''Queering'' is the verb form of the word
queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...
and comes from the shortened version of the phrase ''queer reading''.
It is a technique that came out of
queer theory in the late 1980s through the 1990s
and is used as a way to challenge
heteronormativity
Heteronormativity is the concept that heterosexuality is the preferred or normal mode of sexual orientation. It assumes the gender binary (i.e., that there are only two distinct, opposite genders) and that sexual and marital relations are most ...
by analyzing places in a
text
Text may refer to:
Written word
* Text (literary theory), any object that can be read, including:
**Religious text, a writing that a religious tradition considers to be sacred
**Text, a verse or passage from scripture used in expository preachin ...
that use
heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to ...
or
identity
Identity may refer to:
* Identity document
* Identity (philosophy)
* Identity (social science)
* Identity (mathematics)
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film
* ''Identity'' (2003 film), ...
binaries
A binary file is a computer file that is not a text file. The term "binary file" is often used as a term meaning "non-text file". Many binary file formats contain parts that can be interpreted as text; for example, some computer document file ...
.
Queering is a method that can be applied to literature as well as film to look for places where things such as
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
,
sexuality
Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...
,
masculinity
Masculinity (also called manhood or manliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles associated with men and boys. Masculinity can be theoretically understood as socially constructed, and there is also evidence that some behaviors con ...
, and
femininity
Femininity (also called womanliness) is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with women and girls. Femininity can be understood as socially constructed, and there is also some evidence that some behaviors considered fe ...
can be challenged and questioned. Originally, the method of queering dealt more strictly with
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...
and
sexuality
Human sexuality is the way people experience and express themselves sexually. This involves biological, psychological, physical, erotic, emotional, social, or spiritual feelings and behaviors. Because it is a broad term, which has varied ...
, but quickly expanded to become more of an
umbrella term
In linguistics, semantics, general semantics, and ontologies, hyponymy () is a semantic relation between a hyponym denoting a subtype and a hypernym or hyperonym (sometimes called umbrella term or blanket term) denoting a supertype. In other wor ...
for addressing identity as well as a range of systems of
oppression
Oppression is malicious or unjust treatment or exercise of power, often under the guise of governmental authority or cultural opprobrium. Oppression may be overt or covert, depending on how it is practiced. Oppression refers to discrimination w ...
and
identity politics
Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
.
Even the term ''queer'' itself can be queered, because much of queer theory involves working to fight against normalization even in the field itself.
In the context of queer theory, "queering is something we do, rather than something we are (or are not)."
An example of queering would be to reexamine the primary sources from the life of King
Richard I of England
Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 1189 until his death in 1199. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine and Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, and Count of Poitiers, Anjou, Maine, and Nantes, and was ...
, to search for evidence that he exhibited homosexual behavior or attitudes. Queering, as a tool of
historical analysis
Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...
, does not necessarily mean an attempt to determine if historical figure actually engaged in homosexual behaviors. It embraces a more fluid spectrum of gender attitudes which may have been entirely emotional, e.g., if celibate monks who wrote letters of intimate affection could be said to be exhibiting a form of romantic love, even if they never engaged in intimate physical behavior, or even consciously considered their behavior to be a parallel of romantic physical relationships.
Origins and other uses
Historically, ''queer'' was a word that referred to something as odd or strange. As the verb form of queer, queering can refer to the act of taking something and looking at it through a lens that makes it strange or troubles it in some way.
By the 1940s (in the United States), ''queer'' came to be used in reference to sexuality that deviated from heterosexual norms.
It was in the period of the late 1980s and early 1990s when LGBT AIDS activist groups, such as
Act Up
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...
and
Queer Nation
Queer Nation is an LGBTQ activist organization founded in March 1990 in New York City, by HIV/AIDS Activism, activists from AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, ACT UP. The four founders were outraged at the escalation of Violence against LGBT peop ...
, began to reclaim the term queer as a positive
identifier
An identifier is a name that identifies (that is, labels the identity of) either a unique object or a unique ''class'' of objects, where the "object" or class may be an idea, physical countable object (or class thereof), or physical noncountable ...
and as a process of questioning mainstream ideas about what was considered normal.
Cathy Cohen argues that groups like these also extended the use of queer to move past “assimilationist tendencies" present in AIDS activism.
This is based on sentiments expressed by groups like Queer Nation who felt that queer as a word and a sentiment was too focused on
assimilation of non-
normative
Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
sexualities and identities.
Within such groups, queer as a noun was reclaimed again to mean something radical. Queering then became a tool for social and political
subversion
Subversion () refers to a process by which the values and principles of a system in place are contradicted or reversed in an attempt to transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority, hierarchy, and social norms. Sub ...
of
dominant culture
A dominant culture is a cultural practice that is dominant within a particular political, social or economic entity, in which multiple cultures co-exist. It may refer to a language, religion/ritual, social value and/or social custom. These f ...
. Because it is rooted in queer theory, it is also closely tied into queer politics and queer activism.
Because the idea of queering comes from the term ''queer'', it has a wide variety of definitions as well as uses. For example,
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (; May 2, 1950 – April 12, 2009) was an American academic scholar in the fields of gender studies, queer theory ( queer studies), and critical theory. Sedgwick published several books considered groundbreaking in the fiel ...
, a foundational
theorist
A theory is a rational type of abstract thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking is often associated with such processes as observational study or research. Theories may be s ...
of queer theory
says that ''queer'' can mean "the open mesh of possibilities, gaps…and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality aren't made (or ''can't be'' made) to signify monolithically."
Literary critic
Michael Warner
Michael David Warner (born 1958) is an American literary critic, social theorist, and Seymour H. Knox Professor of English Literature and American Studies at Yale University. He also writes for ''Artforum'', ''The Nation'', '' The Advocate'', and ...
offers this definition: "Queer gets a critical edge by defining itself against the normal rather than the heterosexual."
Judith Butler
Judith Pamela Butler (born February 24, 1956) is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminism, queer theory, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler ...
, another theorist credited with the founding of queer theory, talks about queer as being an act that can be performed.
In a more current context, methods of queering extend beyond critiquing literature to examine topics from popular culture to more abstract topics like theology and time.
In her essay about the benefits of queering theology, Thelathia "Nikki" Young, says that queering is a way to "
econstructthe logics and frameworks operating within old and new theological and ethical concepts." In addition to these deconstructions, she argues that queering "dismantles the dynamics of power and privilege persisting among diverse subjectivities."
Uses in literature
In Pia Livia Hekanaho's essay "Queering Catcher: Flits, Straights, and Other Morons," she uses queering to analyze “the leaking boundaries of 'straight' (heterosexual) masculinity and the queer identities that may lie beyond those boundaries” in
J.D. Salinger’s 1951 novel
''Catcher in the Rye''. In it, she looks at how the narrator Holden Caufield is caught between the strictness of normative masculinity and a fear of non-normative sexualities and manhood.
Judith Butler uses a queer reading of the 1929 novel
''Passing'' by
Nella Larson
Nella is a feminine given name which may refer to:
People
* Nella Maria Bonora (1904–1990), Italian actress
* Nella Giacomelli (1873–1949), Italian anarchist
* Nella Larsen (1891–1964), American modernist novelist born Nelly Walker
* Nella ...
to see the possibilities of blurring the binaries of both race and attraction.
Genre literature such as fantasy and science fiction also remain popular texts for queer analysis. In Anna Bark Persson's article "Home and Hell: Representation of Female Masculinity in Action-Driven Science Fiction Literature," she explores the narratives of characters Nyxnissa so Dasheem from the series ''The Bel Dame Apocrypha'' by
Kameron Hurley
Kameron Hurley is an American science fiction and fantasy writer.
Biography
Hurley was born in Washington state and has lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, Durban, South Africa, and Chicago. She currently resides in Dayton, Ohio.
Hurley has been publ ...
and Catherine Li from the series ''The Spin Trilogy'' by
Robert Charles Wilson
Robert Charles Wilson (born December 15, 1953
) is an American-Canadian science fiction author.
Career
Wilson was born in the United States in California, but grew up near Toronto, Ontario. Apart from another short period in the early 1970s ...
. Persson examines their roles as masculine women who take up space and hold positions of power, and how their science fiction settings are used to reject cis and hetero-normative conventions.
Uses in design
There is a growing movement to queer
design
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product, or process. The verb ''to design'' ...
seen in initiatives like
Queering the Map and work by designers and design researchers like Ece Canli, Emeline Brulé, Luiza Prado de O. Martins and Tiphaine Kazi-Tani. Isabel Prochner wrote that queerness and queer theory have radical, chaotic, and deconstructive potential in design by "engaging critically with design goals, challenging their assumptions, and encouraging greater multiplicity."
Disco music
Queering also occurred in popular music in
disco
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric pia ...
culture. Prior to the
Stonewall Rebellion
The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous protests by members of the gay community in response to a police raid that began in the early morning hours of Ju ...
s in New York that arguably mark the birth of disco, heterosexual norms dominated the
club scene
A nightclub (music club, discothèque, disco club, or simply club) is an entertainment venue during nighttime comprising a dance floor, lightshow, and a stage for live music or a disc jockey (DJ) who plays recorded music.
Nightclubs gener ...
. It was only after disco music came out did queering begin to take its mark. This was seen especially on the dance floors at straight and gay clubs alike. Whereas before, the norm was for a man and a woman to dance together, queering allowed for individuals to dance by themselves, or for dance partners of the same gender to take the floor.
References
{{Wiktionary, queer
*
Queer
''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the lat ...