queer theory

is a refusal of heterosexuality as the benchmark for all sexual formations... an attentiveness to gender capable of interrogating the frequent assumptions that lesbian and gay studies is a single homogeneous object... and an insistence on the multiple ways in which race crucially shapes sexual subjectives.

According to the online Science Encyclopedia, the term queer theory came about in 1991 when Teresa de Lauretis edited a feminist studies journal entitled 'Queer Theory: Lesbian and Gay Sexualities.' She defines queer theory as containing three main points: 'a refusal of heterosexuality as the benchmark for all sexual formations... an attentiveness to gender capable of interrogating the frequent assumptions that lesbian and gay studies is a single homogeneous object... and an insistence on the multiple ways in which race crucially shapes sexual subjectives.' This quote means that the word 'queer' is anything but ordinary. Queer Theory is a study in which traditonal sexual norms are rejected. The studies introduce the fact that there are more than just two types of sexuality.' (net)

queer theory, n.All

queer theory