Queer Theory Case Study

Sex is the biological definition of the person, which is through the classification of the genitals. Gender identity is a person’s psychological belief that they are either man or woman no matter the sexual orientation. Gender has created a grand division between men and women. Discriminating women to be weak, unreliable, and irrational. While Men are to be declared as superior. The fight to become equal evolved from the industrial period where woman was no longer needed to also be a provider alongside her partner.

Queer anthropology is often identified under cultural anthropology and combined with studies like gender studies. It focuses on the intersectionality of human life with various identities. Queer anthropologists ask questions around queer theory and how the social constructs of identity can be challenged to envelop a new wave of thinking. Looking back on historical trends like Stonewall, researchers can see how progressive – or not- society has become in teaching history beyond the normative. They can observe how queer history is often blocked out of education in favor of the

While this visibility does afford transvestites formal recognition, the presence of satire in their representation undermines their plight for recognition as a definition of gender expression and sexual identity (Hennessy, 2000). This, therefore, acts to police and regulate the social and cultural bodies of transvestite individuals within the neoliberal state. Therefore, men and women who show characteristics inconsistent with the neoliberal state's prescribed gender roles are often regulated and policed through the labelling of marginalized and different groups (Keyes, 2014). An autonomous, feminist and individualised woman often is subjected to ‘lesbian' labelling and this form of ‘othering' contributes to the regulation and individualised policing marginalized groups experience under the heteronormative, neoliberal state and its subsequent restrictions on gender and sexual identity (Keyes, 2014). However, the sex-gender matrix that operates under heterosexuality can often be understood in terms of the social struggle of queer visibility in the consumerist culture, to recognise not the form but the function of families in the homosexual sphere (Dnes,

Producing a scrutinizing discourse that would reaffirm difference and police actions, culturally defining expectations of gender and race, “sexuality is seen as a primary locus of power in contemporary society, constituting subjects and governing them by exercising control through their bodies.” (Weedon, 115). Viewing feminism as allowing for space in which to challenge the existing power structures and shift dominant discourse, Weedon suggests participating in reverse discourse to reclaim oppressive terminology (i.e., gay, queer, bitch, slut). Acknowledging that the reclaiming is not a complete erasure of meaning but rather a shift in the flow of power as, “an understanding of how discourse of biological sexual difference are mobilized, in a particular society, at a particular moment, is the first stage in intervening in order to innate change.” (Weedon, 131).

A persons 'sex ' is a biological trait. A human being will contain this trait form birth. Society uses 'sex ' to categorize people. A human being will either belong in the 'female ' or the 'male ' categories; a decision that will be made based on chromosomes, genitalia or some other physical ascription.

There seems to be a prevalent belief among queer theorists that there exists an archetype of the “ideal queer.” This person is subversive in everything that they do, and disrupts norms in all ways. Obviously, this ideal is different from dominant society’s view of the ideal queer - a person who keeps their identity to themself, is not “outwardly queer,” holds some type of stable corporate job, is “just like the rest of us” in all other aspects of being, and is decidedly non-radical. Of course, neither of these ideals are representative of the reality of LGBT individuals. Gender and sexual expression is infinitely varied, and cannot be boxed into categories which are palatable to one group or another. LGBT individuals who chose to marry or

Sexual orientationism is best described as discrimination or prejudice against homosexuals on the assumption that heterosexuality is the dominant, or normal, sexual orientation. Within society there are many barriers, assumptions, and stigmas placed upon the queer community, numerous of which steam from this heterosexist stance that has become the dominant ideology. This stance has historical significance in trauma, and oppression of those within the sexual minority, and how this can play on representation.

As being developed by poststructuralism, feminism, lesbian & gay studies and even American pragmatist theory (Parker,2001; Seidman,1997), queer theory has become one of the most important theories, which contributes to the research of sociology, arts and organizations. On the one hand, queer theory has been used to study the relations between the sexuality, gender and workplace. On the other hand, by utilizing denaturalized, deconstructive and performative methods to queer the presumptions of the taken-for-granted norms, queer theorists question and disprove the traditions which people cherish (Seidman,1995).

When something is so prevalent in society it becomes the hard to see its influence. Heteronormativity has such effect which Lauren Berlant and Micheal Warner discuss in “Sex in Public.”. “Heteronormativity is more that ideology, or prejudice, or phobia against gays and lesbians; it is produced in almost every aspect of the forms and arrangements of social life; nationality, the state, and the law; commerce; medicine; and education” (Berlant, Warner, 554). It imposes

I'm currently on the waitlist for your class, Queer Practice. After a lot of deliberation, I've decided that I do not have the time this semester to give the class all the thought and effort it deserves. Nevertheless, thank you for bringing a class like this to Barnard/Columbia. I hope that the class will be offered in future semesters and, if it is, I would be extremely excited to participate in this project.

The heterosexual imaginary is immensely ingrained in our everyday experience that most people, including feminist sociologists, has become inclined to conceptualize and theorize based around the heteronormative. The heterosexual imaginary acts as an invisible framework at play that structures our thinking processes and in which constructs our social identity. For instance, the inquiry of a survey taker’s marital status in most social science surveys come to show that our recognized and appropriate social identity is formed around heterosexuality. That is, any deviation from this heterosexual norm would be considered abnormal and be marginalized. To a minimal extent, this focus has served the interests of women because of the lack of activism

Queer theory questions creations of normal and divergent, insider, and outsider.2 Queer theorists analyse a situation or a text to determine the relationship between sexuality, power and gender. Queer theory challenges basic tropes used to organize our society and our language: even words are gendered, and through that gendering an elliptical view of the hierarchy of society, and presumption of what is male and what is female, shines through. Queer theory rejects such binary distinctions as arbitrarily determined and defined by those with social power. It works to deconstruct these binaries, particularly the homosexual/heterosexual binary.4

In Foucault and Queer Theory Spargo defines queer theory as a nebulous group of cultural criticism and analysis of social power structures relating to sexuality . It is these power structures and aspects of culture that are responsible for the discourse that creates and informs ones understanding of gender, race, and sexuality. However these aspects of identity do not exist separately from one another, but are constructed in tandem throughout history. These layers of identity inform each other in a way that is difficult if not impossible to separate. They do not act independently with an additive effect but intersect constructing their own unique set of experiences and perspectives. In this paper I will be exploring queer theory

When we look up gender in the dictionary it states “Although it is possible to define gender as “sex,” indicating that the term can be used when differentiating male creatures from female ones biologically, the concept of gender, a word primarily applied to human beings, has additional connotations—more rich and more amorphous—having to do with general behavior, social interactions, and most importantly, one 's fundamental sense of self.” When I define gender I automatically define it as being a boy and girl or male and female. People define gender in so many ways, but it is in the way that we think more outside of the box based on people’s opinions, that make us wonder more.

Gender and sexual orientation is a topic that has been and still today is not talked about in such a way it should be because of how society has chosen to structure and control it. Social stratification is a system in which groups of people are divided up into layers according to their relative privileges (power, property, and prestige). It’s a way of ranking large groups of people into a hierarchy according to their relative privileges (Vela-McConnell 2016). People, who deviate from the norm of the “accepted” gender and sexual orientation that society has placed upon us, are stratified below the norm of a dominating binary gender and sexual orientation. People who are queer face the struggle of mistreatment and an unaccepting society that has been socialized to see and act on gender and sexual orientation to being a dualistic system.