Ah, Queer Theory. That captivating whirlwind of a framework. It sweeps through academia like a gust of wind, challenging the very foundations of our understanding.
But what is Queer Theory, you might wonder. Well, sit back, dear reader, and be prepared to be completely discombobulated.
Fact: about 90 per cent of society is predictably heterosexually oriented.
Consequently, society has naturally evolved to fit the majority. You wouldn’t see scissors manufacturers churning out left-handed pairs in equal proportion to right-handed ones, would you? It’s simply about market demand, not a conspiracy against the left-handed. The same goes for heterosexuality, homosexuality and society.
But Queer Theory begs to differ. It insists that this ‘norm’ (branded as ‘Heteronormativity’) is an oppressive monster forcing itself on society. It claims that anything ‘normal’ – even if by normal you mean commonplace – is by definition oppressive and should be done away with while anything not ‘normal’ should be promoted.
Sure, norms might need an update now and then but Queer Theory loves to stir the pot. It muddies the waters between the dictionary’s ‘normal’ and a moral ‘normal’, crafting its own Picasso-style abstract definition.
They revel in the chaos they create, by blurring lines and definitions of sexuality. It becomes a form of activism known as “queering”, where simplicity is cast aside in favour of confusion. Because, why not? Who needs clarity when we can have chaos?
One might assume that Queer Theory and LGBT movements go hand in hand but that’s not entirely accurate. LGBT citizens have lobbied all these decades to be treated exactly like their heterosexual counterparts. We wanted to get married and have our unions recognised as marriage.
But Queer Theory has other ideas. It thinks having a committed monogamous relationship is some sort of betrayal of the gay world. Nowadays, there are even a few LGBT citizens who look askance at married gay couples with contempt and accuse them of buying into ‘heteronormativity’.
Queer Theory deliberately derails everything achieved in the fight towards acceptance. All that effort to prove that being gay was a biological fact and not a choice and then Queer Theory comes along and pushes the notion that sexuality and gender are just social constructs. That feels more like a regression than a progression.
But there’s more to the story. Once someone adopts the viewpoint that run-of-the-mill normality is negative, and divergent abnormality is positive, they can apply this belief to any area of society. They can then attribute perceived oppressive norms to whichever villain or oppressor group fits their viewpoint.
Drawing inspiration from this perspective, fields like Gender Studies have built upon the idea of the ‘Gender Binary’ as a construct of an oppressive patriarchal system, disregarding scientific evidence to the contrary. As if male, female and heterosexual are rigid and artificial categories imposed on everyone and in reality we’ve been gender fluid and pan sexual all along.
People who lose weight are crucified on social media for being fat-phobic- Edward Caruana Galizia
The result? A proliferation of numerous genders and pronouns. But more concerning is the way any research into sex, gender or sexuality is thwarted because researchers inevitably have to state that there are only two sexes and they are not allowed to.
The stipulations set forth by Queer Theory and Gender Studies can put people in a position where expressing sexual preference could be mistaken as discriminatory. A gay man can no longer state that he wouldn’t date a trans-man, lest he is accused of being transphobic despite the fact that gay men do not like female genitalia. It’s as if being gay is now transphobic.
A similar pattern to Gender Studies is also observed in ‘Fat Studies’, which takes a divergent stance on health. This time ‘thinness’ is the subjective, socially constructed ‘norm’, dismissing medical definitions and health concerns related to obesity in the process.
This makes it difficult for doctors to tell their patients to lose the weight that’s killing them, lest they are called fat-phobic. And people who lose weight are crucified on social media for being fat-phobic because they obviously think being thinner is better.
You would think the madness stops there but it doesn’t.
The framework is then further extended to disability, proposing that being able-bodied is also a social construct and that disabled people just have a different way of being able-bodied. Thus, attempts to improve the lives of disabled individuals through research and development of technology is viewed as offensive since it implies a preference for able-bodiedness and, thus, progress in that field is stymied.
And so it continues. The manifestly absurd framework gets applied to anything and everything. Simply swap one term for another, add “oppressor” here, then sit back and let the hilarity write itself.
Undeniably, discrimination against LGBT individuals, women, people with obesity and disabled individuals was a bitter reality in the past and, in increasingly fewer cases, even the present.
However, the propagation of a theory that can potentially reverse societal progress, prevent invaluable research, promote unhealthy lifestyles, stigmatise health consciousness and deny life-improving technologies to disabled individuals should be approached with caution.
The potential of Queer Theory to cause harm, despite its intention to spread love, is a sobering contemplation. This is what makes Queer Theory truly emblematic of its name – an intriguing, albeit perplexing lens through which to view our world that undoes all progress in the name of progress. It remains, in all respects, the queerest of theories.
Edward Caruana Galizia is an actor and has a master’s degree in culture, diaspora and ethnicity from Birkbeck University of London. The views expressed in this article are his own.