Hi everyone. At the very beginning of this course, we introduced you to the term queer and explained that this course is designed to align with the principles of Queer Theory today. Today we will talk more in depth about the term queer. We'll talk about queer as a contested term who's meanings continue to evolve, and provide a brief but thorough discussion of Queer Theory. >> Queer is a term whose meaning has changed over time. It means different things in different contexts. For example, in the 18th century,queer generally meant anything strange, odd, or peculiar, a meaning that's only occasionally used today. It wasn't until the first two decades of the 20th century that queer became attached to sexuality in the context of sexual and gender subcultures in the United States. By the 1940s, queer had become a primarily negative term used to mean pervert or homosexual. Over the course of the 20th century, however, queer took on various intersectional meanings related to sexuality, gender, race, and class. For instance, queer was sometimes used to negatively label interracial relationships. Other times, queer was used to signal the intersectional oppression faced by women of color from poor working class backgrounds. >> It wasn't until the 1980s that queer was reclaimed and used in explicitly political and positive ways. This was a result of two factors. The first It was the HIV/AIDS epidemic which devastated gay communities all over the world and subsequently spurred radical activism that fought for the lives and dignity of queer people. As HIV/AIDS was infecting and killing hundreds of thousands of people worldwide, organizations like Act Up and Queer Nation rejected assimilation of strategies that sought to merely include queer people into societies existing structures. Instead, these organizations and others fought to fundamentally change society itself. The second factor in the reclamation of the word queer was a set of developments in scholarship on sexuality, gender, and identity. This scholarship challenge essentialist theories of individual identity. Heterosexuality is natural preferred or neutral and various gender and sexual norms that had been taken for granted. >> As a direct result of both the scholarly developments and radical activism and writing, Queer Theory formally emerged between the late 1980s and the early 1990s as an academic field. Queer Theory is an approach to the study of society, politics, and power that invites people to investigate and challenge assumptions about sex, gender, and sexuality, especially as those categories intersect with others such as race, class, and ability. >> Although there is no one agreed upon definition of what Queer Theory is, queer theorists tend to generally agree on what Queer Theory can help us do. That is, Queer Theory takes a social constructionist perspective to challenge common sense assumptions about gender and sexual identity. Instead of assuming that sexual identity is binary, heterosexual, or homosexual, straight, or gay, queer theorists examine it as a social construct used to organize society and distribute power. As such, queer theorists look at what kinds of practices related to gender and sex are considered normal or normative and those which are considered abnormal or non-normative. These practices can include not only same-sex sexual activity and gender expression that challenges the gender binary, but things like oral sex, having children outside of marriage, gender expression that is considered slutty, having multiple sexual partners interracial, sex,and so on. By doing, this queer theorists have identified heteronormativity as a largely invisible but dominant social structure that upholds certain practices, expressions, and relationships as socially acceptable. >> Heteronormativity is not the same thing as heterosexuality, nor is it the same as heterosexism, a form of oppression that privileges and promotes heterosexuality, although heteronormativity is intimately related to both. Rather, heteronormativity is an institutionalized system of belief that is largely unconscious, but constantly surrounds us. It contends that every one of us is born as one of two possible sexes, female or male, and that their sex aligns with one of two possible genders, woman with female and man with male. These claims about the sex and gender binaries and their alignment are sometimes referred to as cisnormativity. In addition to cisnormativity, heteronormativity encompasses the idea that women naturally experience sexual desire for men and men naturally experience sexual desire for women. In other words, heteronormativity is a way of thinking that assumes sexed bodies, gender expression, and sexual desire aligned making both cisgender status and heterosexuality appear to be natural as opposed to social constructs. >> While individuals frequently express hetero and cis sexist views that promote heteronormativity, it is important to understand that heteronormativity is not a personal view or prejudice. Rather, heteronormativity is an entire system that structures society. Heteronormativity encompasses not only the ways we understand or interpret the world but the institutions that naturalize and privilege cisgender status, heterosexuality, and certain other gender and sexual norms. >> We'll see you next time as we continue our discussion of Queer Theory and heteronormativity
