Queer studies are also knowns as sexual diversity studies and LGBT studies. It focuses on lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender people, and queer people and cultures related to sexual orientation and gender identity. The queer theory emerged in the early 1990s as a field of critical view derived from queer studies and women's studies. Queer studies are not the same as queer theory, an analytical viewpoint within queer studies that challenge the putatively "socially constructed" categories of sexual identity.
Historically, the term "queer theory" began with Gloria Anzaldúa, influenced by Michel Foucault. Foucault viewed sexuality as socially constructed and rejected identity politics. The first queer theory conference was organized by Teresa de Lauretis in 1990; the term became legitimized in academia.
Early queer theorists include:
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick,
Michael Warner,
Lauren Berlant,
Judith Butler
Adrienne Rich,
David Halperin.
Study of gender, sexuality, and identity in an interdisciplinary manner. Among the other theoretical models employed by gender studies are psychoanalysis—particularly the work of Jacques Lacan—deconstruction, and feminist theory, which seeks to examine how social and cultural constructions of masculinity and femininity shape class, race, ethnicity, and sexuality. As with gender studies, the queer theory also challenges normative definitions of gender and sexuality. As approaches to literary texts, gender studies and queer theory tend to emphasize the power of representation and linguistic indeterminacy.
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