Contextualizing Gender
4.1 Introduction to Queer Theory
Prof. Rashmi Gaur
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Roorkee
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Queer Theory
• The term “queer theory” itself came from Teresa de
Lauretis’ 1991 work published in the feminist cultural
studies journal differences titled “Queer Theory: Lesbian
and Gay Sexualities.”
• She signifies that there are at least three interrelated
projects at play within this theory: Source: Charlie West, Cherwell
― refusing heterosexuality as the benchmark for sexual
formations,
― a challenge to the belief that lesbian and gay studies is
one single entity, and
― a strong focus on the multiple ways that race shapes
sexual bias.
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• Opposed to gender essentialism, queer theorists see sexuality as a discursive
social construction; fluid, plural, and continually negotiated rather than a
natural, fixed, core identity.
• Queer theorists foreground those who do not neatly fit into conventional
categories, such as bisexuals, transvestites, transgendered people, and
transsexuals.
• They argue that the heterosexual-homosexual division must be challenged to be
inclusive of multiple identities, embodiments, and discourses that fall outside
assumed binaries.
• In queer accounts, the relationship between sexuality and
gender is not seen as fixed and static, but as highly
complex and unstable.
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• Modernist understandings of gender and sexuality as fixed, coherent and stable;
have been challenged by post-structuralist accounts that conceptualise these
categories as plural, provisional and situated.
• If there are multiple genders and multiple sexualities, then it is also likely that
there will be multiple relationships between these categories.
• The first wave of LGBTQI liberation movements from the 1970s contributed to
anti-essentialist theoretical analyses of feminism by focusing on the social
institutionalization of heteronormativity.*
• Michel Foucault’s historical analysis of dominant medical,
psychological, legal practices and ideologies that aimed
to invest normative heterosexuality with social dominance
was most influential in LGBTQI sexuality studies.
* Richardson, D. (2020). Introducing Gender and Women's Studies. Bloomsbury Publishing.
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• Certain queer critical approaches are continuing
Foucault’s project by exploring diverse formations of
different sexual identities, past and present.
• Notable examples are David Halperin’s studies
of sexuality in classical Greece, Gayle Rubin’s ongoing
David Halperin
study of the gay male leather community in San Source: James
Martha Vicinus
Source: James
Steakley
Francisco, and Martha Vicinius’ work on lesbian Steakley
identities.
• Queer theory reinforces its focus on homophobic
discourses and constructions through the works of
thinkers such as Cindy Patton and Simon Watney.
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• Alan Sinfield explored the intricate and often perverse
intersections of sexuality with other power relations –
age, race, gender and, above all, class.
• The Wilde Century (1994), for example, explores how
notions of “queerness” are closely linked to upper-class
effeminacy through much of the 20th century, which
were shaped by Wilde’s position as a scandalous Alan Sinfield
celebrity.* Source: The Times
• He contrasts this with very different expressions of
same-sex desire in the Renaissance and the 18th century.
• Sinfield showed how shared identities are formed within
queer subcultures by appropriating and transforming
widely circulating stories, plays, songs and images.
Taylor, J. (2017). Alan Sinfield. The Guardian. www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/15/alan-sinfield-obituary
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• Michael Warner is an English professor and
leading figure in the study of sex and sexuality
in American culture. Currently, he is the
Seymour H. Knox Professor of English Literature
and American Studies at Yale University.
• His book, The Trouble with Normal (1999), Source: University
Source:
Michael Warner Harvard
has been very influential in the discussion of Source: Sage of Minnesota Press
University
Ross Press
issues such as gay marriage, queer culture, and
the politics of shame.
• Warner’s argument is that American culture
creates a hierarchy in which non-normative sex
is shamed and stigmatized.
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What Does Queer
Really Mean?
• In this video, queer is
perceived as an
umbrella term
-- which many other
sexualities/identities
can fall under.
Source: Seventeen.< https://youtu.be/58od0RlBIjY>
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Heteronormativity
• Heteronormativity is a worldview that promotes
heterosexuality as the normal and/or preferred sexual
orientation.
• It is reinforced in society through the institutions of
marriage, taxes, employment, and adoption rights,
among many others. *
• Heteronormativity is also related to “the institutions,
structures of understanding, and practical orientations
that make heterosexuality seem not only coherent—that
is, organized as a sexuality—but also privileged”
(Berlant, 1998).
*Background - Queer Theory - LibGuides at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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• Heteronormativity is a form of power and control that applies pressure to both
straight and gay individuals, through institutional arrangements and accepted
social norms.
• Judith Butler’s work has opened up critical spaces to re-theorize relations
between gender and sexuality beyond the causal and reductive ones posited by
heteronormativity.
• A primary focus for feminist writers has been on how (hetero)sexuality is related
to the maintenance of male domination and gender hierarchies.
• In contrast, queer theory’s attention has been on the ways
in which ‘heteronormativity’ functions to privilege and
sustain heterosexuality and exclude sexual ‘others’.*
*https://books.google.co.in/books?id=UpGJDAAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0
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Transgender
• Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose
gender identity and/or gender expression varies from
that traditionally associated with their apparent
biological sex at birth.*
• It has come to designate persons whose gender
identities incorporate behaviours and traits
traditionally associated with the opposite sex.
Source: Healthline
• Transgender persons may thus include transsexuals,
transgenderists (persons who gender-identify with the
opposite sex but who choose not to undergo
sex-reassignment surgery or hormone treatments), and
androgynes among other groups.
*Transgender | gender identity | Britannica
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*
• They often do not feel comfortable in the gender role they were attributed with
at birth, or are at odds with the labels “man” or “woman” credited to them by
family or formal authorities. *
• Their identity can cover a variety of experiences. It can encompass discomfort
with role expectations, being queer, occasional or more frequent
cross-dressing, accessing major health interventions such as hormonal
therapy and surgical reassignment procedures.
• Psychiatrist John F. Oliven of Columbia University coined the term transgender
in his 1965 reference work Sexual Hygiene and Pathology.
• He used the term as a way to distinguish between people
who crossed a point from “transvestite” to “transsexual”.
*Stryker, S. (2006). The Transgender Studies Reader. Taylor and Francis.
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• In 1994, gender theorist Susan Stryker defined
transgender as encompassing:
– All identities or practices that cross over, cut across,
move between, or otherwise queer socially constructed
sex/gender boundaries, including, but not limited to,
transsexuality, heterosexual transvestism, gay drag,
butch lesbianism, and non-European identities
Susan Stryker
such as the Native American berdache or the Source: Pax Ahimsa Gethen
Indian Hijra. (Stryker, 1994)
* Qtd. In Currah, P., Juang, R. M., & Minter, S. (2006). Transgender rights. University of Minnesota Press.
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Gender Transitioning
• Gender transitioning is the process of changing one's
gender presentation or sex characteristics to accord with
one's internal sense of gender identity.*
• For transgender and transsexual people, this process
commonly involves reassignment therapy, which may
Jamie Raines, 21, snapped selfies during
include hormone replacement therapy or sex his three-year transition of becoming a
male.
reassignment surgery. Source:abc News
• Cross-dressers, drag queens, and drag kings tend not to
transition, since their variant gender presentations are
usually only adopted temporarily.
* Brown, M. L. & Rounsley, C. A. (1996) True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism – For Families, Friends, Coworkers,
and Helping Professionals. Jossey-Bass
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Coming Out
• Coming out is a process of understanding, accepting, and
valuing one’s sexual orientation/gender identity.
• It includes acknowledging to oneself or disclosing to others something
that is not readily apparent or understood about their identity.
• Coming out as trans or gender-nonconforming is a lengthy,
individual process, often messy and sometimes traumatic,
Source: The Conversation
but it can also be affirming, liberating, and positive.*
• The Cass Theory, developed by Vivian Cass (1979) is a six
stage model that describes the developmental process
individuals go through as they consider, and then acquire,
a homosexual identity.
*Trans Bodies, Trans Selves - Laura Erickson-Schroth - Oxford University Press (oup.com)
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The Six Stages to Coming Out
• Stage 1 – Identity Confusion: Generally, people assume
their identity with the heterosexual or gender-conforming
majority. However, as people try to fit in society’s
standards, the identity comes into question through
thoughts, emotions, physical reactions, and other
experiences that question their identity as heterosexuals. Vivian Cass
Source: Student
• Stage 2 – Identity Comparison: Stage 1 doesn’t usually end Development Theory
with denial or avoidance. Most of the time, it continues to
identity comparison. Stage 2 includes social alienation, a
feeling of being out of place or difference.
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• Stage 3 – Identity Tolerance: The acceptance of one’s homosexuality increases,
and people begin to tolerate there identity. Although confusion and distress
concerning one’s sexual orientation decreases, there is increased isolation and
alienation as the individual identity becomes increasingly different from
society’s expectation of the person. In this stage, people make contact with
members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
• Stage 4 – Identity Acceptance: A sign of identity acceptance is when the person
feels more connected around people from the LGBTQIA+ community and
prefers being with them more than cisgenders. During this stage,
people start to disclose who they are to people close to
them or to allies that will keep their identity a secret.*
*Out of the Closet: The 6-Stage Model of Coming Out: Thriving Center of Psychology: Psychologists
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• Stage 5 – Identity Pride: People will identify themselves with the LGBTQIA+
community in the identity pride stage and may have less contact with the
heterosexual community.
• Stage 6 – Identity Synthesis: While identity pride establishes a dichotomy
between the LGBTQIA+ community and the heterosexual community, identity
synthesis breaks that dichotomy and allows the individuals to accept, respect,
and support cisgenders who exude the same energy towards the gay
community. People have better congruence between their public self and
private self.
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• As people come out to
others, each has very
different life
circumstances to
consider.
• For some, unsafe
situations, job loss, loss
of family security, and
loss of housing are
realistic possibilities.
Source: Still Watching Netflix [YouTube] .https://youtu.be/M8aJxP7q_pc
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Cisgender
• The antonym of the word transgender is cisgender,
which describes persons whose gender identity matches
their assigned sex.
• The prefixes ‘cis’ and ‘trans’ both come from Latin: ‘cis’
means “this side of”, and ‘trans’ means “the other side
of”. For some people, their gender and sex are on “the
Source: Jonathan Jarry, McGill University
same side” and for others, their gender and sex are not
aligned. *
• Cisgender refers to people who feel there is a match
between their assigned sex and the gender they feel
themselves to be.
* Will 'Cisgender' Survive? - The Atlantic
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Third Gender
• Gender variant people have existed throughout the world and
across time, celebrated in some cultures, denigrated
in others.
• Some societies recognized people who embodied a gender identity beyond
the binary, for example, hijra communities in South Asia, two-spirit people
among some Native American cultures, waria in Southeast Asia
and Fa’afafine in Pacific Islander communities.*
• People whose identities do not fit into a rigid Source: Global Citizen
female/male gender binary have, in many countries,
been on a years-long quest to obtain official
documents that reflect their identities.
*Transgender, Third Gender, No Gender: Part II | Human Rights Watch (hrw.org)
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• Hijras are often born male but look and dress in
traditionally feminine ways.
• Often called transgender by outsiders, Indian society and
most hijras consider themselves to be third gender—
neither male nor female, not transitioning. They are a
different gender altogether.
• However, hijra identity is complex, and recently, some
A group of hijra in Bangladesh in 2010,
have identified as transgender and sought gender by USAID Bangladesh, Wikimedia
Commons: http://bit.ly/2w0PlNe
reassignment procedures.*
• While hijras have been treated with both fear and respect
for thousands of years, much of this respect did not
survive their encounter with colonialism.
*The Third Gender and Hijras | Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity School
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Non-binary gender/Genderqueer
• Non-binary or Genderqueer is an umbrella term used to
describe people who feel their gender cannot be defined
within the margins of gender binary. Instead, they understand
their gender in a way that goes beyond simply identifying as
either a man or woman.*
• Most people – including most transgender people – are either
male or female. But some people don't neatly fit into the Source:National Center for Institutional
Diversity
categories of "man" or "woman," or “male” or “female.” For
example, some people have a gender that blends elements of
being a man or a woman, or a gender that is different than
either male or female. Some people don't identify with any
gender and some people's gender changes over time.
*LGBT Foundation - Non-Binary Inclusion
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• They may feel their gender is fluid can change and fluctuate. Some examples of
terms commonly used by non-binary people include genderqueer, agender,
gender-fluid, bigender and third gender.*
• Being non-binary is not the same thing as being intersex.
• Intersex people have anatomy or genes that don’t fit typical definitions of male
and female. Most intersex people identify as either men or women.
• Non-binary people are usually not intersex: they’re usually born with bodies
that may fit typical definitions of male and female, but their innate gender
identity is something other than male or female.
*Understanding Non-Binary People: How to Be Respectful and Supportive | National Center for
Transgender Equality (transequality.org)
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• Nonbinary is a term
that describes
someone who does not
identify exclusively as a
man or a woman.
• Instead, a nonbinary
person may define
their gender identity
and experience outside
of these binary terms.
Video: Tinder https://youtu.be/kVe8wpmH_lU
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• It is important to use people’s preferred pronouns (in
addition to names and terms for gender).
• Some non-binary people use
they/their/them/themselves or an explicitly developed
term such as xe/xyr/xem/xyrself rather than
he/his/him/himself or she/her/her/herself.
• With all these aspects, ‘ask’ etiquette is appropriate
(Richards & Barker, 2013) which simply involves asking Source: Getty Image
what terminology people prefer and how they
experience their gender. *
*Richards, C. (2018). Non-binary or genderqueer genders. International Review of Psychiatry, 28(1), 95–102 |
10.3109/09540261.2015.1106446
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Developments in LGBTQI Studies
• Early gay and lesbian theories converged with feminist critiques of patriarchy as
heteronormative, creating a social stigma towards non-heterosexual behaviours
and identities.
• Foucauldian analysis extended this social constructionist critique using the
concept of power/knowledge, arguing that modern sexological knowledges
operated as a form of power to create dominant and deviant sexual identities
such as ‘the homosexual’.*
• Queer theory extends this analysis to deconstruct forms
of sexual identity based on the categories of lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transsexual.
*Introducing Gender and Women's Studies: : Diane Richardson: Red Globe Press (bloomsbury.com)
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• It can be said that the Queer theorists focused on the idea of resistance to
power, seeking to deconstruct any essentialized identity. They broadly argued
that we may inhabit such identities at a given socio-historical cultural moment.
• There aim is to de-legitimize the regulatory operations of power as knowledge
that produce these identity frameworks in the first place.
• Queer theory offers a significant avenue through which to deconstruct and then
reconstruct established concepts and theories.
• It questions socially established norms and dualistic categories with a special
focus on challenging binary classifications – in terms of sex
(heterosexual/homosexual), gender (male/female),
class (rich/poor), and race (white/non-white).
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Thank You
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References
• Richardson, D., & Robinson, V. (2020). Introducing gender and women's studies.
Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Gender identity | Definition, theories, & facts. (n.d.). Encyclopedia
Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/gender-identity
• Stryker, S., & Whittle, S. (2013). The transgender studies reader. Routledge.
• Currah, P., Juang, R. M., & Minter, S. (2006). Transgender rights. University of Minnesota
Press.
• Brown, M. L. & Rounsley, C. A. (1996) True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism – For
Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals. Jossey-Bass
• Trans Bodies, Trans Selves - Laura Erickson-Schroth - Oxford University Press (oup.com)
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• Out of the closet: The 6-Stage model of coming out. (n.d.). Now Providing Telehealth Visits |
Now Providing Telehealth Visits | Thriving Center of Psychology: Psychologists: Midtown,
New York, NY, Minneapolis, MN, Portland, OR, Princeton, NJ, SoHo, NY, Los Angeles, CA &
Miami, FL. https://www.thrivingcenterofpsych.com/blog/out-of-the-closet-the-6-stage-
model-of-coming-out
• The third gender and hijras. (n.d.). Religion and Public Life at Harvard Divinity
School. https://rpl.hds.harvard.edu/religion-context/case-studies/gender/third-gender-and-
hijras
• Understanding Non-Binary People: How to Be Respectful and Supportive | National Center
for Transgender Equality (transequality.org)
• Non-binary inclusion. (n.d.). LGBT Foundation. https://lgbt.foundation/who-we-help/trans-
people/non-binary?__cf_chl_f_tk=1MLN5ckvFNHdcLtV.B3CAjaUXAoEgJh4BVArjlBzqr4-
1642429687-0-g
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• Richards, C. (2018). Non-binary or genderqueer genders. International Review of Psychiatry,
28(1), 95–102 | 10.3109/09540261.2015.1106446
• Richardson, D., & Robinson, V. (2020). Introducing gender and women's studies. Bloomsbury
Publishing.
• Blank, P. (2014, October 4). Will the word "Cisgender" Ever go mainstream? The
Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/09/cisgenders-linguistic-
uphill-battle/380342/
• Video 1- Seventeen.(2017, Jul 12). What Does Queer Really Mean?. YouTube.
https://youtu.be/58od0RlBIjY
• Video 2- Still Watching Netflix. (2021, May 4). Powerful Coming Out Scenes. YouTube.
https://youtu.be/M8aJxP7q_pc
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• Video 3- Tinder. (2019, Mar 28). 5 Non-Binary People Explain What “Non-Binary” Means
To Them. YouTube. https://youtu.be/kVe8wpmH_lU
• Alan Sinfield obituary. (2018, January 2). the
Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/15/alan-sinfield-obituary
• LibGuides: Queer theory: Background. (2020, March 10). LibGuides at University of Illinois
at Urbana-
Champaign. https://guides.library.illinois.edu/queertheory/background#:~:text=The%20te
rm%
• Transgender, third gender, no gender: Part II. (2020, October 28). Human Rights
Watch. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/09/08/transgender-third-gender-no-gender-
part-ii
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