Editing Queer theory (section)

==Definition==
The term "queer" itself intentionally remains loosely defined in order to encompass the difficult-to-categorize spectrum of gender, sexuality and romantic attraction. Similarly, queer theory remains difficult to objectively define as academics from various disciplines have contributed varying understanding of the term.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Williams |first1=Georgie |title=What is Queer Theory? |url=https://www.perlego.com/knowledge/study-guides/what-is-queer-theory/ |website=Perlego |access-date=18 June 2024}}</ref> At its core, queer theory relates to queer people, their lived experience and how their lived experience is culturally or politically perceived, specifically referring to the marginalization of queer people. This thinking is then applied to various fields of thinking.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Yep |first=Gust |url=http://0-search.ebscohost.com.librarycat.risd.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=e000xna&AN=799901&site=eds-live&scope=site |title=Queer Theory and Communication : From Disciplining Queers to Queering the Discipline(s) |date=2014 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=978-1-56023-276-6 |location=Hoboken, New Jersey |language=English}}</ref>{{blockquote|Queer theory and politics necessarily celebrate transgression in the form of visible difference from norms. These 'Norms' are then exposed to be norms, not natures or inevitabilities. Gender and sexual identities are seen, in much of this work, to be demonstrably defiant definitions and configurations.|Jay Stewart<ref name="BergmanBarker">{{cite book |last1=Stewart |first1=Jay |editor1-last=Richards |editor1-first=Christina |editor2-last=Bouman |editor2-first=Walter Pierre |editor3-last=Barker |editor3-first=Meg-John |title=Genderqueer and Non-Binary Genders |date=2017 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-1-137-51052-5 |page=62 |url=https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2019-03-17_5c8df4095641a_christina-richards-genderqueer-and-nonbinary-genders-11.pdf |chapter=Academic Theory |series=Critical and Applied Approaches in Sexuality, Gender and Identity |access-date=8 April 2021 |archive-date=26 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200926010649/https://transreads.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/2019-03-17_5c8df4095641a_christina-richards-genderqueer-and-nonbinary-genders-11.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
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In an influential essay, [[Michael Warner]] argued that [[queer]]ness is defined by what he called "heteronormativity"; those ideas, [[narrative]]s and [[discourse]]s which suggest that heterosexuality is the default, preferred, or normal mode of sexual orientation. Warner stated that while many thinkers had been theorising sexuality from a non-heterosexual perspective for perhaps a century, queerness represented a distinctive contribution to social theory for precisely this reason. [[Lauren Berlant]] and Warner further developed these ideas in their seminal essay, "Sex in Public".<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Berlant |first1=Lauren |last2=Warner |first2=Michael |title=Sex in Public |journal=Critical Inquiry |date=1998 |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=547–566 |doi=10.1086/448884 |jstor=1344178 |s2cid=161701244 }}</ref>

According to Warner, critics such as [[Edward Carpenter]], [[Guy Hocquenghem]] and [[Jeffrey Weeks (sociologist)|Jeffrey Weeks]] had already emphasised the "necessity of thinking about sexuality as a field of power, as a historical mode of personality, and as the site of an often critical utopian aim".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Warner |first=Michael |date=1991 |title=Introduction: Fear of a Queer Planet |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/466295 |journal=Social Text |issue=29 |pages=3–17 |issn=0164-2472}}</ref>{{Rp|page=3}} Whereas the terms "homosexual", "gay" or "lesbian" which they used signified particular identities with stable referents (i.e. to a certain cultural form, historical context, or political agenda whose meanings can be analysed sociologically), the word "queer" is instead defined in relation to a range of practices, behaviours and issues that have meaning only in their shared contrast to categories which are alleged to be "normal". Such a focus highlights the indebtedness of queer theory to the concept of [[Normalization (sociology)|normalisation]] found in the [[Deviance (sociology)|sociology of deviance]], particularly through the work of Michel Foucault, who studied the normalisation of heterosexuality in his work ''[[The History of Sexuality]]''.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Epstein |first1=Steven |title=A Queer Encounter: Sociology and the Study of Sexuality |journal=Sociological Theory |date=1994 |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=188–202 |doi=10.2307/201864 |jstor=201864 }}</ref><ref name=":2">{{cite book |last1=Foucault |first1=Michel |translator-last=Hurley |translator-first=Robert |editor-last=Gros |editor-first=Frédéric |title=The history of sexuality |date=1978 |isbn=978-0-394-41775-2 |oclc=4004090 }}{{Page needed|date=December 2021}}</ref>

In ''The History of Sexuality'', Foucault argues that repressive structures in society police the discourse concerning sex and sexuality and are thus relegated in the private sphere.<ref name=":2" /> As a result, heterosexuality is normalized while homosexuality (or queerness) is stigmatized. Foucault then points out that this imposed secrecy has led to sexuality as a phenomenon that needs to be frequently confessed and examined.<ref name=":2" /> Foucault's work is particularly important to queer theory in that he describes sexuality as a phenomenon that "must not be thought of as a kind of natural given which power tries to hold in check" but rather "a historical construct."<ref name=":2" /> Judith Butler extends this idea of sexuality as a social construct to gender identity in ''[[Gender Trouble|Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity]]'', where they theorize that gender is not a biological reality but rather something that is performed through repeated actions.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Butler |first=Judith |title=Gender trouble : feminism and the subversion of identity |date=1999 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=0-203-90275-0 |oclc=50506678}}</ref>

Because this definition of queerness does not have a fixed reference point, Judith Butler has described the subject of queer theory as a site of "collective contestation". They suggest that "queer" as a term should never be "fully owned, but always and only redeployed, twisted, queered from a prior usage and in the direction of urgent and expanding political purposes".<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.4324/9780203760505-3 |chapter=Critically Queer |title=Playing with Fire: Queer Politics, Queer Theories |year=2020 |last1=Butler |first1=Judith |pages=11–29 |isbn=978-0-203-76050-5 }}</ref> While proponents argue that this flexibility allows for the constant readjustment of queer theory to accommodate the experiences of people who face marginalisation and discrimination on account of their sexuality and gender,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Eng |first1=David L |last2=Halberstam |first2=Jack |last3=Muñoz |first3=José Esteban |title=What's queer about queer studies now? |date=2005 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-6621-8 |oclc=835806226 }}</ref> critics allege that such a "subjectless critique", as it is often called,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Green |first1=Adam Isaiah |title=Queer Theory and Sociology: Locating the Subject and the Self in Sexuality Studies |journal=Sociological Theory |date=March 2007 |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=26–45 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9558.2007.00296.x |s2cid=144197617 }}</ref> runs the risk of abstracting cultural forms from their social structure, political organization, and historical context, reducing social theory to a mere "textual idealism".<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1017/cbo9780511557910.008 |chapter=Identity and politics in a 'postmodern' gay culture |title=Difference Troubles |year=1997 |pages=109–138 |isbn=978-0-521-59043-3 |first1=Steven |last1=Seidman }}</ref>