Queer theory - origins of the madness.

[TurboTeddy]

I've seen many references to queer theory on threads here and despite googling I never really felt I'd grasped it. If you've ever wondered how trans ideology managed to gain so much tranction then this interview explains. It's a great antidote if you are questioning your own sanity in response to the relentless gaslighting by politicians and the media. You are not mad, queer theory is.

The interview is about 50 minutes long.

There is no such thing as absolute truth"

That just reminded me of this poster, I had no idea what it meant at the time.

Gawd Turbo that's hit me like a lightening bolt - I never made the connection either...and I was a fucking art student!........thank you for that!

placemarking - will come back & give it a go.

Turbo & Terry - what the gender stuff made me think of in art terms was the guy who put a glass of water on a shelf & said it was an oak tree (have I got this right? I've just been gardening in the sun...).

(have I got this right? I've just been gardening in the sun...).

That made me laugh. I'm not familiar with the reference but it sounds about right for queer theory.

It's amazing to think how long this has been fermenting and we didn't realise. I guess queer theory has one thing right, QUESTION EVERYTHING.

I guess queer theory has one thing right, QUESTION EVERYTHING.

Indeed!!!

It's 'An Oak Tree' by Michael Craig-Martin (1973) - didn't realise it was that old.

Sorry, I am only up to birdsfootrefoil ‘s post about ‘lived experience’

I genuinely do not think this is meant to be anecdote over objective evidence but giving voice to groups who are usually marginalised and would not normally have a voice.
So traditionally social scientists, anthropologists, researchers would come along and do their research on a community or group, without involving that group in the research or how findings were interpreted.

So I think - and I may be wrong - that the phrase lived experience is in part an ethical commitment to involve the people who are being researched, legislated for, or policy and practice otherwise created around and avoid further marginalising groups.

I am tired so cannot think of a good example but I am thinking of work which might do qualitative research with women living with disability. Every one of those women will offer insights into the lives experience of disability, their interactions with services and the judgements, barriers and stigma which they face.

Those experiences should not be the beginning and end of research but if you want to design policy which works for people, ‘lived experience’ is pretty key to understanding the issues they face.

Of course there are more ethical issues about whose voices you hear, how they are recruited, how what they say is used - but qualitative research has a place.

Sorry that is nothing to do with queer theory.

After Derrick Jenssen's Queer Theory Jeopardy, which I saw a time back (thanks for posting the link ProbablyshouldntBut), I have come to the conclusion that Queer Theory is nothing but Foucault&Co building a whole philosophy around their obsessive wish to fuck children without censure.

KTara to a large point I agree about lived experience ; including the voice of the subject where before it was lacking. But the article seemed to suggest Pomo thinking was more than this - that the lived experience (perception of the individual) transcended any objective truth which then ceases to exist. Ergo if an individual with a voice has no problem with something then no one else does either. Thus it is reasonable for the Scottish Government to refute a quantitative study into exclusion of children from school with a qualitative study. Or to listen only to trans identified men. Maybe I read it wrong - this whole area is new to me as I studied science and this Pomo thought to me is simply weaving the cloth for the emperor’s clothes. Don’t you see the fine thread and the intricate patterns? What splendid clothes this fabric will make!

Pom-mo, has always seemed to me to be:

"What you can get away with."
And
"Make it up as you go along, and impose it on others".

Ditto Queer Theory bollocks.

But its insidiousness in current society is alarming.

"Lived experience" has become a way to privilege certain voices.

I think it's a temptation, like chocolate cake, think how often it's used here about women's experience.

Talking to affected communities, detailed care studies, that kind of thing is an important part of research and politics, it can give a lot of insight. But it doesn't mean one particular viewpoint understands a situation and doesn't have to justify its claims with data, or by being rational.

Should say, case studies, not care studies

I think the article was confusing things though birdsfoot - there is a very real problem of underfunding of mental health and support services for people with neuro-diverse conditions (hopefully that phrasing is okay) in Scotland. The National Autism Society has commented at some point about children pretty much having to be excluded to get any support. But I would refute the idea that complex trauma and attachment issues get any further - the same issues exist I.e that managing this and getting support is outsourced to the parents (and the author himself does not provide any evidence to support the claim that certain diagnoses get more attention, although I will go back and check this). I think that is part of a broader problem of under-funding of services.

I am not sure ‘lived experience’ has become a way of privileging certain voices, rather than privileged groups have co-opted a methodology and/or language to get heard (speaking of lived experience in particular not post-modernism as I would argue that giving voice to marginalised groups goes back to the 1960s at least). Take my example of disabled women - I am not seeing their experiences foregrounded in policy, although excellent qualitative work exists advice to why problems should be addressed. Whereas men already occupy a position of privilege to get their voices heard. So I don’t think it is the method - there is a lot to be said for considering subjective experience and qualitative research - but the agendas of those using it.

I entirely agree about robust data - qualitative or quantitative- which should have been clear in my original post.

Finally, the way Scottish government makes policy is interesting and worthy of research in itself - If anyone has the inclination. My feeling is that it starts with talking to a select group of people (triggered by some factor or another), getting their issues and then expanding out, guided by the issues this group has raised. These are then consulted on - possibly with areas missing (for reasons known to the Scottish government) - and this then guides the (under-advertised) consultations, which shape policy. Is this a post-modern way of government? I need to give this some thought. It is certainly an interesting question whose voices are being heard and represented and how.

Thanks OP - factoring in queer theory, and Selina Todd's point about the policy-makers having been fed this at uni, makes so much sense in terms of explaining how we got to this point.

I had assumed it was the fault of social media spreading ideas in only 140 characters (i.e. with no space for evidence or explanation, merely for feelings), but it seems that this has been 30+ years in the making.

Since the theory has been percolating in academic spheres up until now and the shifting definition of woman is the first time it's been put into practice in front of such a wide and mainstream audience, it could be a really positive thing as it's a chance to expose it for the nonsense it is.