Queer Theory

Background to the Concept

Queer theory evolved since the early 1990s from several strands of theoretical thought and fields of study, especially feminist, gay, and lesbian studies; social constructionism, post-structuralism, literary and film studies, and cultural history. It followed the emergence of queer activism in the wake of the AIDS crisis and the neoconservative backlash against gay and lesbian emancipation in the late 1980s and 1990. Geographically, most centers and proponents of queer theory and queer studies are located in North America, Australia, and Europe.

Queer theoretical perspectives have also been established in social science disciplines and led, for example, to a queer critique in classic sociology and social theory: in particular, of the failure to address how intricately tied up the history of Western modernity and colonialism was with the heterosexualization of bodies, desires, and identities and with the formation of a reproductive growth economy linked to the Oedipal household and repro-narrativity—a narrative of generational succession—as the key ideology of a meaningful life (Warner 1991, 7).

In contrast to gay and lesbian studies, which focused on the lives and identities of gays and lesbians, queer theory/sociology sets out as a more [Page 1188]general social analysis. This is based on the argument that heteronormativity underpins the whole cultural and institutional fabric as well as social ideologies of Western societies. What is oppressive is not merely outright homophobia but the regimes of hetero-normality built, among others, into gender and family arrangements, the state and social institutions, public speech and culture, reproductive politics, and cultural norms of the body.

By considering sexuality a central category that structures virtually all realms of social life, queer theory parallels feminist theory. Queer theory does not take sexual identity categories as unproblematic starting points but turns them into units of analysis. Its core argument is that a heteronormative social order is maintained through safeguarding the difference between binary gender (male/female) categories and binary sexual categories constructed as normal on the one hand (heterosexuality) and as deviant on the other (homosexuality). According to queer theorists, the binary gender order and the dichotomy of hetero-versus homosexuality organize the regulation of social institutions, social relations, and processes. They confer social position and classify bodies, pleasures, and desires. Queer theory problematizes identity and sex/gender categories and deconstructs the notion of sexual subjectivities, such as the “homosexual.” Identities are seen as disciplinary and regulatory structures and as reductionist: naming through a single characteristic such as sexuality silences other ways of framing one's self. The objective of queer theory is therefore the critique not of heterosexuality itself but of its institutionalization as the norm (heteronormativity) maintained through invoking and setting itself off from homosexuality as its devalued other. This critique targets the boundary work between hetero- and homosexuality that organizes ways of knowing bodies and desires and that naturalizes gender and sexual identities.

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