“Queer Theory … regards the very existence of categories of sex, gender, and sexuality to be oppressive, … wholly as a product of how we talk about those issues. It thus ignores biology nearly completely. …

The word ‘queer’ … refers to anything that falls outside binaries (such as male/female, masculine/feminine, and heterosexual/homosexual) … To be queer allows someone to be simultaneously male, female, or neither, to present as masculine, feminine, neuter, or any mixture of the three, and to adopt any sexuality – and to change any of these identities at any time or to deny that they mean anything in the first place. …

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 by queer Theory. On the contrary, such knowledge is generally regarded … as [a] … violent way to categorize and constrain …

Queer Theory…’s founding figures are Gayle Rubin, Judith Butler and Eve Kosovsky Sedgwick, all of whom draw heavily upon Foucault. …

Rubin asserts that we should believe sex, gender, and sexuality to be social constructs, not because it’s necessarily true, but because it is easier to politicize them and demand change if they are social constructs than if they are biological. … For Butler, gender is wholly socially constructed. … For [her] … the very existence of coherent and stable categories like ‘woman’ leads to totalitarian and oppressive discourses. … For Sedgwick, then, a binary understanding of sexuality forms the basis on which all binary thinking rests. Furthermore, all such thinking is false. …

Queer Theory differs fundamentally from the liberal feminism and LGTB activism that preceded it. Claims that queer Theory is the only way to liberate those who are not heterosexual or gender-conforming are belied by the success of universal liberal approaches both before and since. …

People generally do not appreciate being told that their sex, gender and sexuality are not real, or are wrong, or bad. … The idea that homosexuality is a social construct … threatens to undo the considerable progress made by lesbians and gay activists in countering the belief that their romantic and sexual attractions are a mere ‘lifestyle choice’, that could … be … prayed away. …

It doesn’t help people who wish to have their sex, gender, gender or sexuality accepted as normal … by arguing that considering things normal is problematic.”

aus: Helen Pluckrose / James Lindsay: Cynical theories, Durham, NC: Pitchstone 2020, S.89-110.

Abb: Paul Cadmus: The Fleet’s In! (1934), im Internet.

05/23