This document provides an overview of queer identity and queer theory. It defines queer as referring to anything that opposes normalcy or dominance. Queer theory emerged from fields like women's and gender studies and critiques fixed categorizations of gender and sexuality. The document discusses how queer theory challenges notions of straight as normal and explores how new media and the internet have provided new contexts for exploring queer identities beyond the gender binary. It also notes how platforms like Facebook still rely on discrete categories of gender and sexuality that can feel restrictive.

1. QUEER IDENTITY

2. A PRESENTATION BY:
RANA MOHAMMED
2 ND M.A MASS
COMMUNICATION

3. Queer is by definition whatever is at odds
with the normal, the legitimate, the
dominant. There is nothing in particular
to which it necessarily refers. It is an
identity without an essence.

4. Queer theory is a part of the field of
queer studies whose roots can be found
in women's studies, feminist theory, and
gay and lesbian studies, as well as in
postmodern and post-structuralist
theories.

5. The term "queer theory" was introduced
in 1990, with Eve Kosofsky
Sedgwick, Judith Butler, Adrienne Rich
and Diana Fuss (all largely following the
work of Michel Foucault) being among its
foundational proponents.

6. • Queer theory's main project is exploring the
contesting of the categorisation of gender and
sexuality; identities are not fixed – they
cannot be categorised and labeled – because
identities consist of many varied components
and that to categorise by one characteristic is
wrong.

7. • Queer theory is grounded in gender and
sexuality. Due to this association, a debate
emerges as to whether sexual orientation is
natural or essential to the person, as
an essentialist believes, or if sexuality is
a social construction and subject to change.
• The queer theory has two predominant
strains:
• Radical deconstructionism: interrogates
categories of sexual orientations.
• Radical rebellion: disrupts the normalizing
tendencies of the sexual order.

8. • Queer theory developed out of an
examination of perceived limitations in the
traditional identity politics of recognition
and self-identity. In particular, queer theorists
identified processes of consolidation or
stabilization around some other identity labels
(e.g. gay and lesbian); and construed
queerness so as to resist this. Queer theory
attempts to maintain a critique more than
define a specific identity.

9. • Queer theory is likened to language because it
is never static, but is ever-evolving.

10. • In later years there was an explosion of
discourse on sexuality and sexual orientations
with the coming-of-age of the Internet.

11. • Queer theorists analyze texts and challenge
the cultural notions of "straight" ideology;
that is, does "straight" imply heterosexuality
as normal or is everyone potentially gay?

12. QUEER THEORY AND INTERNET
• New Media artists have a long history of queer
theory inspired works, including cyberfeminism
works using social software to explore queer
sexualities beyond the male/female binary.
• http://queerocracy.tumblr.com/post/75541422
52/help-push-facebook-to-recognize-trans-
identities
• http://plone.ladyfestwien.org/

13. QUEER IDENTITY AND FACEBOOK
• Another labeling war that still continues—and, one
could argue, is being lost by those seeking more
freedom in self-identification—is the
sex/gender/orientation war. Here Facebook’s
reliance on discrete quantities is unyieldingly
absolute: one is strongly encouraged to select one’s
“Sex” as “male” or “female,” to check either or both
of the “men” and “women” boxes under “Interested
in,” and to thus publicly shape one’s sexual identity
as a totally binary one. This is not at all surprising, in
a society that reinforces the strict absolutes of male
and female or gay and straight, but it’s as
constricting—if not more so—than the limited
political options ever were.

14. DELEUZE
• “Accordingly queer is always ready in response
to a dominant heterosexual matrix: solely
reactive force of re-signification, mockery,
disrespect to the dominance of
heterosexuality, to the power of the norms, a
force that denies all that it is not and makes
negation its own essence and the principle of
its existence.”

15. REFERENCES
• worthlessdrivel.net/category/essays/
• books.google.com › Literary Criticism› Asian›
General

16. THANK YOU