queertheory

Queer theory is an interdisciplinary field that analyzes sexuality, gender, and identity by challenging fixed categories and normative social structures. It emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s within literary and cultural studies, drawing on poststructuralist and feminist theory and the work of LGBTQ thinkers. Key precursors include Michel Foucault's histories of sexuality, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's Epistemology of the Closet, and Teresa de Lauretis's early formulations of queer theory, with Judith Butler's concept of gender performativity becoming especially influential.

Core ideas include the view that sexuality and gender are socially constructed and historically contingent, not natural essences. Queer theory critiques heteronormativity—the assumption that heterosexuality is the default or normal form of sexuality—and analyzes how norms organize institutions, language, and representation. It emphasizes that identities are fluid, performances rather than fixed traits, and it often foregrounds power, discourse, and material conditions in its analyses.

Applications of queer theory span literature, film, law, education, and political activism. It provides tools to destabilize binary thinking, to interrogate representation, and to rethink policy and rights in ways that center marginal voices. Debates within the field include critiques of overemphasis on textual critique at the expense of lived experience, charges of relativism, and tensions between queer theory's universal claims and efforts to address particular communities and intersections (race, class, disability, immigration).

Notable figures associated with queer theory include Michel Foucault, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Teresa de Lauretis, Judith Butler, and José Esteban Muñoz, among others. The field continues to evolve, intersecting with queer of color studies, trans studies, and critical race theory, and remains a site for rethinking sexuality, gender, and politics rather than a fixed doctrine.