Is queer theory in practice a form of colonialism?

[IwantToRetire]

Queer theory claims to speak for all those whose lives exceed or refuse the normative. Yet the subjects it theorizes, the frameworks it deploys, and the organizational instruments it has generated are drawn almost entirely from a population that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD). ...

To qualify as included within the current infrastructure, the queer employee must perform WEIRD queerness: she must disclose, because disclosure is the prerequisite for identity-based inclusion frameworks; she must claim a recognized category, because the framework is organized around categories rather than practices or relations; she must participate in visible Pride activities, because visibility is the currency through which the organization measures and demonstrates its inclusivity.

The non-WEIRD queer employee, whose intimate and gender life is organized through epistemological frameworks that do not produce a legible WEIRD queer identity, does not register as excluded by the current apparatus. She simply does not register.

https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/femos/1/1/article-p132.xml

The language used in this is baffling to me, but if it is suggesting that the over reaching queer dominance of radical politics in the west is effectively nothing more than white western culture presuming to speak for the world, than I agree!

Thanks, an interesting, if wordy read.

"The court’s majority was unmoved. In its judgment, it described same-sex marriage as an ‘urban elitist concept’, a formation belonging to a particular class of Indian citizen whose aspirations had been shaped by a particular kind of cosmopolitan education and a particular proximity to the Global North."

I agree, it's an entirely made up ideology from the West (or Global North now), it's an "urban elitist concept’ from our useful idiots.
I'm not sure it's a form of colonialism though, just because an ideology from one area gets picked up in other areas it doesn't make it imperialism, just a meme that went around the world.

I think it's saying that all theorising, the way it's done, the categorisation and duality inherent in it, has its roots in imposing a western model of structure on a world that isn't always that.

it isn't saying that conceptualising queerness must inevitably be this, but skates quite close to it.

All scientific catagories and theories also.
All engineering progress, glass making etc.
It goes on and on. The civilisation that notates and educates with it"s classifications and discoveries, dominates.
Soon it could be AI.

Everyone who doesn't fit within the strict confines of the gender stereotype of their sex is queer, according to another thread.

Can't we just call queer theory what it is?

Bollocks

That’s an interesting article, thanks OP. Some good points made, including clearly linking the positioning of institutional EDI policies on foundations of Queer Theory can effectively exclude many people who don’t fit specific frameworks. I also liked the point about pride flags on LinkedIn profiles masking companies’ failure to act on endemic inequality issues.

Also interesting that the journal is published by Bristol, wonder what else is going on there at the moment?

Oooh it’s a new journal (forgive my excitement I’m an academic) ‘Feminism and Organisation’ DOI is https://doi.org/10.1332/27556654Y2026D000000013
Will ask my institution to support. They are calling for papers, get proposing wims …

I assume it means that some immigrants are much more socially conservative than western liberals.

Translation:

Queer theory claims to speak for all those whose lives exceed or refuse the normative.
Queer theory is about people who are not 'normal' in society, i.e. they are different somehow.

Yet the subjects it theorizes, the frameworks it deploys, and the organizational instruments it has generated are drawn almost entirely from a population that is Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD). ...
The 'normal' against which people are measured is Western society.

To qualify as included within the current infrastructure, the queer employee must perform WEIRD queerness: she must disclose, because disclosure is the prerequisite for identity-based inclusion frameworks; she must claim a recognized category, because the framework is organized around categories rather than practices or relations; she must participate in visible Pride activities, because visibility is the currency through which the organization measures and demonstrates its inclusivity.

You can only be 'queer' if you: a. fit one of the recognised categories (presumably things like gay, trans, bi, not sure what else they are talking about?) and b. perform it for everyone to see by telling everyone and going to Pride.

The non-WEIRD queer employee, whose intimate and gender life is organized through epistemological frameworks that do not produce a legible WEIRD queer identity, does not register as excluded by the current apparatus. She simply does not register.
If you are not from Western culture, the queers won't be able to recognise you, presumably e.g. if you wear middle-Eastern clothes or tribal African clothes or whatever.

So this is a criticism of queer theory because it is not multi-cultural enough.

Ask 'who wins'.

If it is more often than not rich, middle or higher class, white, men then bingo!

it's sort of about the intersectionality needed for any theory of social change.

I read something about colonialism this morning, which began "If you ain't ever been broke you can't decolonise shit". It challenged me to think what's missing from my framework of wanting to change power, because there are things I would naturally miss, due to (in some respects) living in financial privilege without noticing fully.

If you are trying to keep your normative life and privileges ok and stable, and say "I'm at work now and I have made a theory of how a bit of the world could change for the better", usually the fact you haven't considered your own positionally in holding up current systems of oppression means that your theory has limits.

Like queer theory, here, is challenged, for not being aware enough of western norms and for not troubling them.

The difficulty is that it's quite a harsh criticism, like nothing is "pure" enough to change the world unless it accounts for every form of oppressive worldview coming from every direction. Maybe all you need to do is notice it and do as best you can? I dunno.

What I would say, though, is that this isn't the way in to challenge gender theory (there's plenty of other ways to do that!)

Interesting how a theory that draws on dualism & frames it as (crudely) unacceptable, reifies a dualism of its own.

But dualism does tend to creep in wherever. Obviously popular in the West, although one of its greatest iterations is Zoroastrianism, which is not Western at all.

Dualism?

Did queer politics / analysis grow out of Universities, or did Universities appropriate grass roots challenges to the "establishment" because academics thought we need to own this, so we will create the "theory" behind what is naturally occurring?

I would say queer theory grew as a natural next step from understanding postmodern identity

In some respects colonialism because the global north has pushed the concepts on other countries through NGOs, the UN and diplomacy.

Is that just a clever way of saying that queer activism is the preserve of the wealthy, white middle classes? If so, I’ve long been saying that maybe we should bundle these folks off to work in outreach community projects in Afghanistan [or a similar deprived, female oppressed nation] in order to check their privilege and reframe their trauma or something…

And what is post modern identity when it is at home?!

Gender Identity, and all it's spore is.
Postmodernism is the philosophy concocted by a sexual predator, in order to describe a world where his 'tastes' are accepted as perfectly normal. It was the rehashed by a mediocre academic and used by her to base her Queer Theory claptrap on.

i applaud academic disciplines where using clear, understandable language is considered a plus. Some social sciences have a tendency to use vocabulary and sentence structure which is largely impenetrable to a casual reader (see Judith Butler for examples). In the case of GI, this has spilled over from academic institutions and is now muddying discussions about the everyday implications - which I understand is a feature as far as the TRA’s are concerned!

Yes it is about purity of thought. You have to be ever more 'inclusive', 'aware', etc., i.e. ever more pure and above reproach from any angle.
By criticising queer theory for not being inclusive enough, the writer is brandishing their "I am more pure than you lot" credentials.

It is all one great big purity spiral, rotating down into a black hole of irrelevant abstraction.

Here are some quotes from "The New Puritans" by Andrew Doyle that sheds some light on this way of thinking:

'Those schooled in what became known as the 'woke' ideology share an infatuation with identity as being the source of their various forms of 'truth' [...] Seen through the prism of Critical Social Justice, identity is elevated as the single most important aspect to human existence [...] In addition, they have a united belief in [...] 'the postmodern knowledge principle' (that objective knowledge cannot be obtained) and 'the postmodern political principle' ( that society is structured into systems of power and privilege).
[...]
The rise of the new puritans, and the success of their culture war, has effectively sabotaged the class struggle of the traditional left. Identity politics is not progressive; it is a bourgeois fig leaf that often conceals the realities of economic inequality.

Q: is homophobia always obvious, even when disguised within pretentious, verbose sentences? 🤔

A: f**k yeah

Trying to dismiss the words and experiences of LGBTQIA+ people by invoking colonialism is fast becoming a trope. It deliberately ignores the valuable work done by queer theorists of colour.

I'm so tired of people comparing things that aren't racism and colonialism to them. Nothing compares to the organised looting, enslavement, murder, torture and rape of entire peoples - not theories, not trans women wearing lippy, not anything else. Colonialism was a criminal enterprise which destroyed the lives of millions of people, and their descendants carry generational trauma.

Thanks - I think!