Rubin also argued against the feminist belief that through gender, sexuality was obtained or the belief that gender and sexuality are the same."
EVE KOSOFSKY SEDGWICK
"Rubin laying the groundwork to start discussion about making a distinction between gender and sexuality led the way for Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s pioneering book Epistemology of the Closet. In this book, she argues that the homo-hetero difference in the modern sexual definition is vitally disjointed for two reasons: that homosexuality is thought to be part of a minority group, and how homosexuality is gendered to be either masculine or feminine. She points out that the definitions of sexuality depend a lot on the gender of the romantic partner one makes, making the assumption that the gender one has and the gender of the person one is attracted to make up the most important element of sexuality. Sedgwick’s examples of sexual variations that cannot be put into the discrete locations created by the binary set between heterosexuality and homosexuality give room to further analyze the way sex-gender identities are shaped and thought about."
JUDITH BUTLER
"The theorist most commonly identified with studying the prevailing understandings of gender and sex is Judith Butler, who draws much from Foucault’s ideas but with a focus on gender. She argues in her book Gender Trouble that gender, like sexuality, is not an essential truth obtained from one’s body but something that is acted out and portrayed as “reality”. She argues that the strict belief that the there is a “truth” of sex makes heterosexuality as the only proper outcome because of the coherent binary created of “feminine” and “masculine” and thus creating the only logical outcome of either being a “male” or “female.” Butler makes the case that gender performativity could be a strategy of resistance with examples such as drag, cross-dressing, and the sexual nonrealistic depiction of butch and femme identities that poke fun at the laid out gender norms in society. In her later book, Undoing Gender, Butler makes it clear that performativity is not the same as performance. She explains that gender performativity is a repeated process that ultimately creates the subject as a subject. Butler’s work brings to light the creation of gender contesting the rigidity of the hierarchical binaries that exist and is what makes her work invaluable in queer theory."
