Queer theory - and what it means in extremis

[deepwatersolo]

I have signed up again after a long pause, particularly because I wanted to share this in the light of current events, and because questions about Queer theory were asked (I lurked on here), and I just saw a revelatory talk about it on you tube.

Derrick Jepsen boils it down to:
violating social norms, in order to subvert power structures.

You could argue that how the Soufragettes acted was 'not normal' at the time, same for Gays&Lesbians with their Parades, and it indeed worked and freed them. You could make the same point for people who defy gender norms (trans umbrella), to subvert the prison of gender expectations. (Of course, most would argue that this is fine, as long as women's rights are respected. Queer theorists might however argue that the fact that women's rights are a social norm now means, women now are the oppressors).

However, Queer theorists basically say every social norm is an expression of oppression and must be subverted - which also leads to the rationalization of paedophilia. Here is an interesting summary of Queer theory's position on paedophilia in form of a quiz at a uni lecture by Jepsen:

(I recommend the whole lecture, also about anarchy and mysogyny. the paedophilia section as a whole starts at 1:51:30: .

I found that quite enlightening and thought, I'll share it on here.

Wow at the analysis of that Foucault passage - colour me naive but I did not get what the ‘curdled milk’ reference was to - urgh.

I do remember thinking when I was at university, as regards postmodernism, what about material reality? Not only in terms of embodied experience but also access to material resources, family and community relationships, all those things which shape day to day interactions.

Foucault was revered, though - I wonder how many people actually read his work properly, rather than a reworking of his main theoretical ideas.

Uuuf, this is a real education. But queer theory (at least by its manifestations, I still have to read up) seems to just sheer nihilism, destroying for the sake of destroying, including children, with no positive goal in sight.

Yes that's part of the reason it's so mixed up with anarchism

medium.com/@joepublic1/accidental-death-of-a-manarchist-the-idiots-guide-to-transgender-ideology-9af4c1272d89

Sorry mean to bold your quote!

The thing about anarchism, at least in its historic roots, was that it was neither nihilistic nor chaotic. It was a belief that humans were perfectly capable of self-regulating and did not need an external force to regulate us. So a true anarchist would surely be even more personally disciplined.

When queer theory started it was also against the backdrop of the AIDS epidemic and anti-retroviral therapy was only just getting established - the ideas of performance and carnival were a sort of anti-death, anti-fear kind of statement

It also started when gay men were refusing to close the bath houses, etc where they went to have sex with multiple men, because liberation, denying it was a major health hazard. (Not a specifically gay trait, refusing to close off the opportunity for more anonymous sex, but a male one).

Or organizations like ACT UP, the guys who screamed at everyone they could to get more funding for medical research. They scared people because they were screaming for their lives.

Born out of anger and denial, that's the context.

It's carnival only if you look at carnival in the middle of the Black Death, only this isn't lasting theatrics, this is political/social theory

Context matters, and sometimes you have to put aside whole theories because the context isn't there any more.

deepwatersolo did you see this www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1531&v=A5GPwRSCuvQ
its brilliant on Queer Theory, I really feel like I understand it now and can make more sense of whats going on. Its 3 hours so I listen to it in bits when cooking etc.

Thank you Gulags, saw it only just now, will definitely watch it as soon as I have time!

On the video at the top - this is a quite personal matter to Derrick Jensen. he had a violently abusive dad who raped him and beat his mother and siblings. He has talked about it quite a lot in public.

I think this background is probably why he defends women's rights to single-sex spaces and has thus earned the hatred of the TRAs - he knows the reality of male violence intimately

I don't agree with his take on the world - he is an anti-civilisation deep green type. But I do find him very likable.

GulagsMyArse
thanks for the link. I started watching it then couldn t find it.
KataraJean
me to... ugh.

The thing about anarchism, at least in its historic roots, was that it was neither nihilistic nor chaotic. It was a belief that humans were perfectly capable of self-regulating and did not need an external force to regulate us. So a true anarchist would surely be even more personally disciplined.

Yes, it means No Rulers, not No Rules.

""Queer theory" looks to me like nothing more than a means of making some people's appalling kinks 'acceptable'."

So much this. If you look at what is going on, who the kind of people are that get all the attention, that shout the loudest, it is all about sexualization.

I think that’s really interesting about how much the social context has changed that the queer theory texts cited today had originally grown out of. I don’t think that Judith Butler even writes about gender particularly any more. I wonder if those authors mentioned on this thread feel the same now as they did back when their major works were published a few decades ago.

Good lord, I've only just seen this but it's worth watching or re-watching both for the things he says and the reactions to his speech. Especially in the light of recent sex ed and safeguarding guidelines.

*"Queer theory" doesn't seem like much of a theory, to be polite. All norms should be transgressed?
From a science background one would have to ask, why? How have you arrived at the conclusion that this is a good idea? *

This x 100.

I have always had this question, with regard to the QT principle that identity is the way we should categorize people (and categorizing by sex is discriminatory). But... why? How is that useful? Where is the evidence of utility to society?

There is none because there can’t be because identity is not measurable or definable. “Validation in my identity” is not a measurable social good. It’s just an ego boost for an individual.

Meanwhile there are measurable and definable benefits to protecting the vulnerable sex class (human females) vis a vis sex specific services and spaces. And there are benefits to the other sex class as well (privacy and dignity being one).

JCJ: The core of this claim is that discursive regimes subjectivize by installing stable identities in place of discontinuous behaviors. Thus, in Foucault’s most famous example, a man who occasionally or exclusively has sex with other men becomes ‘the homosexual,’ or, most pertinently for our purposes, the individuals involved in an instance of sexual violence become ‘the rapist’ and ‘the victim.’

I wonder how many of the acadamics who purport to believe that being granted a stable identity based on transient behaviour would be happy to be stripped of their PhDs and the title "Doctor"? After all, their doctoral studies were discontinuous behaviours that they wouldn't want to be labeled by, right?

Queer theory does seem to be designed to be breeding grounds for rape and pedophilia apologists. I wish the blind followers who think everything is fluffy and sparkly under the queer rainbow would open their eyes to the foundation of their religion.

I remember being taught this stuff and thinking. Nobody is ever going to march for their rights with a banner that says: 'I am polymorphously perverse.'

Ha.

I watched the whole thing and he is incredible. Tears came to my eyes when he discussed his abuse as a child. I wish that the man box collaboration with the VM author had borne fruit (Amazingly of course now it is exclusionary to discuss vaginas so not surprising I guess).

How can anyone listen to that and boo.

The connections he makes between technocrats, anarchists, and queer theorists are spot on I think. We cannot technology (only) our way out of climate and planetary decline. No more than we can technology our way out of our sexed bodies. Material reality exists and it cannot be redefined out of existence.

But 20 years ago it did seem useful to go back and re-read things knowing that when they were written, there were certain things that couldn't be said, and to read them again in that light.

I think the deconstructionist perspective can be useful in a limited way for things like this. Another example is examining science as a cultural phenomena. There are still people, including in the sciences or especially in tech, that think science is a sort of objective process that gives TRUTH. They don't seem to realise the extent to which cultural elements or human elements impact results, or more importantly, the questions, or the values we bring to it.

The backlash against queer theory is probably inevitable in the wake of the TRA versus women (and/or GC feminists) battle - as it now seems it is. But we tend to forget that this kind of theorizing had brought women a hell of a long way before it was eventually, and sadly probably inevitably, brought back around against us. The separation of essentialism from constructivism, right back in its early days by the likes of Foucault, productively challenged the whole idea of stereotypical gender characteristics as 'natural' or 'common sense' discourse, and led a generation of feminists (queer and otherwise) to question the 'keep 'em chained to the kitchen sink' and 'women are emotional, not rational' type of shit that was the common currency before.

Somehow I don't think Darwin foresaw the potential implications of his theorizing, either. Incidentally, from where I'm standing the side of the argument falling back on biological essentialism is the 'assigned gender at birth' type of rhetoric. No, you're not. You can't be, as if gender is a social construct and 'one is not born but rather becomes a woman', then it must follow that newborns are completely gender-free (tell that to the pinkification squad).

As for gender criticism, isn't that precisely what feminism has been doing from the outset no matter how many different factions and conflicting beliefs and interests it's had?

The backlash against queer theory is probably inevitable in the wake of the TRA versus women (and/or GC feminists) battle - as it now seems it is. But we tend to forget that this kind of theorizing had brought women a hell of a long way before it was eventually, and sadly probably inevitably, brought back around against us.

Doesn't this imply though that the foundations that "long way" may have been built on sand? That's been my feeling, that the implication is revisiting those and may of the ideas that were built on them is required in order to avoid other potential serious errors, or just hypocrisy. (By revisiting, I mean looking to see to what extent they were valid in the first place, and where they might have been over-extended or used in an inappropriate way.)

That feels like a rather significant misinterpretation of how legal and social advancements for women came about, Mariel. Those changes were fought for by the women of the first and second waves. None of those women were proponents of queer theory. Acting as if Foucault was in any way the backdrop to the work of say Betty Friedan, or Dworkin, is, frankly, nonsense.

The Second Wave was all about class analysis, which pomo has been opposed to from the very beginning. Granted that the refusal to enage with material realities has gotten progressively worse over time, but these have always been very different movements and no, Foucault and Rubin and Butler did not give women the legal rights or somewhat improved social position we have now.

If you haven't listened to the speech Selena Todd gave at the WPUK meeting "back in town" it is well worth doing so for her explanation of queer theory. Highlighting the patriarchy and classism.

As someone said her speech as a socialist feminism academic is a confirmation of the lived experience of Radical Feminists how argued this through the network of small groups and newsletters.

Apparently there was a bit of a confrontation at the recent radical feminist conference as one of the speakers (an academic) argued that feminists should listen to what Foucault said.

This did not go down well with the audience. Not clear if the rebukes for being disruptive was about challenging an academics theory or the horribly radical feminist notion that the audience as as important as any speaker.

(I have never heard of a genuine radical feminist conference where any woman calling herself a radical feminist would have presumed to sit on a platform and speak down to an audience. What happened to grass roots organising and collective meetings. Everything now seems to be about elevating some women to have the thoughts we are then all meant to regurgitate when the essence of radical feminism is the lived experence of being a woman in a patriarch society and finding out where this overlaps with other women's experience. And from that build allegiances and the basis for activism.)

Apparently there was a bit of a confrontation at the recent radical feminist conference as one of the speakers (an academic) argued that feminists should listen to what Foucault said.

Why? I did, well not listen but read, back in the day, and disagreed with the majority of what he had to say. Why should radfems defer to that particular man's views? Was there an actual argument or just because I say so you're so mean?