Cynnical Theories Ch 4 Queer Theory: Freedom from the Normal

 "Queer theory presumes that oppression follows from categorization, which arises every time language constructs a sense of what is "normal" by producing and maintaining rigid categories of sex (male and female), gender (masculine and feminine), and sexuality (straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and so on) and "scripting" people into them." 

Queer theory relies heavily on the postmodern knowledge principle, that objective knowledge is impossible to acquire. You can't say what is a woman and what isn't a woman, you can't possibly know that. It is an "unmodified manifestation" of the postmodern themes of the power of language: when we create labels to categorize people we are using power to control them and how they are viewed and expected to act. The blurring of boundaries, another post modern theme, hardly needs mentioning with regards to queer theory. In short, queer theory is thoroughly and unabashedly postmodern. 

Obviously, many things that lead to queer theory were good. Homosexuals had indeed been treated very poorly and frequently victimized. Horrible things were done to them. Classically liberal ideals that fueled feminism and civil rights movements also worked to advance the cause of the LGBT crowd. Eventually it lead to the modern discourse on homosexuals that the authors summarize as, "Some people are gay. Get over it." While I think most people would agree with that sentiment, it's not accepted by queer theorists. For one, it admits rigid categories, and for two, it prioritizes our universal humanity over identity groups. 

As part of its role as precursor to queer theory, feminism planted the seed of separating biological sex from gender. As societal norms of gender roles were opened up, women could work more "masculine" jobs and take on the more "masculine" role of breadwinner. Legal and cultural barriers were torn down in order to allow women to enter any field and receive equal pay. This paved the way for the same barriers to be removed for LGBT people. Notice that these were brought about by classical liberal ideals. They came about largely from  recognizing the biological (not socially constructed) roots of these categories. In contrast, "Since queer Theorists believe that sex, gender, and sexuality are social constructions, chiefly dependent on the prevailing culture, they are less concerned about material progress than about how dominant discourses erect and enforce categories like "male", "feminine", and "gay"."

Because Queer Theorists believe that categories like male/female, masculine/feminine are socially rather than biologically constructed, they also believe that through deconstructing the power-language dynamic, in the future "we may consider such categories largely arbitrary and nearly infinitely malleable." This is the reason for the title 'queer', which refers to anything that exists outside of the binaries. The more they can identify and amplify outside of those binaries, the less normal and meaningful those original categories appear. "Like the other postmodern Theories, queer Theory is a political project, and its aim is to disrupt any expectations that people should fit into a binary position with regard to sex or gender, and to undermine any assumptions that sex or gender are related to or dictate sexuality." "It produces a de facto coalition of minority gender and sexual identities under the appropriately unstable set of acronyms that tend to begin with LGBTQ." 

 Applied postmodernists have goals of "problematizing" and "deconstructing" things. Queer theory have their own verb for their activist goals: "queering". To queer something is to cast doubt on the stability of its categories and where it fits within standard binaries. Queering deconstructs the normal understanding of things in order to liberate people from pressure to adhere to those norms. With the recent appointment of Ketanji Brown, the question "what is a woman?" is fresh in many memories. The insistence that Lia Thomas is in fact a woman with the simultaneous refusal to define what a woman is,  is confusing to some. However,  "The incoherence of queer theory is an intentional feature, not a bug." 

"There are biologists and psychologists advancing knowledge of how the sexes differ (or do not differ) biologically and psychologically on average, how sexuality works, and why some people are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender--but their work is not welcome in queer Theory."  To seek objective understanding of these categories and what makes a person fall into one or the other is to admit that these categories objectively exist. It is 'violence' because it forces people into certain groups and roles. It is representative of the "oppressive role" of science. 

At this point the authors review some works by the founding figures of queer Theory. Gayle Rubin is up first, arguing that we should believe that sex, gender and sexuality are merely social constructs, not because that is necessarily true, but because it's easier to politicize and problematize them that way. Remember that these Theories are applied postmodernism. They are activists. One of Rubin's essays entitled "Thinking Sex" argues that, morally good sex and morally bad sex are socially constructed concepts and have no basis in reality. The authors imply that this radical moral relativism even includes a defense of pedophilia, although they do not provide a direct quote from Rubin. Regardless, I have personally seen such defenses, so it can hardly be argued that complete moral relativism regarding sexuality will lead there. 

Judith Butler argued that gender roles were completely socially constructed. One learns their role through socialization and the performs that role. They are thus self-perpetuating, including "oppressive" words like 'manly' or 'real women'. Butler did not believe that we could completely step out of these roles, but that we had an obligation to thwart them, to problematize them and disrupt them enough to make space for those who don't belong. This is achieved by--and pardon my quoting of the authors' French-- "genderfucking." This is basically queering, but slightly more specific. Wiktionary defines it as "the conscious effort to subvert traditional notions of gender identity and gender roles," through the employment of drag, say, or the "queer-camp" aesthetic. Butler challenged feminist ideals by saying that even having a stable category 'woman' is allowing oppressive categorization. 

The final founder discussed is Eve K. Sedgwick, who advocated for finding value in "plurality accepting many perspectives all at once, even when they are mutually contradictory--and in incoherence-- not attempting to make rational sense of anything." She argued that these contradictions would make queer Theory difficult to understand and difficult to argue against. "This is, of course, very queer." Again, this is a feature, not a bug. For Sedgwick, all binary thinking was based on the basic biological binaries of sex, and all binary thinking is wrong. So, in order to break ourselves of black and white thinking in all areas of our lives, (a necessity since all black and white thinking is wrong) we must start by deconstructing the binaries of sex, sexuality, and gender. 

A couple quotes from the summary section of this chapter. 

"Much of this activity is applied to discourses, leading to an almost pathological obsession with the ways sex, gender, and sexuality are spoken about, which has led to a proliferation of terms demarcating subtle differences in gender identity and sexuality, which simultaneously inhabit a fluid and changeable space and yet demand impossibly extreme sensitivity of language." 

"It does not make for productive activism to be dismissive, ironic, antiscientific, and largely incomprehensible by design. It also doesn't help people who wish to have their sex, gender, or sexuality accepted as normal to be continually rescued from any sense of normalcy by arguing that considering things normal is problematic. Therefore, although queer Theory purports to advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, the majority of LGBT people are neither familiar with it, nor support it." Why wouldn't they support it, you ask? Well, go ask a gay friend or relative if they were "born that way." Queer theory posits that they are not, that it is a social rather than biological aspect of the person. That would imply that conversion therapy could work. You won't find many LGBT people supporting that. 

As a final note: neither the authors nor myself are arguing against making room for people who fall outside of "normal". Of course making everyone feel welcome and loved is important. But queer Theory is not the only framework to accomplish this goal, whatever the woke scolds would have you believe. You do not need to deny that the category 'women' exists and is definable in order to make room for and show love to people who do not fit that category as cleanly as others. You do not need to deny statistical and biological truths of what is normal in order to allow and appreciate people who do not qualify for that label in one sense or another. After all, no one qualifies for that label in all areas, and if they did they would surely be pretty boring. The purpose of this book and especially of this chapter is, as I see it, to enable the reader to reject the aspects of queer Theory that make no sense or are detrimental instead of falling fully into it, lead by a well intentioned but naiive desire to be "nice."