“Perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender; indeed, perhaps it was always already gender with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all.”
- Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, 1990
- Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, 1990
What is Queer Theory?
Queer Theory is a neo-Marxist and postmodern critical theory of gender, sex, and sexuality. Like all critical theories, Queer Theory uses a neo-Marxist lens to critique society and force it to change through activism. Queer Theorists argue that normalcy - especially as it relates to "norms" of gender, sex, and sexuality - is the central construct for understanding inequality. That is to say, Queer Theorists believe that dominant groups use power to define what "normal" means and do so to benefit themselves at the expense of others.
Core Tenants
- Social Constructionism
- Normalization
- [Cis]Heteronormativity
- Deconstructing the "normal" and "ordinary"
- Destabilizing categories
- Performativity
Queer Theory is a theory of how society works. Specifically, it’s a theory of how society determines what our standards, rules, and norms are, especially as those standards, rules, and norms relate to sex, gender, and sexuality. Queer Theory assumes that all norms are “regulated and connected to social power.” Queer Theory sets out to examine and critique how this social power manifests itself in the way we communicate, draw distinctions between things, and build categories.
Queer Theory goes beyond exploring aspects of gay and lesbian identity and experience. It questions take-for-granted assumptions about relationships, identity, gender, and sexual orientation. It seeks to explode rigid normalizing categories. (Meyer, E. J. (2007). But I’m not Gay: What Straight Teachers Need to Know about Queer Theory. Peter Lang Publishing.)
Queer Theory is also a practice, meaning it’s not just a way to think about the world—it’s also something you do to change it. This can be confusing because we don’t typically associate a theory with action. The theory of gravity, for example, doesn’t tell us what we ought to do. The theory of gravity only describes what our current understanding of gravity is. Likewise, we don’t find values buried in the theory of electromagnetism or cell theory. Queer Theory is altogether different—the theory and practice of Queer Theory are inseparable. Queer Theory is both a theory and a practice, often described as “praxis.”
A basketball team reviews their playbook before game time. The team has a theory of how they can score more points than the opposing team. A player on this team competes at center court for a jump ball that starts the game, setting the team’s theory of how they can win into practice. Queer Theory works similarly. Queer Activists—those who believe that Queer Theory is a factual description of how society works—take their theory into the world and agitate for social change through political activism. The basketball team’s goal is to score more points. The Queer Activist’s goal is to change society.
A basketball team reviews their playbook before game time. The team has a theory of how they can score more points than the opposing team. A player on this team competes at center court for a jump ball that starts the game, setting the team’s theory of how they can win into practice. Queer Theory works similarly. Queer Activists—those who believe that Queer Theory is a factual description of how society works—take their theory into the world and agitate for social change through political activism. The basketball team’s goal is to score more points. The Queer Activist’s goal is to change society.
Queer activists often work to expose problems in the status quo and help us imagine and create more socially just alternatives. They work to change laws and policies by lobbying legislators or staging protests, they teach others to break through glass ceilings or challenge discriminatory employment or housing or healthcare practices, they organize community or school groups for political action. (Kumashiro, K. K. (2009). Against common sense: Teaching and learning toward social justice. Routledge.)
The practice of Queer Theory is called “queering.” The word “queer,” in this sense, is a verb. “To queer” is “to destabilize the social, cultural, and political normalizing structures that work to solidify identities and in doing so skew power toward the “norm.” Put simply, “to queer” is to challenge and eliminate normalcy. “Normalcy” means “the condition of being normal, as in usual, typical, or expected.” So, to queer is to challenge and eliminate the idea that anything can or should be considered normal.
In brief, Queer Theory adopts the disposition that certain people illegitimately declared themselves to be “normal” and branded everyone else “abnormal,” “deviant,” even “degenerate” and “perverse” in order to include themselves in mainstream society and marginalize the Others. This designation of “normal” is therefore not grounded in facts about the realities of being human, including our patterns of social interaction, nor is it merely arbitrary; it is explicitly self-serving and political thus unjust and in need of disruption and dismantling. Its goal, therefore, could be summarized in a single sentence: abolish what people agree to call “normalcy.”
Queer Theory “is at heart about politics.” Queer Theory’s fundamental argument is that all norms carry political agendas. Queer Activists believe these political agendas are hidden in “common sense” attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
In brief, Queer Theory adopts the disposition that certain people illegitimately declared themselves to be “normal” and branded everyone else “abnormal,” “deviant,” even “degenerate” and “perverse” in order to include themselves in mainstream society and marginalize the Others. This designation of “normal” is therefore not grounded in facts about the realities of being human, including our patterns of social interaction, nor is it merely arbitrary; it is explicitly self-serving and political thus unjust and in need of disruption and dismantling. Its goal, therefore, could be summarized in a single sentence: abolish what people agree to call “normalcy.”
Queer Theory “is at heart about politics.” Queer Theory’s fundamental argument is that all norms carry political agendas. Queer Activists believe these political agendas are hidden in “common sense” attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
what society defines as common sense may appear to be just the way things are, but they actually are social constructs that function to “confirm and reinforce…structurally generated relations of domination.” What society defines as common sense justifies the oppressive status quo of society by sustaining “the appearance of the world as given and received, and of reality as existing on its own.” Commonsense discourses, then, not only socialize us to accept oppressive conditions as “normal” and the way things are, but also to make these conditions normative and the way things out to be. (Kumashiro, K. K. (2002). Against repetition: Addressing resistance to anti-oppressive change in the practices of learning, teaching, supervising, and researching. Harvard Educational Review, 72(1), 67-93.)
Queer Activists believe that the only reason people believe anything is normal or natural is because those people have been brainwashed to believe so through a half-organic process called “socialization.” For what it’s worth, the Marxist phrasing for the “half-organic process” of socialization would be saying something like “normalcy is a historical process” which Queer Theory seeks to identify and transform to its own purposes. In this view, powerful people and institutions use the cover of science, objectivity, reason, and rationality to mask an unfair social hierarchy that grants privilege to those people considered “normal” while marginalizing those considered abnormal or deviant. It is for this reason that Queer Theory seeks to abolish all norms.
Queer Activists queer norms, institutions, and society because they believe they must do so to eliminate oppression. Queer Activists think they must practice their political activism until society no longer considers anything normal—until we all live, as Queer Activist Michael Warner describes it, on a queer planet.
Queer Activists queer norms, institutions, and society because they believe they must do so to eliminate oppression. Queer Activists think they must practice their political activism until society no longer considers anything normal—until we all live, as Queer Activist Michael Warner describes it, on a queer planet.
In Summary
Queer Theory exists to break "normalcy." The destruction isn't limited to categories of sex, gender, and sexuality. Queer Theorists believe everything is a social construction, built and defined by those in power to oppress others. Because they think in this way they work tirelessly to take control and enforce their ideology on everyone else, by whatever means necessary. Queer Theorists actively construct a fake reality and practice activism to force everyone to live in it.
REFERENCES:
1. Meyer, E. J. (2007). But I’m not Gay: What Straight Teachers Need to Know about Queer Theory. Peter Lang Publishing.
2. Kumashiro, K. K. (2009). Against common sense: Teaching and learning toward social justice. Routledge.
3. Kumashiro, K. K. (2002). Against repetition: Addressing resistance to anti-oppressive change in the practices of learning, teaching, supervising, and researching. Harvard Educational Review, 72(1), 67-93.
1. Meyer, E. J. (2007). But I’m not Gay: What Straight Teachers Need to Know about Queer Theory. Peter Lang Publishing.
2. Kumashiro, K. K. (2009). Against common sense: Teaching and learning toward social justice. Routledge.
3. Kumashiro, K. K. (2002). Against repetition: Addressing resistance to anti-oppressive change in the practices of learning, teaching, supervising, and researching. Harvard Educational Review, 72(1), 67-93.
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Copyright © 2024 The Lancing.