What do we mean when we talk about gender performativity and the implications of the constructionist turn? Instead, queer theory and activism demand publicness, reject civility, and challenge the legitimacy, naturalness, and intrinsic value of institutionswhether marriage or the militarythat regulate gender and sexuality. You do not currently have access to this chapter. Additionally, when she proceeds to list the elements that supposedly compose ones sexual identity circa 1991 (7), she deftly points out that this groupings attempts at unifying the differences inherent in different peoples sexual identities into a seamless and univocal whole (8) is an impossible task, but hope exists in the fact that the idea of queer opens up a world of endless possibilities and contradictions for defining and understanding ones self. In fact, Judith Butler, who is often identified as an early and formative player in the creation of queer theory, cites both theorists as influential to her work on performativity. Yes, Dr. Lothian, thats how Im defining the term as I come to understand it! Kirk Synthesis 3: The Power of Queer Imaginings, Synthesis 2 Queer Identities, Temporalities, and Geographies, Synthesis #1: Queer Hearts Resurrected: The Socially Corrupted Undead Bodies of In the Flesh, Synthesis #2: Reflections on The Polymath or The Life and Opinions of Samuel R. Delany, Gentleman, Synthesis #3: Suppressing and Igniting Lesbian Desire in But Im a Cheerleader, Synthesis One: Shifting Paradigms in Foucaults History of Sexuality Volumes One and Two, Synthesis Three: Queer Imaginings in Melvilles Moby Dick, Synthesis Two: Queer Studies in a Transnational Context, Re-centering Race in My Beautiful Launderette, Synthesis 3: Meditation: Prodesse quam conspici, The Booty Dont Lie: Radical Coalitions between Queer Women of Color and the Straight Women Who Love Them, Cinema Diaspora: Discussant Mira Nair with Gayatri Gopinath Chairing. She suggests that the deviancy and abjection previously associated with gay and lesbian sexualities is redirected to brown Muslim bodies and instrumentalized to justify the war on terror. Personal web page intersex. L. Feinberg, Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come, in Stryker. Many express criticism that groups like the HRC have become representative voices of the LGBTQ+ community and are failing to represent its most vulnerable members. For instance, a primary benefit of marriage is access to health insurance, but one partner must have health insurance for marriage to help a couple in this way. Sedgwicks deconstructivist approach shows us that any social binary that defines subjects in society (especially the binary of heterosexual/homosexual) is not a relation of symmetry between two terms. Like Muoz, Carruthers emphasizes the importance of the Black imagination, specifically the ability to imagine alternative economics, alternative family structures, or something else entirely.[42] This work cannot be accomplished if groups like the HRC, which has a clear procapitalist agenda, shape public discourse about LGBTQ+ issues. By looking back at the text Queer Visibilities that largely focused on articulating some of the relationships between the urban and sexuality over a decade ago in Cape Town, this article suggests . Epistemology of the Closet, published in 1990 in the midst of the AIDS epidemic, is a seminal work of queer studies by intellectual and activist Eve Sedgwick. This 2005 article in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (volume 31, number 1; https://doi.org/10.1086/432743) covers the history of queer theory and gives an overview of its origins. Lesbian and gay studies courses began to appear in the 1970s, and programs slowly emerged in the 1980s. [6] Of course, this very critical, very radical relationship to the normative appears in times before the late 1980s and in places other than the United States, but it is then and there that queer activism and queer theory are named and begin to be, however hesitantly, defined. https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/app/uploads/sites/262/2022/03/Judith-Butler_-Your-Behavior-Creates-Your-Gender-Big-Think.mp4, https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2018/11/20/iconic-kate-bornstein-explains-gender-revolution, https://afropunk.com/2013/03/growing-up-queer-a-brief-lesson-on-hetero-and-homonormativity/, https://milnepublishing.geneseo.edu/app/uploads/sites/262/2022/03/Charlene-Carruthers-on-Black-Liberation-for-all-Black-People360p.mp4, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNvsIonJdJ5E4EXMa65VYpA, https://www.youtube.com/user/MyGenderation/videos, https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/lgbtq/graduate-student-resources/queer-theory-reading-list, http://newsocialist.org/old_mag/magazine/39/article04.html, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/8980528_The_Normalization_of_Queer_Theory, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This can have its usesfor instance, in creating a discernible community able to make demands of the state, as seen in the homophile movement as well as in current gay (and lesbian) rights activism. In Gender Critical she addresses transphobic feminists (https://youtu.be/1pTPuoGjQsI). This chapter explores the development of queer theory from the 1990s to the present. Icon Books is licensed under a, Figure 1.3. Following the Stonewall rebellion, lesbian and gay liberation groups started to fight for equal rights, and some scholars started to study the history and culture of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. (LogOut/ Furthermore, they argue that capitalism and militarism do harm and can only contingently benefit individual LGBTQ+ persons. What are the similarities and differences between transgender studies and queer studies? It accepts greater economic inequality and disfavors unionization. This is similar to Newtons observation of drag, particularly her suggestion that drag reveals gender as a performance. We cannot be and will not be denied that. Explain the social construction of sex, gender, and sexuality. And oh yea, by the way, its all pretty queer. Here it is important to distinguish between sexual identities and sexual practices. InFemale Masculinity, Jack Halberstam continues the work of disentangling gender from genitals through a series of interpretive readings of literary, filmic, and historical representations (figure 1.6). Right now, drag performers and the LGBTQIA+ community need our help," the posts' captions read along with a link to purchase the t-shirt the couple wears in the clip through Bacon's 501(c)3 . Most often someone who identifies as a man who behaves in an exaggerated performance of femininity. Refers to the performance of femininity or masculinity, and is most frequently used to describe the performance of gender expressions that differ from those associated with the performers natal sex assignment. In more practical terms, this means that the act of identifying homosexuality and homosexual life as other has subordinated it to and coerced it into navigating a world that has been organized to favor heterosexual individuals. [35] For instance,Dont Ask, Dont Tell, a policy of forced silence about sexuality for gay, lesbian, and bisexual service members instituted by the Bill Clinton administration in 1993, was repealed in 2011. And if youre afraid that going PC is going to bring some kind of doctrine to you or warp what you believe in, youre already stuck in a position of not realizing how queeryou and everything else has always-alreadybeen. Her work aims to create young leaders in marginalized communities to fight for community interests and liberation. Additionally, as of June 26, 2015, same-sex marriageis legal in the United States. Her many publications include A Dialogue On Love (Beacon, 1999); Fat Art/Thin Art (Duke, 1994); Tendencies (Duke, 1993); and Epistemology of the Closet (California, 1990). In the second chapter, Sedgwick turns to the figure of Claggart, a gay policeman on a ship in Melvilles Billy Budd. Jack Halberstam. Introduction It is a challenge to create an origin story about a field of study, in this instance queer theory, because ideas are not birthed in a moment, a day, or even a year. [13] It is a constructivist account of gender identity that connects the binary construction of gender (man or woman) to heterosexual kinship and by extension to womens oppression within heterosexual patriarchal cultures (figure 1.3). In a follow-up publication, Butler argues that sex is a regulatory ideal that forces many bodies into a two-part system. Full video transcript available in the appendix. Upon completion of this chapter, students will be able to do the following: It is a challenge to create an origin story about a field of study, in this instance queer theory, because ideas are not birthed in a moment, a day, or even a year. An American professor, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality, and a founder of Transgender Studies. What is Carruthers referring to when she talks about telling more complete stories? All rights reserved. For Sedgwick, unlike Gothic literature that depicted the male hero as tenacious to the point of martyrdom, Victorian literature depicted the male hero as isolated, aloof, and defined by lack of desire. Halberstam convincingly claims, Masculinity must not and cannot and should not reduce down to the male body and its effects.[25] Like many queer theorists engaging gender, Halberstam deemphasizes genitals, refocusing on gender expressions. This has been due, in no small degree, to the influence of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's critically acclaimed Epistemology of the Closet. universalizing. Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most influential texts in gender studies, men's studies and gay studies," this book uncovers the homosocial desire between men, from Restoration comedies to Tennyson's Princess. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick is Distinguished Professor of English, CUNY Graduate Center. A gender and queer theorist and author, perhaps best known for work on tomboys and female masculinity. Queer and Now serves as an introduction to the essay collection Tendencies, in which Butler revisits many of the themes in more detail, which might be why you find its structure a little frustrating though that may also just be Sedgwicks style! She went on to claim gay and lesbian sexualities should be understood and imagined as forms of resistance to cultural homogenization, counteracting dominant discourses.[3] According to de Lauretis, and queer theorists more generally, lesbian and gay sexualities enact nonnormative intimate and social modes of relating; they put new things in the world, and those new things have transformative potential. An independent documentary series, My Genderation explores gender variance in short films (https://www.youtube.com/user/MyGenderation/videos). The universalizing view, in contrast, sees sexuality and sexual definition as important to everyone.
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