Editing Queer theory (section)

== Criticisms ==
A recurring criticism of queer theory, which often employs [[sociology|sociological]] [[jargon]], is that it is written, according to Brent Pickett, by a "small ideologically oriented elite" and possesses an evident [[social class]] [[Cognitive bias|bias]]. It is not only class biased but also, in practice, only really referred to at universities and colleges.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Pickett |first1=Brent |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2015/entries/homosexuality/#QueTheSocConSex |title=Homosexuality |date=2015-01-01 |language=English |chapter=Queer Theory and the Social Construction of Sexuality |access-date=2015-11-12}}</ref> Likewise, [[Ros Coward]] writing in ''[[The Guardian]]'', says that advocates of queer theory are like other elite academics that engage in [[obscurantism]] with their use of jargon to protect their field from outside criticism and fail to deconstruct their own role and perspective as academics at elite institutions.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Coward |first=Ros |date=1996-04-18 |title=There's Nowt so Queer as Folk |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-guardian-queer-theory-judith-butler/160618424/ |access-date=2025-01-09 |work=[[The Guardian]] |pages=19}}</ref>

According to [[Joshua Gamson]], due to its engagement in social deconstruction, it is nearly impossible for queer theory to talk about a "lesbian" or "gay" subject, as all [[social categories]] are denaturalized and reduced to discourse.<ref>{{Citation |author1=Joshua Gamson |title=Handbook of Qualitative Research |date=2000 |chapter=Sexualities, Queer Theory, and Qualitative Research |edition=2nd |publisher=Sage Publications |language=English |author2=N. Denzin |author3=Y. Lincoln}}.</ref> Thus, according to Adam Isaiah Green, a professor at the [[University of Toronto]], queer theory can only examine discourses and not subjectivities.<ref name="Green">{{Cite journal |last1=Green |first1=Adam Isaiah |date=2002 |title=Gay but not queer: Toward a post-queer study of sexuality |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1023/A:1020976902569 |journal=Theory and Society |language=English |volume=31 |pages=521–545 |doi=10.1023/A:1020976902569 |s2cid=140739910 |url-access=subscription |access-date=2020-11-07 |number=4}}</ref> Green further argues that queer theory might be doing a disservice to the study of queer people for, among other reasons, unduly doing away with categories of sexuality and gender that had an explanatory role in their original context. He argues that for instance the lesbians documented in [[Cherry Grove, Fire Island: sixty years in America's first gay and lesbian town|Cherry Grove, Fire Island]]<ref>{{Cite book |last=Newton |first=Esther |url=http://archive.org/details/cherrygrovefirei00newt |title=Cherry Grove, Fire Island : sixty years in America's first gay and lesbian town |date=1993 |publisher=Boston : Beacon Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8070-7926-3}}</ref> chose to identify specifically as either "ladies", "dykes" or "postfeminists" for generational, ethnic and class reasons. While they have a shared sexuality, flattening their diversity of identity, culture and expression to "the lesbian community" might be undue and hide the social contigencies that queer theory purports to foreground (race, class, ethnicity, gender).<ref name="Green" />

[[Rosemary Hennessy]] argues that queer theory's focus on cultural and discursive representations of sexuality often ignores or minimizes the [[Materialist feminism|materialist feminist]] emphasis on capitalism and patriarchy. While queer theory critiques identity as a fixed category, it may fail to account for how systemic structures shape sexual identities and oppression beyond cultural representations.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Hennessy |first=Rosemary |date=1993 |title=Queer Theory: A Review of the "Differences" Special Issue and Wittig's "The Straight Mind" |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3174918 |journal=Signs |volume=18 |issue=4 |pages=964–973 |issn=0097-9740}}</ref>

For some feminists, queer theory undermines [[feminism]] by blurring the boundaries between gendered social classes, which it explains as personal choices rather than consequences of [[social structure]]s.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Masson |first1=Sabine |date=2002 |title=Pour un regard féministe matérialiste sur le queer |url=https://www.cairn.info/revue-mouvements-2002-2-page-44.htm |url-status=live |journal=Mouvements |language=French |volume=20 |issue=2 |page=44 |doi=10.3917/mouv.020.0044 |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230521155837/https://www.cairn.info/revue-mouvements-2002-2-page-44.htm |archive-date=2023-05-21 |access-date=2023-05-21 |doi-access=}}</ref>

[[Bruno Perreau]], the Cynthia L. Reed Professor of French Studies at the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]], discusses various facets of the French response to queer theory, from the mobilization of activists and the seminars of scholars to the emergence of queer media and translations. Perreau sheds new light on events around [[gay marriage in France]], where opponents to the [[Law 2013-404|2013 law]] saw queer theory as a threat to French family. Perreau questions the return of French Theory to France from the standpoint of queer theory, thereby exploring the way France conceptualizes America. By examining mutual influences across the Atlantic, he seeks to reflect on changes in the idea of national identity in France and the United States, offering insight on recent attempts to theorize the notion of "community" in the wake of [[Maurice Blanchot]]'s work. Perreau offers in his book a theory of minority politics that considers an ongoing critique of norms as the foundation of citizenship, in which a feeling of belonging arises from regular reexamination of it.<ref>{{Cite book|language=English|last1=Perreau|first1=Bruno|title=Queer Theory, The French Response|location=Stanford, CA|publisher=[[Stanford University Press]]|date=2016|isbn=978-1-5036-0044-7|url=http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=27481|archive-date=2016-06-11|access-date=2016-11-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160611072054/http://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=27481|url-status=live}}</ref>

In their work ''[[Cynical Theories]]'', scholars [[Helen Pluckrose]] and [[James A. Lindsay]] claim queer theory has a largely unscientific view on biology and objective reality as an intentional feature. They state that, "queer theory is a political project and its aim is to disrupt". As such within it, "there can be absolutely no quarter given to any discourse—even matters of scientific fact—that could be interpreted as promoting biological essentialism." Thus, according to them, queer theory knowingly misrepresents biological facts and research, especially on [[intersex people]], to conflate them with completely unrelated issues concerning constructed gender identities such as transgender.<ref>{{Cite book|language=English|author= [[Helen Pluckrose]] and [[James A. Lindsay]] |title= Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody |location=Stanford, CA|publisher= [[Pitchstone Publishing]] |pages=93-97 |date=2020|isbn= 978-1-63431-202-8}}</ref>