Queer Theory For The Sociology Of Gender And Sexuality

Everyone has their own take on controversial subjects faced in society, and no matter what age we live in, this particular subject seems to stay just as relevant in the generation before as it does today. The poem written by Richard Blanco titled â Queer Theory: According to My Grandmotherâ (2012), which

Heather Sykes is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and specializes in educational studies and physical education (Sykes, 2011). Sykes is published in a variety of academic journals for her research in critical analysis of gender, sexuality and fatness in physical education as well as sports sociology. Her book, Queer Bodies: Sexualities, Genders, & Fatness in Physical Education is a heavily research-based book about key issues in physical education. It was published in 2011 by Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. based out of New York, New York and despite being published by an American company, the bulk of Sykes’s research comes from Canadian citizens who identify as having queer bodies. Throughout the text, Sykes uncovers various problems within physical education surrounding queer bodies such as harassment, humiliation, and being an outcast. She challenges the traditional values and curriculum used in physical education courses, and provides insight to better serve queer bodies in physical education.

In our modern era, the conversation about gender equality, marriage equality, and identity cannot be ignored. Even with current events relating to which public restroom one can use is a staunch reminder of the social inequities which exist in the United States of America. Beyond the social dialogue is the spiritual conversation. The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer community fight not only an uphill battle with the pressure of society but also how to reconcile a relationship with God and a place within Christianity. It is through the thoughtful exploration of Queer Liberation Theology that a dialogue and public and spiritual discourse can flourish.

Heather Sykes is an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and specializes in educational studies and physical education (Sykes, 2011). Sykes has been published in a variety of academic journals for her research in the critical analysis of gender, sexuality and fatness in physical education as well as sports sociology. Her book, Queer Bodies: Sexualities, Genders, & Fatness in Physical Education is a heavily research-based book about key issues in physical education. It was published in 2011 by Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. based out of New York, New York and despite being published by an American company, the bulk of Sykes’s research comes from Canadian citizens who identify as having queer bodies. Throughout the text, Sykes uncovers various problems within physical education surrounding queer bodies such as harassment, humiliation, and being an outcast. She challenges the traditional values and curriculum used in physical education courses, and provides insight to better serve queer bodies in physical education.

Sexuality and Gender are social constructs. They are more like fluid concepts. Both are on spectrums. Why could they be considered controversial topics, more specifically the spectrum? Well, the idea of sexuality being more than just heterosexuality has been challenged by conservative types and others alike for years. They may even deem anything other than heterosexuality as something abnormal and immoral. For some, it can be quite difficult to understand that sexuality is on a spectrum. Especially with identities like bisexuality and pansexuality, it can be difficult for some people to wrap their minds around that idea. In recent years, the idea of gender being more than just male and female has been getting more and more attention. It is no longer sex that defines people, but gender identity, expression, and presentation. They are not fully understood and sometimes not accepted by people; unfortunately some of that ignorance, and much to my surprise, come from people within the LGBTQ+ community. A lack of understanding about the spectrums of sexuality and gender leads to a lot of confusion, hate, and ignorance.

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).

Many queer theorists seek to deconstruct binaries such as male and female; heterosexual and homosexual. Queer activists oppose mainstream assimilation and argue for social reconstruction. As a theoretical approach, the ideas behind both studies are used to analyze the conditions of the queer and LGBT communities represented in

The development of gay identity emerged from men and women not being comfortable with the lives they were living. Traditional heterosexual roles caused both men and women to become unsatisfied with the way they were supposed to act. In a sense, they expressed heterosexual roles so that they won’t receive any backlash from the community they were a part of. The sexuality of someone was socially constructed, and that caused many people to have a difficult time coming out about which sex they prefer over the other. In Jeffrey Week’s “Sexuality in History”, Week discussed how sexuality is socially constructed as it gives aid in the development of one’s identity. Sexuality is something that people are able to express by the people they have something in common with. However, it is socially constructed since people labeled everything. “Indeed, I would go so far to say that sexuality only exists through its social forms and social organization” (Weeks 6). Sexuality was not based on the person, but how people will view their nonconformity in society.

On December 29th, 2014, seventeen year old Leelah Alcorn stepped out into traffic and was hit by a truck. Her suicide caused an uproar on social media platforms like Tumblr, where her suicide note was originally published. This is because Leelah Alcorn was a transgender girl – meaning that the gender she identifies with does not match the sex she was assigned with at birth. After she came out as transgender to her parents, they isolated her from her friends, school and social media. During that time, she developed depression. Her parents sent her to therapy, but the therapists, who were religious and biased, attempted to change her gender back to male. This deepened her depression, subsequently

Why is it that ‘Queer’ is perceived as odd, strange, or out of place? Whenever there is a community of individuals, no one should be viewed as out of place because of their sexual orientation. Believe it or not, the term ‘queer’ can be seen as an insult. But of course this is still prevalent today due to the fact that ‘queer’ disrupts alleged stability between ‘biological sex’, gender and sexual desire. Queer Theory challenges the apparent coherence of heterosexuality, which is actually unstable and insecure, and depends on carefully constructed individual performances. The apparent coherence of heterosexuality also constantly denies and excludes homosexuality as an equal possibility for sexual desire and gender roles. The fact of the matter

Sexuality and gender for many seem to go hand and hand. With the breakdown of gender being defined by our biological sex or legally documented gender identity and sexual orientation relating to the gender or genders that we favor, it is understandable that this could happen. Our society often allows for sexuality to be gendered, through things like stigma, stereotypes, expectations, and limitations. Sexuality is gendered for men and women, but seems to provide more noticeable limitations for women regardless of sexual orientation. Men seem to have their sexuality questioned and experience elements of stigma and expectations more often.

The one person I’ll be focusing on in this essay is Dr. David M. Halperin a professor at the University of Michigan, and a graduate of Classics and Humanities from Stanford University. In the article titled The Normalation of Queer Theory, Halperin fulfills his purpose of enlightening the readers concerning change in perception regarding the phrase Queer theory, as well as the transformation in implication of sole word queer. He begins by elaborating on Teresa de Lauretis, and her inadvertent affect catalyzed by her conference. The terminology used for that conference got her in quick sand amongst the faculty at UCSD, “Why do they have to call it that?”(339). Lauretis initiated the crowd immediately by acknowledging her provocation; she constructs clarity by saying she solely wanted to “unsettle the complacency of lesbian and gay studies”(340). She anticipated to construct queer theory as a “placeholder for a hypothetical knowledge-practice not yet existence”(340). Numerous characteristics and factors play into an individual's distinctiveness, it is offensive to place a threshold on an individual, or mold labels for individuals. Instead, queer theory enlarges the debate on distinct uniqueness,

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

Irma its good to see not only I saw the connection on the “gender studies and Queer theory”. These critics point out the clothing, body language and the looks of the actors more than anything. They dont focus on the story plot the history moreso mock they story itself. In Norton Literature it specify how at t”imes critics establish the stature of a work by a gay or lesbian writter..”(Norton2349) They may not mind the sex preferance, but one can definately say they dont respect it. In my opinion although it was some what funny, it was not well critisized not r

even though sexuality can be considered universal, the sexual behaviors affiliated with it offer different attitudes in various communities. Sexuality is aligned to sexual attraction where individuals can identify themselves with a broad range of sexuality that is bisexual, gay or being lesbian. Sexuality can change over time in a person depending on the circumstances surrounding him or her. It may be affected by the social circle and emotional imbalances that may occur in an individual. Interestingly there exists sexual inequality among many societies in the world. As observed, many societies encourage men to have multiple sex partners but forbid it in women. Moreover, pre-marital sex is promoted in men, but women are flaunted if they participate in pre-marital sex. Across the globe, Western Europe has embraced certain norms in sexuality such as homosexuality whereas African society embraces a negative attitude towards the same.