Question

What other people or issues should we consider? (442)

"However, beyond a mere recognition of the intersection of oppressions, there must also be an understanding of the ways our multiple identities work to limit the entitlement and status some receive from obeying a heterosexual imperative. For instance, how would queer activists understand politically the lives of women - in particular women of color - on welfare, who may fit into the category of heterosexual, but whose sexual choices are not perceived as normal, moral, or worthy of state support? Further, how do queer activists understand and relate politically to those whose same-sex sexual identities position them within the category of queer, but who hold other identities based on class, race and/or gender categories which provide them with membership in and the resources of dominant institutions and groups?"

Q: According to the above passage, what should we ultimately look at when using queer theory to examine lives and oppressions?

Answer 1

Queer theory is referred as a field of critical theory which flourished in early 90's from fields of queer and women's studies. It tends to include both the theorization of 'queerness' and queer readings of texts. These were mostly influenced by work of Berlant, Bersani, Butler, Edelman, Halberstam, and Sedgwick, it was mostly build upon challenges of feminism to notion that gender is a part of self and further in gay/lesbian research' of socially built identity of sexual acts.