Gay and lesbian criticism and Queer Theory.

1. Gay and Lesbian Criticism and
Queer Theory
ABDUL GHAFFAR JAT 2K16/BLENG/4
Department of English Language and Literature
University of Sindh Laar Campus Badin

2. Definition
 Queer theory an attempt to redefine
sexual preference and identity. It seeks
to find a cultural and political space.
Where homosexual no longer consider
immoral, unnatural, against moral code
or sick of heterosexuality. Considered as
a normal and ordinary people of the
society.
 Queer theory interrogates the modes by
which sexuality of the inside and
outside are constructed and sexual
identity assigned and politics formulated.

3.  New field of inquiry called queer theory, which is
based on the insights of deconstruction and is
relevant to issues of heterosexual identity as well as
to issues of gay and lesbian sexual identity.
 Gay and lesbian liberation movements have always
struggled against social, economical, religious,
political restrictions
 They always seeks to find a space in the
mainstream of the society
 Fought for social recognition in community at large.
 Queer theory has significantly contributed in political,
social, economical movements and activism.

4. Basic tenets of Gay, Lesbian, and Queer
theory's
 Gender identity is socially constructed
 It is not biological problem but is a social
problem
 Judith Butler mention in his book ‘’SEX
TRUBLE’’ sexuality is socially constructed
and practiced, performed again and again
so people take it as a natural
 According to this view, which is called
social constructionism, homosexuality and
heterosexuality are products of social, not
biological, forces.

5. History
 In 1969 police raid the stonewall tavern of
Newark city, many lesbian, gay transgender were
arrested and imprisoned, than they got popularity
globally.
 British Gay Liberation Front’’ took place in
London school of economics on 13 November
1970
 The first annual gay parade was conducted on 1st
April 1972, after that they have received wide
popularity across the globe
 A field of critical theory that emerged in the early
1990s

6. LGBT MOVEMENT
 Lesbian: Women who primarily choose to partner
with women.
 Gay: Refers to men who primarily choose to
partner with men. Some lesbians prefer this
term.
 Bisexual: Individuals who choose to partner on
the basis of characteristics other than gender.
 Individuals who prefer to partner with men and
women.
 Transgender :An umbrella term for people who do
not conform to conventional notions of male or
female gender

8. Gay and Lesbian Literature
 Gay and Lesbian literature is a collective
term for literature produced by or for
the LGBT community which involves
characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying
male and female homosexual behavior.
 EXAMPLE
 The Price of Salt is a romance novel by
Patricia Highsmith under the pen name Claire
Morgan. It was published in 1952 and
tells the story of love between two women. It
was unique at the time because it
was the only lesbian novel to feature a joyful

9.  These two people—the girl (Therese aged 19) and the
older woman (Carol in her early 30s)—meet in a
department store during the Christmas season.
Therese works temporarily as an assistant in the toy
department, and Carol is looking for a doll for her
young daughter:
 EXAMPLE
Saw the Lesbians kissing across their
smitten
Lutes with lips more sweet than the
sound of lute-strings,
Mouth to mouth and hand upon hand, her
chosen,
Fairer than all men

10. Gay and Lesbian Criticism
An approach to literature that focuses on
how homosexuals are represented in literature,
how they read literature, and whether
sexuality, as well as gender, is culturally
constructed or innate.

11. Lesbian Criticism
 lesbian literary critics………..
 They try to decide what constitutes a lesbian
literary tradition and what writers and works
belong to it.
 They attempt to determine what might
constitute a lesbian poetics, that is, a uniquely
lesbian way of writing.
 They analyze how the sexual/emotional
orientation of lesbian writers has affected their
literary expression.

12. GAY CRITICISM
 Gay critics attempt to determine what
might constitute a gay poetics, or a way
of writing that is uniquely gay; to establish
a gay literary tradition
 Gay critics also examine how gay
sensibility affects literary expression and
study the ways in which heterosexual

13. CONCLUSION
 Nothing within your identity is fixed.
 Your identity is little more than a pile of
(social and cultural) things which you have
previously expressed, or which have been
said about you.
 There is not really an ‘inner self’. We come to
believe we have one through the repetition of
discourses about it
 Gender, like other aspects of identity, is a
performance (though not necessarily a
consciously chosen one). Again, this is
reinforced through repetition.