Queer Theory Quotes

“People who think that queer life consists of sex without intimacy are usually seeing only a tiny part of the picture, and seeing it through homophobic stereotype. The most fleeting sexual encounter is, in its way intimate. And in the way many gay men and lesbians live, quite casual sexual relations can develop into powerful and enduring friendships. Friendships, in turn, can cross into sexual relations and back. Because gay social life is not as ritualized and institutionalized as straight life, each relation is an adventure in nearly un-charted territory—whether it is between two gay men, or two lesbians, or a gay man and a lesbian, or among three or more queers, or between gay men and the straight women whose commitment to queer culture brings them the punishment of the "fag hag" label. There are almost as many kinds of relationship as there are people in combination. Where there are -patterns, we learn them from other queers, not from our-parents or schools or the state. Between tricks and lovers and exes and friends and fuckbuddies and bar friends and bar friends' tricks and tricks' bar friends and gal pals and companions "in the life," queers have an astonishing range of intimacies. Most have no labels. Most receive no public recognition. Many of these relations are difficult because the rules have to be invented as we go along. Often desire and unease add to their intensity, and their unpredictability. They can be complex and bewildering, in a way that arouses fear among many gay people, and tremendous resistance and resentment from many straight people. Who among us would give them up?

Try standing at a party of queer friends and charting all the histories, sexual and nonsexual, among the people in the room. (In some circles this is a common party sport already.) You will realize that only a fine and rapidly shifting line separates sexual culture from many other relations of durability and care. The impoverished vocabulary of straight culture tells us that people should be either husbands and wives or (nonsexual) friends. Marriage marks that line. It is not the way many queers live. If there is such a thing as a gay way of life, it consists in these relations, a welter of intimacies outside the framework of professions and institutions and ordinary social obligations. Straight culture has much to learn from it, and in many ways has already begun to learn from it. Queers should be insisting on teaching these lessons. Instead, the marriage issue, as currently framed, seems to be a way of denying recognition to these relations, of streamlining queer relations into the much less troubling division of couples from friends.”
― Michael Warner, The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics, and the Ethics of Queer Life

“The assumption that femininity is always structured by and performed for a male gaze fails to take seriously queer feminine desire. The radical feminist critiques of femininity also disregarded the fact that not all who are (seen as) feminine are women. Crucially, what is viewed as appropriately feminine is not only defined in relation to maleness or masculinity, but through numerous intersections of power including race, sexuality, ability, and social class. In other words, white, heterosexual, binary gender-conforming, able-bodied, and upper- or middle-class femininity is privileged in relation to other varieties. Any social system may contain multiple femininities that differ in status, and which relate to each other as well as to masculinity. As highlighted by “effeminate” gay men, trans women, femmes, drag queens, and “bad girls,” it is possible to be perceived as excessively, insufficiently, or wrongly feminine without for that sake being seen as masculine. Finally, the view of femininity as a restrictive yet disposable mask presupposes that emancipation entails departure into neutral (or masculine) modes of being. This is a tenuous assumption, as the construction of selfhood is entangled with gender, and conceptions of androgyny and gender neutrality similarly hinge on culturally specific ideas of masculinity and femininity.”
― Manon Hedenborg White, Double Toil and Gender Trouble? Performativity and Femininity in the Cauldron of Esotericism Research

“Androgyny doesn't look a certain way, though gender is ingrained in society such that liberal readings are applied to everyone, sprinkling gender on everything from haircuts to careers to alcoholic beverages. In this way, presentation, when considered for the purpose of legibility feels futile... As long as I am subjected to this unconsented reading of my body, I will desire nothing more than facelessness”
― Sachiko Ragosta, It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on Horror

“To tell a ghost story means being willing to be haunted.”
― Judith "Jack" Halberstam

“And for a moment (and only a moment), it was as if a gap between two absolute and unquestionably separated columns or encampments of the world had suddenly revealed itself as illusory; that what I had assumed two was really one; and that the glacial solidity of the boundary I’d been sure existed between them was as permeable as shimmering water, as shifting light.”
― Samuel R. Delany, The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village

“Perhaps the most radical aspect of queer politics was its claim not only to transcend the homo/hetero boundary but to do so in such a way as to challenge the sexual regulation and repression of heterosexual desire, above all female desire. Queer politics, it was claimed, had a lot to teach those accustomed to the narrow confines of ‘male’ and ‘female’ heterosexual roles in relationships. The re-working of notions of monogamy and the send-up of marriage through queer weddings, the greater sexual adventurism, the rejection of the concept of gay men and lesbians as ‘victims’ in favour of assertiveness and redefinition, and the emphasis on the creation of more egalitarian relationships in the domestic, sexual and social spheres, were all cited as examples of how queer could contribute to a new sexual agenda of empowerment.”
― Richard Dunphy, Sexual Politics: An Introduction

“African "homosexualities" can never be comfortably slotted within identity politics carved out of Western "gay" and "lesbian" liberation struggles, and display queer and even post-queer characteristics.”
― Chantal Zabus, Out in Africa: Same-Sex Desire in Sub-Saharan Literatures and Cultures

“Our definition of queer is that which fundamentally transforms our state of being and the possibilities for life. That which is queer is that which does not reproduce the status quo.”
― Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Front Lines

“If you see anyone trying to narrow the definition of neuroqueer and trying to police who gets to use the tern, feel free to tell them that I said to stop acting like a fucking cop. The world needs more queering and fewer cops.”
― Nick Walker, Neuroqueer Heresies: Notes on the Neurodiversity Paradigm, Autistic Empowerment, and Postnormal Possibilities

“In ancient Greece, adolescence was a time when young men left their biological families to become the lovers of adult men. Sexuality was but one element of an affectional and educational relationship in which youths learned the ways of manhood”
― Barry D. Adam, The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement

“I never felt as much a citizen as I did when we became outlaws.”
― Jeremy Atherton Lin, Deep House

“If sex is not just about reproduction, it is not just about genes, XY chromosomes, and hormones either. Sex is introduced to explain skeletal structure, mental aptitude, posture, emotional disposition, aesthetic preference, body fat, sexual orientation and responsiveness, athletic ability, social dominance, shape and weight, artistic ability. It is also supposed to explain any number of so-called "instincts", including the nesting instinct, the maternal instinct, and perhaps even the Budweiser instinct.”
― Riki Anne Wilchins

“It's difficult to make the argument that one female fist inserted into one male ass--or, for that matter, dozens or even hundreds of fists inserted into as many asses--can really make a difference for, say, lesbian mothers fighting for custody of their children. -Katherine Raymond”
― Carol Queen, PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality

“For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us
temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about
genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support.”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“Queer Theory is dominated by the problematizing of discourse - how things are spoken about - the deconstruction of categories and a profound skepticism of science.”
― Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay

“The main industry of queer Theorists is to intentionally conflate two meanings of "normative," and deliberately make strategic use of the moral understanding of the term to contrive problems with its descriptive meaning.”
― James Lindsay, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody

“Heightened data competence can therefore ensure data is used to improve the lives and experiences of LGBTQ people rather than only serve the interests of, what Catherine D’Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein described as, the three S's: science (universities), surveillance (governments), and selling (corporations).”
― Kevin Guyan, Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action

“Queer, as an identity label, differs from its use in the second strand of queer data, which examines the queering of research methods.”
― Kevin Guyan, Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action

“Visibility is a trap’... If the burden of proof is higher for LGBTQ people than the general public, and it remains unclear whether the collection of evidence actually initiates meaningful change, the utility of a data-based response to fighting injustice is called into question.”
― Kevin Guyan, Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action

“Hacking described his research interest ‘in classifications of people, in how they affect the people classified, and how the affects on the people in turn change the classifications.’ Hacking labeled the subjects of these studies ‘moving targets’ because researchers’ investigatory efforts change them in ways so ‘they are not quite the same kind of people as before.”
― Kevin Guyan, Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action

“A queer approach to data collection showcases the back-and-forth between participants and researchers.”
― Kevin Guyan, Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action

“Considering the Scottish census through these theoretical lenses, where the census is not a neutral representation of a reality but a tool to construct a governable population, raises questions as to whether the census is an exercise in knowledge construction or a tool to bolster the state’s capacity to manage its population. These two objectives are not exclusive: improved knowledge likely facilitates the design of more efficient ways to coerce, control and discipline people who live within a state's jurisdiction. However, if the construction of knowledge is no longer the primary purpose of a census, this throws into doubt then need for a census to collect accurate information that authentically represents the lives and experiences of the people about whom the data relates.”
― Kevin Guyan, Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action

“The cleaning of data can remove its queerness: paper surveys where respondents score out the response options ‘female’ and ‘male’ and write their own answer, interview recordings were participants flip the focus and ask questions of the researcher, census returns where LGBTQ couples identify themselves as ‘married’ even when governments do not recognize same sex marriage. These examples demonstrate how collection methods can fail to restrict how participants share data about their lives and experiences. … cleaning, which involves the removal of data that breaks established rules”
― Kevin Guyan, Queer Data: Using Gender, Sex and Sexuality Data for Action

“At the core of Lacanian ethics if therefore the idea that the subject who steps into the real - the place of the lack in the Other - severes its ties to the symbolic order. Such a subject is no longer embarassed by its inability to adhere to the rules of social behavior but instead embraces - feels compelled to embrace - the destructive energies of the real. This subject is not interested in trying to solve its problem within the parameteres of the system but rather insists on changing the game entirely, on defying the very structuring principles of the system, which is why the act opens a gateway to what might, from the perspective of the established order, seem completely inconceivable (or even utterly insane).”
― Mari Ruti, The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory's Defiant Subjects

“At the core of Lacanian ethics is therefore the idea that the subject who steps into the real - the place of the lack in the Other - severes its ties to the symbolic order. Such a subject is no longer embarassed by its inability to adhere to the rules of social behavior but instead embraces - feels compelled to embrace - the destructive energies of the real. This subject is not interested in trying to solve its problem within the parameteres of the system but rather insists on changing the game entirely, on defying the very structuring principles of the system, which is why "the act" opens a gateway to what might, from the perspective of the established order, seem completely inconceivable (or even utterly insane).”
― Mari Ruti, The Ethics of Opting Out: Queer Theory's Defiant Subjects

“What is repressed is never, of course, annihilated: it will always strive to return, in disguised forms, in dreams, or as neurotic symptoms. If Freud was correct—and I see no reason to suppose otherwise—we should expect to find the traces of repressed homosexuality in every film, just as we should expect to find them in every person, usually lurking beneath the surface, occasionally rupturing it, informing in various ways the human relationships depicted.”
― Robin Wood, Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan

“Before there were lesbians, there were butches. The masculine woman prowls the film set as an emblem of social upheaval and as a marker of sexual disorder. She wears the wrong clothes, expresses aberrant desires, and if often associated with clear markers of a distinctly phallic power.

She may carry a gun, smoke a cigar, wear leather, ride a motorbike; she may swagger, strut, boast, flirt with younger and more obviously feminine women; she often goes by a male moniker: Frankie, George, Willy, Micky, Eli, Nicky. She is tough and tragic, she was a tomboy, and she expresses a variety of masculinities.”
― Jack Halberstam, Female Masculinity

“The general impression left on the medieval mind by its official teachers was that all love - at least all such passionate and exalted devotion as a courtly poet thought worthy of the name - was more or less wicked. And this impression, combining with the nature of feudal marriage as I have already described it, produced in the poets a certain wilfulness, a readiness to emphasize rather than conceal the antagonism between their amatory and their religious ideals. Thus if the Church tells them even that the ardent lover of his own wife is in mortal sin, they presently reply with the rule that true love is impossible in marriage. If the Church says that the sexual act can be 'excuse' only by the desire for offspring, then it becomes the mark of a true lover, like Chauntecleer, that he served Venus

"More for delyt than world to multiplye".”
― C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition

“The heterosexual foundation of Liberation Theology can claim for toleration of the abnormal in its communities, but it us heterosexuality as a compulsory system in itself which is abnormal, not Queer, indecent people. Indecent people challenge precisely the unnaturality and abnormalities of the present sexual ideology, in all the consequences of this sexual and political theology.”
― Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics