Homosexual Identity

Research Paper # 109719

Gender and Sexuality > Gender Studies
Gender and Sexuality > Homosexuality

Homosexual Identity

A look at homosexual identity using the work of Michael Foucault and other queer theorists.

2,712 words () | 15 sources | MLA | 2008 Canada

Paper Summary:

The paper surveys some of the major currents of thought that have engaged queer theorists over the last twenty years. The paper utilizes Michel Foucault's "The History of Sexuality'' description of the 'homosexual as species' as a starting point, and then focuses on the historical significance of this essentialist notion of sexuality that has been crucial in understanding the homosexual identity over the last century.

Part I. - What is Queer?
The Species as Subject
A Queer Shift in Subjectivities
The March

From the Paper:

"The development of queer theory can be seen as a culmination of many of the major streams of post-structuralist thought on sexuality, as many theorists attempted to liberate sexuality from within the hegemony of the heterosexual paradigm. The notion of the "queer" both as an identity and a theory has been cited as spanning a number of conceptual realms. Butler describes it as taking a multiplicity of forms, "that it is used in ways that enforce a set of overlapping divisions: in some context, the term appeals to a younger generation who want to resist the more institutionalized and reformist politics sometimes signified by lesbian and gay." She goes further by describing its plenary of permutations as a "discursive rallying point for younger lesbians and gay men and, in yet other contexts, for lesbian interventions and, in yet other contexts, for bisexuals and straights for whom the term expresses an affiliation with anti-homophobic politics." . Jagose, meanwhile, provides a distinct duality: at times, for those on the cultural margins, queer is a taxonomy for self-sexual identity; at others, it is a theoretic model of enquiry - with the theoretical having developed from within the vast umbrella of gay and lesbian studies. "

Sample of Sources Used:

Bech, Henning. When Men Meet : Homosexualiity and Modernity. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1997.
Butler, Judith P. Bodies that Matter : On the Discursive Limits of "Sex". New York: Routledge, 1993.
------. Gender Trouble : Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Thinking Gender. New York: Routledge, 1990.
Eng, David L., Judith Halberstam, and Jose Esteban Munoz. "Introduction: What's Queer about Queer Studies Now?" Social Text 23, no. 84-85 (September 1, 2005): 1-17.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Vintage Books ed. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.