LGBT (Queer) Literary Theory Ms. Nicole CIS Literature

What have you learned about gender expectations and behavior?

Gender Theory Feminist Theory Queer Theory Focus: power disparity as a result of adhering to/rejecting gender roles Focus: power disparity as a result of heterosexism Focus: power disparity as a result of male domination

A person’s gender is … Created category focused on “feminine/masculine” behavior, but behavior is a performance MasculineFeminine

A person’s sexuality is… Similarly a spectrum = difficult to define in simple terms Homosexual Heterosexual AsexualBisexual Trans-sexual & Transgender

Queer Theory: Early History All people have “homoerotic” feelings Holy, transitional rite of passage, taboo

Queer Theory: Victorians (mid-1800s) Homosexuality as separate ID Inherent/unchanging part of personality U.S.: Gay life flourishes through 1920s U.S. 1930s: researchers prove homosexuality is significant proportion of population and not correlated to any significant difference

History Continued 1950s/Postwar America: needs order to support capitalism Gender roles solidified in public and private sphere Legislation to criminalize gay people/treat as psychiatric condition

1969: Gay Liberation Movement responds to police brutality 1970s: Institutionalization ends (ECT, Lobotomy, prison, aversion therapy) 1990: Restrictions on homosexual immigration lifted from 1952

A person’s sexuality is… Element of identity and therefore difficult to research empirically ID formation in youth: self-categorization in teen years; family and faith community Society often separates sexual acts into “normative” (heteronormative) and “deviant”

Homophobia: fear, loathing of homosexuality Mild biasOvert phobia Form of social control – intimidate sexual minorities, validate heterosexuality Results from view that gender order is disrupted – similar to fear of ethnic minorities Can lead to discrimination

What to do? Character’s options/playing out of expectations? Access to power based on sex and gender? How does the text represent gender roles and/or sexuality?

Questions to ask of the text What are the politics (ideological agendas) of specific gay, lesbian, or queer works, and how are those politics revealed in the work's thematic content or portrayals of its characters? What are the poetics (literary devices and strategies) of a specific lesbian, gay, or queer works? What does the work contribute to our knowledge of queer, gay, or lesbian experience and history, including literary history? How is queer, gay, or lesbian experience coded in texts that are by writers who are apparently homosexual? What does the work reveal about social, political, and/or psychological homophobia? How does the literary text illustrate the problematics of sexuality and sexual "identity," that is the ways in which human sexuality does not fall neatly into the separate categories defined by the words homosexual and heterosexual?

BIG QUESTION How does the text comment on power disparities resulting from characters’ sexual orientation?