Queer theory!
This carrd is going to be about the meaning of queer theory, how it's intertwined with Marxist theory, and general queer reading and theory recs. Click the arrow to continue.
What is queer theory?
Theory is a framework/analysis of social issues. Queer theory would be impossible to define, but it generally refers to the large body of works that explore queerness, sexuality and gender, intersectionality with queer identities, and queerness through a dialectical lens. Queer theory, as with all theory, is designed to be put into action! A strong political movement requires theory and political education, and it's important to understand that theory and praxis are dialectical. Everyone, especially oppressed people, needs a strong logical, ideological, and economic framework to even begin working towards liberation.
Queer theory can be a powerful lens for analysis, be it Marxism, feminism, exploitation, revolution, and decolonization. Having said that, queer theory without a Marxist analysis, or one that doesn't understand the material root of the queer identity and does not view queerness through a dialectical lens, will fall short from providing a strong framework. Not every queer theorist will have a "correct" understanding of everything, and the same can be applied to any theorist. It's important while reading theory to also critique it and find other perspectives on it (reading groups, videos & podcasts, readings beyond the primary text, etc.).
Where do I start?
Not all queer theory is going to be the same. Some theory is fast and easy, and some is very dense and philosophical. Everyone has limits as well as starting points, and that's important to understand before diving into it. One person might just want to read a few shorts texts for now, and another person may want a PhD in gender theory. Both are okay. Say you just want a few books about queerness and queer people that aren't too philosophical? (click the title of each book for a free pdf online)
Stone Butch Blues - Leslie Feinberg’s 1993 first novel and is widely considered in and outside the United States to be a groundbreaking work about the complexities of gender. This book follows Feinberg as a child and into adulthood, and goes into lesbianism, transgenderism, and many other topics. I would recommend looking up TWs before reading as it can be a heavy read.
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches - Audre Lorde, a Black lesbian poet, analyzes the intersectionality of racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism in her own life in these essential and lyrical essays and speeches, reflecting struggle and a powerful message for hope and change.
Transgender History - Susan Stryker, a transsexual woman, covers the transsexual and transvestite communities during the post-World War II era to trans radicalism and social change in the '60s and '70s and the gender issues that took hold in the '90s and '00s. Transgender History details the most significant events, people and developments for trans communities in the United States.
Black on Both Sides - C. Riley Snorton details the intersection of Black and trans identities from the mid-19th century to today, and in doing so, highlights the lives of integral Black trans figures like Lucy Hicks Anderson and James McHarris, who have often been overlooked. This extremely well written book has transformed scholarly understandings of Black and trans fields, and the intersections between them.
The Stonewall Reader - This anthology pulls from the NYPL archives made up of a variety of written pieces that include diary entries, periodic lit, articles from queer magazines, and much more. This collection focuses not only on Stonewall but also on the five years before and after. It's a great overview of the impact that night in 1969 had on the queer community.
Other books include (that I couldn't find free online):
Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution by Shiri EisnerOne-Dimensional Queer by Roderick A. FergusonExcluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive by Julia SeranoNobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity by Matt Bernstein SycamoreReal Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States by Samantha AllenCaptive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex by Eric A. Stanley
colonialism
The Gender Binary Is a Tool of White Supremacy - an article by Kravitz M. surrounding a brief history of gender expansiveness—and colonialism's role in slaughtering it—that covers how seemingly recent developments in gender variation are not new, but abnormalized by the Western binary.
The Coloniality of Gender - an essay by Maria Lugones on the intersections between gender, race and colonization that draws from the work of Third World and Women of Color feminists, including critical race theorists. Lugones uses the coloniality of power to understand the modern gender system and makes visible the instrumentality of the colonial/modern gender system in subjecting both women and men of color in all domains of existence.
Romancing the Transgender Native - an essay by Evan B. Towle and Lynn M. Morgan about rethinking the use of the "third gender" concept, as there has been an increase in the popular use of cross-cultural examples to provide legitimacy to transgender movements in the United States. "If a common complaint among trans individuals is that their lives and identities are violated and misrepresented for the goals of scholarship, then it behooves us to make sure that we do not commit the same offense against others for the goal of political advancement."
Born This Way?: Time and the Coloniality of Gender - a journal article by Marie Draz on the "born this way" narrative, or (for one example) that one is born with their sexuality, something in the United States often believed to be biologically determined. Draz discusses how this narrative is specifically deployed by the state in legitimating transgender identity and gives insight into the ways in which the state wields this understanding of time as a mechanism of differentiation between valid and invalid identities, seeing as how temporality is a central mechanism of power in racial and colonial formations.
Books include (that I couldn't find free online):
Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times by Jasbir K. PuarAfrica After Gender? by Catherine M. Cole, Takyiwaa Manuh, and by Stephan F. MiescherGenders, Transgenders and Sexualities in Japan by Mark McLelland and Romit DasguptaGender Reversals and Gender Cultures: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives by Sabrina Petra RametImperial Leather: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest by Anne McclintockColonial Masculinity: The 'Manly Englishman' and the 'Effeminate Bengali' in the Late Nineteenth Century by Mrinalini Sinha
moving towards intersectional feminism
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center - book by Bell Hooks that can serve as a great introduction into feminism in general as well as intersectional feminism. Discusses the pitfalls of white feminism and the importance of a race and class inclusive perspective.
Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction - book by Rosemarie Tong and Tina Fernandes Botts on gaining a general understanding of the landscape of feminist theory. Goes over the main ideas of the major feminist branches and highlights common critiques of each.
Women, Race & Class - book by Angela Davis that provides a powerful history of the social and political influence of whiteness and elitism in feminism, from abolitionist days to the present, and not only contextualizes the legacy and pitfalls of civil and women’s rights activists, but also discusses Communist women, the murder of Emmitt Till, and Margaret Sanger’s racism. Davis shows how the inequalities between Black and white women influence the contemporary issues of rape, reproductive freedom, housework and child care.
Caliban and the Witch - book by Silvia Federici as a great introduction to Marxist feminism that explores the building blocks of capitalism and addresses the role of women, and the violence they face, during the process of capitalism's development.
On Hating Men (And Becoming One Anyway) - an essay on understanding transmasculinity and radical feminism's (both trans-exclusionary and "inclusionary") harmful view of male oppression and transness: "Similarly, trans men’s relationship to gender cannot be understood by adding the privilege of maleness to the oppression of transness; the interaction between these axes substantively transforms both such that it generates an experience qualitatively different from either alone."
Books include (that I couldn't find free online):
Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto by Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy FraserIntersectionality (Key Concepts) by Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma BilgeIntersectionality: An Intellectual History by Ange-Marie HancockThe Rise of Neoliberal Feminism by Catherine Rottenberg
Marxism and (more) Philosophical Queer Theory
The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State - book by Friedrich Engels that was foundational in much of Marxist feminist theory and thought. Engels covers the interrelated development of the family and the state from ancient society until his time as he touches on monogamy, property, and development of the human and overthrow of matriarchal communal societies.
The Gender Accelerationist Manifesto - essay by Vikky Storm and Eme Flores that broadly covers gender accelerationism and the end of gender. Discussing the current functions of gender as well as its origins, class dynamics and the category of "woman," communism and how gender would function post-revolution, and accelerating gender, this essay gives a solid introduction into queer and communist theory.
Toward the Queerest Insurrection - short essay by Mary Nardini Gang on the differing categories of "queer" and "LGBT." Embracing non-normalcy and understanding the current pitfalls of the gay identity and how its political establishment has become a force of assimilation, gentrification, capital and statepower.
One Is Not Born a Woman - essay by Monique Wittig on the category of "woman." Wittig covers how the oppression of women is neither historical or biological, and the concept of femininity is entirely a social construct. "Man" and "woman" are political categories rather than natural givers, and Wittig uses a materialist analysis to argue that these categories should be rejected.
No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive - by Lee Edelman argues that queer theory stands fundamentally opposed to all politics. Queerness, as it is figured in cultural representation, effectively constitutes the limit of politics. Just as "queerness can never define an identity; it can only disturb one," so too queer theory can only disrupt politics not produce them. In the place of politics, Edelman offers a discourse of ethics, calling upon queer theory to resist all attempts to sanitize or valorize sexuality but insist instead on its complete, and profoundly disruptive, unintelligibility.
Dismantling the Transgender Brain - journal article by Eric Llaveria Caselles that understands and discusses the common myth of the trangender brain, and how the lack of engagement of neuroscientists with perspectives from gender studies and with the voices of trans people constitutes a severe neglect of the social and political responsibility of researchers and reinforces the oppression of the trans community.
A Cyborg Manifesto - essay by Donna Haraway as a work of posthumanist theory that criticizes traditional notions of feminism, particularly feminist focuses on identity politics, and encourages instead coalition through affinity. She uses the figure of the cyborg to urge feminists to move beyond the limitations of traditional gender, feminism, and politics.
Rethinking Sex and Gender - journal article by Christine Delphy that questions prominent feminist work that is often based on an assumption of a natural, sexual dichotomy. Delphy argues, however, that gender precedes sex, and it is the social division of labor, and associated hierarchical relations, which lead to physiological sex being used to differentiate those who are assigned to be dominant from those who will be part of the subordinate gender/class.
Trapped in the Wrong Theory: Rethinking Trans Oppression and Resistance - journal article by Talia Mae Bettcher that draws from María Lugones's work and recent literature on the "transphobic representation of trans people as deceivers to argue that reality enforcement is an important consequence of dominant ways of doing gender."
Capitalism and Gay Identity - essay by John D'Emilio that debunks the common myth that LGBT+ people have always existed and connects the capitalist system to the nuclear family, leading to the later appearance of a collective gay identity and life. This "liberation" of the individual from material dependence on the nuclear family came decades after militant struggle—struggle much needed to overthrow the capitalist system.
Queering Anarchism - book by C. B. Daring, J. Rogue, Deric Shannon, and Abbey Volcano that explores the possibilities of the concept of "queering," turning the dominant, and largely heteronormative, structures of belief and identity entirely inside out. Ranging in topic from the economy to disability, politics, social structures, sexual practice, interpersonal relationships, and beyond, the authors here suggest that queering might be more than a set of personal preferences, pointing toward the possibility of an entirely new way of viewing the world.
Books include (that I couldn't find free online):
The Second Sex by Simone de BeauvoirGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity by Judith ButlerThe History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction by Michel FoucaultAgainst Equality: Queer Revolution, Not Mere Inclusion by Ryan ConradSexuality and Socialism: History, Politics, and Theory of LGBT Liberation by Sherry WolfMarx on Gender and the Family: A Critical Study by Heather BrownSexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality by Anne Fausto-SterlingThe Straight Mind: And Other Essays by Monique Wittig