Queer Methods

Queer Studies

In queer studies, the potentially infinite multiple meanings that could be applied to a situation or context often are conceptualized as the result of different social orientations; the ways language, representation, and performance are politicized, both implicitly and explicitly; a lack of consistency or logical solvency in the many ways genders and sexualities are categorized; and/or recognizing that desire is just as relevant to lived experience and social justice as logic and rationality. Scholars who study queer theory tend to embrace critical and postmodern research paradigms, although queer theoretical approaches—and, thus, queer methods—can involve empirical interpretive or postpositive research studies. For example, qualitative researchers can use queer theory to inform the analysis of their open-ended interview data, just as the conceptualization or operationalization of ideas for quantitative data could be critiqued using a queer-theoretical lens.

Queer studies often examine both power and power relations, particularly regarding sex, gender, and sexuality. Although many queer theorists study gay, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgender people and identities, queer theory is relevant to all sexual and gender identities. That being stated, typically scholars who explore queer topics tend to examine heteronormativity, or the idea of heterosexuality being privileged. Still, just because people appear to be ostensibly heterosexual (i.e., cisgender and attracted to people of the opposite sex) does not mean that they do not have queer aspects of their identity. The idea of a normal heterosexual person who does normal heterosexual things is a part of heteronormativity. Heteronormativity is the notion that people are heterosexual until something suggests otherwise, and, further, that their heterosexuality is standard (referred to as “vanilla” in some scholarship) and involves masculine biological males and feminine biological females. To that end, topics ranging from gender-alternative proms to forms of kink used in the bedroom have been explored in queer studies.

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