1.1: Thirty Years of Queer Theory - An Overview

Introduction

It is a challenge to create an origin story about a field of study, in this instance queer theory, because ideas are not birthed in a moment, a day, or even a year. They build on what has come before, reflect on it, challenge it, seek to bend or break it, and only eventually, and only sometimes, become an identifiable entity with a name given to them. The story of queer theory’s emergence is entwined with queer activism. Queer theory and queer activism are products of their historical moment as well as transformative forces changing how gender and sexuality are understood in multiple academic disciplines and, increasingly, outside academia. Additionally, both queer theory and activism introduced ways of thinking and acting through politics that went beyond normalizing demands for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in existing social institutions.

The 1970s and 1980s saw a rapid increase in lesbian and gay activism and scholarship. A police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City in 1969 ignited demonstrations. Following the Stonewall rebellion, lesbian and gay liberation groups started to fight for equal rights, and some scholars started to study the history and culture of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals. Then, in 1987, Larry Kramer, Vito Russo, and others founded the direct-action group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) to demand that politicians, the medical community, drug manufacturers, and the public acknowledge the AIDS epidemic. The group’s motto was, and remains, “Silence = Death.”^[1] An offshoot of ACT UP, Queer Nation, was founded in 1990 to fight the escalating violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.

Teresa de Lauretis

At roughly the same time, the term queer theory began to circulate and quickly gained momentum within academic circles. The film theorist Teresa de Lauretis (figure 1.1) coined the term at a University of California, Santa Cruz, conference about lesbian and gay sexualities in February 1990. The conference proceedings were later collected in a 1991 special issue of Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies. In her introduction to the special issue, de Lauretis outlines the central features of queer theory, sketching the field in broad strokes that have held up remarkably well.^[2]

Figure 1.1. Teresa de Lauretis. (From Queer: A Graphic History by Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele, provided courtesy of Icon Books. Copyright Icon Books, reprinted with permission.)

De Lauretis suggested gay and lesbian sexualities should be studied, not as deviations of heterosexuality, but on their own terms. She went on to claim gay and lesbian sexualities should be “understood and imagined as forms of resistance to cultural homogenization, counteracting dominant discourses.”^[3] According to de Lauretis, and queer theorists more generally, lesbian and gay sexualities enact nonnormative intimate and social modes of relating; they put new things in the world, and those new things have transformative potential.

From its earliest iterations, queer theory challenged norms that reproduced inequalities and, at its best, sought to understand how sexuality intersected with gender, race, class, and other social identities to maintain social hierarchies. In fact, de Lauretis used the term queer to create critical distance from lesbian and gay studies. Lesbian and gay studies courses began to appear in the 1970s, and programs slowly emerged in the 1980s. De Lauretis claimed that differences were collapsed within lesbian and gay studies and the experience of white middle-class gay men was privileged. She notes that although it became standard to refer to lesbians and gays in the 1980s, the “and” obscured differences instead of revealing them.^[4] In addition to sexuality, de Lauretis hoped queer theory would identify and trouble other “constructed silences”—for instance, those of race, ethnicity, class, and gender.^[5] She wanted to break with the past and transform the future by developing new ways of conceptualizing sexual identities in the present of the 1990s.

Tyler Ford Explains the History Behind the Work 'Queer'

In a video in the InQueery series by them, Tyler Ford explains the history behind the word queer (youtu.be/UpE0u9Dx_24).

• What are the key events that Ford identifies as defining the broad outlines of the history of the word queer in the English language?
• What is your own history with the word queer? Where did you first hear it, and how was it used? Do you consider it an insult, a fierce statement of resistance, or something else? Do you self-identify as queer?
• How does your history with the word relate to the broader history described by Ford in the video? What connections between the two do you find?

In Conclusion

Gay and lesbian activism has a complex history in the United States and even more so globally. Activist demands that have been most palatable to cisgender heterosexuals are those that foreground the right to privacy, individual autonomy, and equal access to social institutions like marriage and the military. However, queer activism and scholarship reject mainstream liberal ideals of privacy, the goal of formal equality under the law, and the desirability of assimilation into existing social institutions. Instead, queer theory and activism demand publicness, reject civility, and challenge the legitimacy, naturalness, and intrinsic value of institutions—whether marriage or the military—that regulate gender and sexuality.^[6] Of course, this very critical, very radical relationship to the normative appears in times before the late 1980s and in places other than the United States, but it is then and there that queer activism and queer theory are named and begin to be, however hesitantly, defined.

Furthermore, contemporary queer theory continues to challenge and dismantle rigid categorizations of identity, emphasizing the fluidity and multiplicity of sexual and gender expressions. As queer theory continues to progress, it remains a vital tool for challenging assumptions, disrupting heteronormative structures, and promoting greater understanding and acceptance of diverse sexualities, gender identities, and intersectional experiences. By encouraging critical reflection on the complexities of identity and power dynamics, queer theory has the potential to contribute to more equitable and inclusive societies.

This chapter explores the development of queer theory from the 1990s to the present. It begins by elaborating on distinctions between gay and lesbian studies and queer studies before identifying important trends in queer theory.

Check Your Knowledge

Contributed by Has Arakelyan, Rio Hondo College

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What event ignited demonstrations and contributed to the rise of queer activism in the 1970s?
   a) The Stonewall rebellion
   b) The founding of ACT UP
   c) The emergence of Queer Nation
   d) The publication of the special issue of Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies
2. Which group was founded to fight the escalating violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in 1990?
   a) Lesbian and Gay Liberation Groups
   b) ACT UP
   c) Queer Nation
   d) Silence = Death
3. Who coined the term "queer theory" at a University of California, Santa Cruz conference in February 1990?
   a) Larry Kramer
   b) Teresa de Lauretis
   c) Vito Russo
   d) ACT UP
4. In which journal was the special issue featuring the proceedings of the conference on lesbian and gay sexualities published?
   a) The Journal of Queer Studies
   b) Lesbian and Gay Sexualities: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies|
   c) Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies
   d) Queer Nation: A Journal of LGBTQ+ Activism
5. Which of the following is NOT a key player in the development of queer theory and activism as discussed in the passage?
   a) Teresa de Lauretis
   b) Larry Kramer
   c) Vito Russo
   d) Judith Butler

Discussion Questions

1. How has the historical context of the 1970s and 1980s shaped the emergence of queer theory and activism, and what are the lasting impacts on current LGBTQ+ movements?
2. How did the work of Teresa de Lauretis and the conference at the University of California, Santa Cruz contribute to the development and understanding of queer theory?
3. In what ways do queer theory and queer activism intersect, and how do they support and challenge each other in their efforts to effect change?
4. How does the concept of "Silence = Death" relate to the broader goals and values of queer theory and activism?
5. In your opinion, what is the significance of recognizing and acknowledging the complex history of queer theory and activism in understanding and supporting the LGBTQ+ community today?

Multiple Choice Questions - Answers

1. a) The Stonewall rebellion
2. c) Queer Nation
3. b) Teresa de Lauretis
4. c) Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies
5. d) Judith Butler