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LGBT200 Exam 1 Study GuideIntroductiono Definitions of sex and gendero Sex: a personal quality determined by biological and genetic characteristics Variations between XX and XYo Gender: a social , symbolic construction that expresses the meanings a societyassociates with biological sex Varies across cultures, overtime, in relation to other genders “a process, stratification, and structure”o Gender as a processo Gender as an ascribed and avowed identity Construction of boundaries Shifts overtimeo Gender stratificationo Power is central to the process of stratificationo Gendered ideology Constructions of symbols and images that explain, express, reinforce and sometimes oppose gender divisions Legitimating Valuation System of ranking Patriarchalo Gender as a structureo Society and institutions are built upon gendered stratification o Gender is a social institution Individual level Societal levelo Gendered structure is culturally specifico Gender functions as a major way we organize our liveso Non-normative gender identities (homosexual) and performances challenge the gendered binary and boundarieso Boundaries have consequences/implicationso Theories of performanceo Contrary to notions of fixity and deterministic theories of gendero Gender as something we doo Why consider gender here?o Culture norms associated with gender assume heterosexual desireo Assumed linear path Sex  gender  sexual desire Sex  cisgender  hetero-desire- Sex is going to match gender “cis”=with- i.e. sex and gender are a pair that matcho male has a male gender and vice versao Anything outside of path is ‘deviant’o Both in terms of: Gender identity Sexuality Jeffery Weeks, “The Challenge of Gay and Lesbian Studies”o How does Weeks define LGBT studies?o Identities, experience of oppression, struggles for recognition, through history and in literature and so ono It is easier to say what it isn’t:o Not a single disciplineo No single object of studyo No single theoretical positiono No common methodologyo No common politics apart from common political rooto It is hard to unify lesbian and gay studieso What is the paradox facing lesbian and gay studies?o Deconstruction vs. Common themeso Deconstruction: showing differences, divisions, tensionso Monographs, readers, articles suggest that we need to find a space where common themes are discussedo Where are the commonalities? (between gay and lesbian studies)o Affirming differences using democratic dialogueo Rooted in broad support of sexual justiceo Contesting existing knowledge and transforming modes of interpreting the worldo Creating spaceo Phases in LGBT studieso Impacted by disciplines of study Anthropology, history sociology Communication and media studies Geography and EnglishCorber and Valocchi, “Queer Studies”o What have queer studies scholars offered LGBT studies scholars?o LGBT is sexualityo Queer= odd acts i.e. cross-dressing, race/classo How do the authors define and/or use the term “queer?”o Page 1, left paragraph “Queer names or describes identities and practices that foreground the instability inherently in the supposedly stable relationship between anatomical sex, gender and sexual desire.”o Transforming “queer” from negative to positiveo Reclaim the termo Queer studies (and the category of queer) has generated (or continued) a series of debates:o Questioning identity-based modelso Re-interrogating the relationship between sex, gender and sexuality (queer studies and feminism)o Power and agencyo Destabilizing the subject via psychoanalysiso Debate #1: Limits of identityo What is the social construction argument? The way a man matures is constructed by society The studies demonstrated the inability to recover a continuous history of a subordinate group—homo and heterosexual categories are a product of the late 19th century  “Lesbian and gay identities are socially constructed, that they are products of historically specific economic, political, and social conditions.” ~1o How can we describe the minority model of homosexuality? Comparing gays to minorities “According to this model, gays and lesbians constitute an oppressed minority similar to other oppressed minorities such as Jews and African Americans” ~2o What does it mean when queer studies moves us from identities to practices? Practice: men in relationship with men, but do not identify as gay Identity: ‘socially constructed,’ considered stableo What is heteronormativity? Heterosexualism is the normo Debate #2: Gender and feminismo Central tension: how to theorize the relationship between sex, gender and sexuality “Queer studies relationship to women’s studies is even more complicated than its relationship to LGBT studies” ~6o How had women’s studies scholars and/or feminists typically theorized the above relationship? Women’s studies conflate the three constructs  Men= oppressor Women= oppressed Queer studies opinion- “masculinity has no necessary link to malenessand the belief that it does serves to legitimate patriarchal social arrangements” ~7o Lesbian-feminists (1970s) and shared experience of homophobia “Any woman could become lesbian by simply making women central to her life and by developing a ‘lesbian consciousness’” ~7o What does Butler mean when she argues that “sex itself is a gendered category?” We read bodies through a gendered lens Butler was born with ambiguous genitals “Sex, gender and sexuality have no causal or necessary relation to each other but are mobile; that is, they can be configured in a variety of ways, none of which is ‘natural’ or biologically mandated” ~8- i.e. butches experience their masculinity as an essential part of their identity but have no desire to be anatomically maleo Spaces opened up: To study wide ranging non-normative genders and sexualities from a feminist perspective To recognize a wide range of subcultural identities and practices Link between queer studies, race and class Articulating the need for intersectionalityo Debate #3: Queering Powero Focusing on conception of power and agency of the subjecto How did Foucalt theorize/conceptualize this power? “For Foucalt, power involved more than domination and repression; itis also productive in the sense that it opens up possibilities for action and is constitutive of the


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UMD LGBT 200 - Exam 1 Study Guide

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