Queer Theory

Abstract

Queer theory is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of sexuality. Queer theory's insights derive from multiple sources: feminist scholarship, gay and lesbian studies, cultural studies, social constructionism, deconstructionist and poststructuralist social theory. In general, queer theory takes account of the cultural products (e.g., knowledges, films, television shows), social practices (e.g., dating and marriage), and institutions (e.g., the state) which together bestow on heterosexuality a sacred status and make it into a compulsory requirement. The origins of queer theory are themselves ambiguous; while as an academic movement queer theory is typically associated with the 1990s, its earliest articulations can be traced to the 1970s in the work of Michel Foucault (1978) and the 1980s in the work of scholars like Teresa de Lauretis (1987) and Gloria Anzaldúa (1987). As forerunners of queer theory, these scholars interrogated the way in which western social orders deploy rigid standards of gender and sexual intelligibility as a method of social regulation.