Idiot's guide to Queer Theory

[Shedbuilder]

I thought I roughly knew what queer theory was about, but trying to explain it to a colleague it sounded quite deranged and now they think I'm joking.

Is there a relatively simple, relatively short read or a thread here that sums it up? I tried Jane Claire Jones but it was a bit too long and academic.

I was astonished to find (though my source could have been biased) that the concept of inclusiveness is not at all intended to increase fairness, because that is exactly how it is interpreted. Its real meaning is to destabilise the concept some group is built around, so what we currently see is the project of destroying the traditional meaning of 'woman.' It then made much more sense why the traditional meaning of 'man' is left alone, even though men are more powerful in the hierarchies than women. None of this has to do with equality or fairness for all. It is about who has the power to define what a woman is.

This isn’t exactly what you are looking for but it is a very accessible introduction to the “SJW Cult”, which includes what I suppose could be termed “Queer Activism”.

Keri Smith explains, among other things, how SJW tentacles have reached out from Academia and gained a stranglehold on every manner of institution and how to help SJW friends see the light and escape their clutches

None of this has to do with equality or fairness for all. It is about who has the power to define what a woman is

I think it goes beyond this. Definitely, it's not about equality or fairness (it's about "equity") and it is about power - but not with a specific goal or set of goals. It's just power. Look at what they did to that professor - "say sorry" / "I'm sorry" / "Not like that". They tried to stop him from smiling! They did the same kinds of things at Evergreen. BLM are doing the same kind of things in Portland and elsewhere. They just want control and power, and they want more and more of it, but to no real end other than power itself. That's what makes them so scary.

@queenofknives

None of this has to do with equality or fairness for all. It is about who has the power to define what a woman is

I think it goes beyond this. Definitely, it's not about equality or fairness (it's about "equity") and it is about power - but not with a specific goal or set of goals. It's just power. Look at what they did to that professor - "say sorry" / "I'm sorry" / "Not like that". They tried to stop him from smiling! They did the same kinds of things at Evergreen. BLM are doing the same kind of things in Portland and elsewhere. They just want control and power, and they want more and more of it, but to no real end other than power itself. That's what makes them so scary.

That's how I take the pronoun orders too. There are so many variations and it's not always possible to tell by looking at someone what their pronouns are. It's a trap and it's about having the power to denounce people for errors/wrong think when the odds of getting it right in the first place can be stacked against them. Esp in a world where a man with a beard can claim ownership of the pronouns she/her.

It's a trap

Definitely. Language is twisted so you can be accused of meaning the exact opposite of what you say. It's mind control.

That's how I take the pronoun orders too
I was just thinking today that the whole way that language is now a mass of purposely shifting sands is all about control. You no sooner bed down the 'correct' term for something in your brain than it starts to change and if you don't keep up you're obviously wicked.

@GrumpyMiddleAgedWoman

That's how I take the pronoun orders too I was just thinking today that the whole way that language is now a mass of purposely shifting sands is all about control. You no sooner bed down the 'correct' term for something in your brain than it starts to change and if you don't keep up you're obviously wicked.

It also establishes a hierarchy, so you have to keep looking to the 'authority' to check you're getting it right. E.g. Companies and institutions looking to Stonewall to check they're getting Diversity & Inclusion right. This is how Stonewall has been able to grow its influence/power.

They are emotionally and mentally more like children even though they expect to be 'treated like adults' - which apparently means 'get everyone to do, say, and think exactly what I want them to'.

When managers hire employees, they check out their social media. I'd guarantee those students have had their resumes thrown in the slush pile more than once due to this video. Nobody wants to work with people like that.

Two of the angriest students, including the young man who stood with his face just a couple of inches from the Professor's and told him 'Look at me' won awards for their work for enhancing race relations at the university! This article also reveals that one of the people who hovered in the background during Christakis's ordeal was the man who had sent the original email.

www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/yale-cements-its-line-in-the-academic-sand-by-awarding-the-student-truthtellers-who-bullied-faculty

Nobody wants to work with people like that.

I'd like to believe this but then I look at companies, businesses, organisations and media and they are ALL on the woke train. They are all already staffed by these kinds of people, and the sane people are being pushed out and cancelled.

I don't know enough about queer theory to recommend anything. However, I do think on principle that whatever the ideology you are trying to find out about, even if you hate it, you should read SOMETHING by people who don't think that it is a joke. Imagine if people wanted to find out about what the "gender critical" position is and people just recommended they read Stonewall and Mermaids descriptions of it.

I'm certainly not a post-modernist or a queer theorist. But I've read half of Pluckrose and Lindsay's "Cynical Theories" and as someone with a philosophy background I'm finding it pretty daft - they basically seem to think that there are two positions - crude scientism in which you think that empirical data requires no interpretation, or THERE IS NO TRUTH. But in my view both of those positions are daft, and anyone who has studied any philosophy knows that those aren't the only options. I'd thus be pretty dubious about their version of what queer theory is.

I haven't read Cynical Theories yet but I'm going to start it soon. I've read a lot of their stuff and watched quite a few interviews with both of them. The thing is they've read EVERYTHING and not only that, they were able to get their own (hoax) papers published in social justice journals and even got nominated for an award, so I think it's reasonable to assume that they do have an excellent understanding of this ideology. Also I have read a lot of this stuff - Foucault, Derrida, Butler etc. and I don't disagree with their take as I understand it (without having read their book). I agree with Heather Brunskell-Evan's idea that Foucault isn't saying what they say he's saying, though. Her interview with Glinner is really good.

I agree that it's good to go to the source but part of the problem with theorists like Derrida and Butler and others is that they are extremely inaccessible, so I feel people are looking for ways to make sense of it. I'm not aware of any good simple explainers of queer theory by queer theorists - I've seen quite a few that relate to trans issues and didn't feel that they explained anything at all. Can you recommend something?

@thinkingaboutLangCleg

Wow. That video. The snowflake complaining that the professor who has 500 students didn't know her name. Just unbelievable.

What a bunch of spoilt brats

More spoilt brats here, destroying an entire university:

That's chilling: thanks. It illustrates the link between BLM and identity politics and trans and all the stuff that's going on in Oregon. Not difficult to see where this leads. It's totalitarianism: no dissent permitted, wrong-think punished, people required to denounce and apologise and spend their time in reflection until they will parrot whatever they're told to parrot. Same as every other totalitarian regime in the world.

@Shedbuilder

That's chilling: thanks. It illustrates the link between BLM and identity politics and trans and all the stuff that's going on in Oregon. Not difficult to see where this leads. It's totalitarianism: no dissent permitted, wrong-think punished, people required to denounce and apologise and spend their time in reflection until they will parrot whatever they're told to parrot. Same as every other totalitarian regime in the world.

That is exactly what htey do in hte Chinese 'reeducation camps' that everyone was complaining about when? last year?

Can they not see it's the same thing?

@TheShoesa

(Glinner and Heather Brunskell-Evans)

Thank you for this link Shoesa, this was a really useful video.

I really hate how asexuals are more accepted in queer circles these days than LGB people. We have to be careful about kissing and PDA in case it offends them, we can't focus on sexual health too much in case it offends them and now LGBTQIA is being used as an acronym even in situations like Chechnya where it's irrelevant.

I feel like we're being pushed out of our own communities. If you're a straight man who isn't into relationships, congrats, you're aromantic and officially queer. If you're straight but you don't fall in love with someone until you know them well, congrats, you're demisexual and officially queer too. Whereas if you're a gay man and you're married to a bloke and live a boring normal life, you're not queer enough.

I feel like we're being pushed out of our own communities. If you're a straight man who isn't into relationships, congrats, you're aromantic and officially queer. If you're straight but you don't fall in love with someone until you know them well, congrats, you're demisexual and officially queer too. Whereas if you're a gay man and you're married to a bloke and live a boring normal life, you're not queer enough.

Identity Politics is rapidly reaching self-destruct as the number of ‘identity’ categories increases and they go to war with each other over how much ‘oppression’ they possess. I saw one tweet from that ‘individual’ who is in the finals for Mr Gay England (and is neither of those) telling a trans man to ‘f*ck off’. The trans man was complaining that trans support groups had been taken over by non-binary people who had no interest in transitioning, had no dysphoria.

Likewise, I’ve seen furious twitter spats between darker skinned Black people stating that lighter skinned Black people are privileged and don’t have the same ‘lived experience’.

To say the situation is getting ridiculous would be the understatement of the decade.

There are no countries in which it is illegal to be asexual. Nobody is going to murder you or put you in prison for being asexual.