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joensign's review
informative
fast-paced
3.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs, Lesbophobia, Homophobia, Transphobia, Biphobia, and Acephobia/Arophobia
Minor: Misogyny and Sexual content
fieldofhats's review
challenging
medium-paced
0.75
Read for Queer Lit and Theory.
This book creates a problematic divide between queer people and LGBTQ+ people, which is extremely ironic considering all it’s talk about breaking down binaries. The majority of this book talks about queer theory, which is the posh academic study of queerness. Queer theory has a lot of ideas about how and why things work, but none of it is relevant to everyday, average LGBTQ+ people, as I’ll get to. At best it gives some food for thought, and at worst it perpetuates extremely problematic and polarizing ideologies that negatively impact non-academic LGBTQ+ people. Either way, it’s not useful. It’s also worth noting that this book is written in a very academic style and isn’t very accessible to the wider audience Meg-John Barker wants to reach.
The worst part is, this book knows that it’s problematic, but doesn’t seem to view it as a problem. Toward the end, Barker writes, “There’s a serious point here that if a theory is too abstract, complex, and opaque it will exclude those outside academia from engaging with it. It may also be regarded as elitist and class-biased. Queer theorists have argued back that academics should be allowed to express sophisticated ideas using complex terminology. Science, for example, is rarely criticized for this.” Not only does this statement belittle the intelligence of real-world queer people (the ‘real world’ being the non-academic world, the world where LGBTQ+ people actually live and face discrimination), but it puts academics on a pedestal. Sure, academics can and should express themselves — but they’re framing queer theory as the end-all-be-all, which is extremely classist and demoralizing. And to top it all off, Barker states later: “Queer theory still has a major task: of communicating its ideas to the people and places that matter.” In other words, queer theory isn’t talked about in “places that matter”. That’s because it’s not relevant to those places. If it were, people would be talking about them.
Arguably the biggest point of this book is the idea of performance over essentialism; “[being queer] is something that we do, rather than something that we (essentially) are.” This is an interesting concept, but one that I don’t think is as binary as the book makes it out to be (which is ironic considering how much this book rejects binaries). Because it seems that people do have an innate sense of who they’re attracted to; I like feminine people, and I can’t change that, nor do I have the option to choose otherwise. It’s like this for many other queer people. However, identities are fluid; one might discover things about them as their life progresses, and choose various identities that best fit them. But it’s not a choice, it’s not performative. Anti-essentialism a fanciful idea to think about, but it’s ultimately antithetical to queer/LGBTQ+ activism in the real world.
However, the idea of post-structuralism takes the concept of anti-essentialism one very dangerous step further. The idea that “knowledge cannot be neutral or objective” is quite literally just a far-right dogwhistle. It is “alternative facts.” I honestly cannot fathom what the goal of this concept is, because the result is that people stop believing in facts. And that’s really dangerous. It’s so frustrating because this is so antithetical to what LGBTQ+ people face on the ground level.
In the same vein on the topic of gender specifically, the idea that gender is solely performed (something that we do, not something that we are) is EXTREMELY problematic. Gender is surely performed; the way we present ourselves is a sort of performance. But that’s only one aspect of gender; our internalized identity, how we view ourselves, is ignored completely here. We are more than just what we do, and we may not perform how we feel inside for any number of reasons. This book takes the stance that gender isn’t real and we only view it the way we do because of societal norms. That’s fine, but it’s not useful. And when it comes down to it, it’s a semantics argument; I have a specific idea of who I am and how I want to live in the world. Is that gender? I’d say yes. It’s fine if you don’t agree, but it’s semantics at that point, and thus not productive.
And later on in the book, Barker talks about trans theories/studies and implies that non-binary people are at odds with queer theory because they seem to work within the binary… “It seems likely that there will be similar tensions between queer theory and non-binary people as there are with bi and trans people. They disrupt the gender binary, but some may be seen as returning to identity politics in rights-based campaigns.” Barker seems to have a wholly negative view of identity politics, seemingly because it’s essentialist. As I’ve said before, this isn’t a useful or productive view for real-world queer people.
Because of the above points, this book could be very harmful for non-LGBTQ+ readers. They might get it in their head that because being queer is performative not who we inherently are (according to this book), being queer is a choice. And that idea is antithetical to the struggles of LGBTQ+ people in the real world. And because of the ideas of post-structuralism, non-LGBTQ+ readers might link queerness with the far-right agenda — and the worst part is, they wouldn’t be wrong.
And on that topic, why did this book describe the struggles of straight privilege, exactly? Sure, some straight people “struggle” with having queer thoughts… But what was the point in bringing that up, exactly? In a similar vein, this book. brings up the idea a few times that non-LGBTQ+ people can be queer. This is an interesting idea to ponder in academics, but is (again) antithetical to real-world queer issues and will just confuse non-LGBTQ+ readers.
There are some good and interesting things about this book. The conversation around power structures and how they are so closely linked to queerness in how they are imposed outside and within the community is a wonderful and good conversation to have. The vital need for intersectionality which is touched on is good (although much more could have been said about it). And the idea of parodying gender norms is an interesting topic, but can be problematic if not done with good intentions. Although, the book also mentions parodying sexuality — I’m not sure how that can be done in a good way. Perhaps it’s because of this books warped idea about anti-essentialism, but it just feels wrong.
Another thing I liked was the application of queer theory to literature. Because while anti-essentialism doesn’t really apply to real-world LGBTQ+ people, it does (or can) apply to literature; readers make their own meaning of the text in question. Oftentimes it’s the author’s intended meaning, but not all the time. And that’s a powerful literary concept. The idea of “queer moments” is also pretty cool, and the 007 comparison was brilliant.
Overall, this was an awful book. Truly awful. The intentions were good, but the execution was atrocious. This book tries to reach a broad audience and aims to introduce queer theory to real-world queer people, which is ultimately unproductive for real-world queer activism. Skip this one. The information is not only bad, but isn’t presented well either.
This book creates a problematic divide between queer people and LGBTQ+ people, which is extremely ironic considering all it’s talk about breaking down binaries. The majority of this book talks about queer theory, which is the posh academic study of queerness. Queer theory has a lot of ideas about how and why things work, but none of it is relevant to everyday, average LGBTQ+ people, as I’ll get to. At best it gives some food for thought, and at worst it perpetuates extremely problematic and polarizing ideologies that negatively impact non-academic LGBTQ+ people. Either way, it’s not useful. It’s also worth noting that this book is written in a very academic style and isn’t very accessible to the wider audience Meg-John Barker wants to reach.
The worst part is, this book knows that it’s problematic, but doesn’t seem to view it as a problem. Toward the end, Barker writes, “There’s a serious point here that if a theory is too abstract, complex, and opaque it will exclude those outside academia from engaging with it. It may also be regarded as elitist and class-biased. Queer theorists have argued back that academics should be allowed to express sophisticated ideas using complex terminology. Science, for example, is rarely criticized for this.” Not only does this statement belittle the intelligence of real-world queer people (the ‘real world’ being the non-academic world, the world where LGBTQ+ people actually live and face discrimination), but it puts academics on a pedestal. Sure, academics can and should express themselves — but they’re framing queer theory as the end-all-be-all, which is extremely classist and demoralizing. And to top it all off, Barker states later: “Queer theory still has a major task: of communicating its ideas to the people and places that matter.” In other words, queer theory isn’t talked about in “places that matter”. That’s because it’s not relevant to those places. If it were, people would be talking about them.
Arguably the biggest point of this book is the idea of performance over essentialism; “[being queer] is something that we do, rather than something that we (essentially) are.” This is an interesting concept, but one that I don’t think is as binary as the book makes it out to be (which is ironic considering how much this book rejects binaries). Because it seems that people do have an innate sense of who they’re attracted to; I like feminine people, and I can’t change that, nor do I have the option to choose otherwise. It’s like this for many other queer people. However, identities are fluid; one might discover things about them as their life progresses, and choose various identities that best fit them. But it’s not a choice, it’s not performative. Anti-essentialism a fanciful idea to think about, but it’s ultimately antithetical to queer/LGBTQ+ activism in the real world.
However, the idea of post-structuralism takes the concept of anti-essentialism one very dangerous step further. The idea that “knowledge cannot be neutral or objective” is quite literally just a far-right dogwhistle. It is “alternative facts.” I honestly cannot fathom what the goal of this concept is, because the result is that people stop believing in facts. And that’s really dangerous. It’s so frustrating because this is so antithetical to what LGBTQ+ people face on the ground level.
In the same vein on the topic of gender specifically, the idea that gender is solely performed (something that we do, not something that we are) is EXTREMELY problematic. Gender is surely performed; the way we present ourselves is a sort of performance. But that’s only one aspect of gender; our internalized identity, how we view ourselves, is ignored completely here. We are more than just what we do, and we may not perform how we feel inside for any number of reasons. This book takes the stance that gender isn’t real and we only view it the way we do because of societal norms. That’s fine, but it’s not useful. And when it comes down to it, it’s a semantics argument; I have a specific idea of who I am and how I want to live in the world. Is that gender? I’d say yes. It’s fine if you don’t agree, but it’s semantics at that point, and thus not productive.
And later on in the book, Barker talks about trans theories/studies and implies that non-binary people are at odds with queer theory because they seem to work within the binary… “It seems likely that there will be similar tensions between queer theory and non-binary people as there are with bi and trans people. They disrupt the gender binary, but some may be seen as returning to identity politics in rights-based campaigns.” Barker seems to have a wholly negative view of identity politics, seemingly because it’s essentialist. As I’ve said before, this isn’t a useful or productive view for real-world queer people.
Because of the above points, this book could be very harmful for non-LGBTQ+ readers. They might get it in their head that because being queer is performative not who we inherently are (according to this book), being queer is a choice. And that idea is antithetical to the struggles of LGBTQ+ people in the real world. And because of the ideas of post-structuralism, non-LGBTQ+ readers might link queerness with the far-right agenda — and the worst part is, they wouldn’t be wrong.
And on that topic, why did this book describe the struggles of straight privilege, exactly? Sure, some straight people “struggle” with having queer thoughts… But what was the point in bringing that up, exactly? In a similar vein, this book. brings up the idea a few times that non-LGBTQ+ people can be queer. This is an interesting idea to ponder in academics, but is (again) antithetical to real-world queer issues and will just confuse non-LGBTQ+ readers.
There are some good and interesting things about this book. The conversation around power structures and how they are so closely linked to queerness in how they are imposed outside and within the community is a wonderful and good conversation to have. The vital need for intersectionality which is touched on is good (although much more could have been said about it). And the idea of parodying gender norms is an interesting topic, but can be problematic if not done with good intentions. Although, the book also mentions parodying sexuality — I’m not sure how that can be done in a good way. Perhaps it’s because of this books warped idea about anti-essentialism, but it just feels wrong.
Another thing I liked was the application of queer theory to literature. Because while anti-essentialism doesn’t really apply to real-world LGBTQ+ people, it does (or can) apply to literature; readers make their own meaning of the text in question. Oftentimes it’s the author’s intended meaning, but not all the time. And that’s a powerful literary concept. The idea of “queer moments” is also pretty cool, and the 007 comparison was brilliant.
Overall, this was an awful book. Truly awful. The intentions were good, but the execution was atrocious. This book tries to reach a broad audience and aims to introduce queer theory to real-world queer people, which is ultimately unproductive for real-world queer activism. Skip this one. The information is not only bad, but isn’t presented well either.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Transphobia, and Biphobia
peannlewis's review
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia and Homophobia
Minor: Racial slurs
puggreader's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
4.0
a bit like reading a long wikipedia article. this was extremely informative to me and i feel like the authors accomplished their goal of providing a pretty accessible start to people new to queer theory. the descriptions are short and concise but somehow to me still felt like an incredibly dense read. i also wish that the criticisms/more modern updates to queer theory were given more space, it felt disproportionate to me, especially considering i fit into the categories of people typically ignored. i think it is a solid and mostly approachable introduction and is giving me a lot more to read from since there are so many references throughout.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Transphobia, Lesbophobia, Biphobia, and Homophobia
Minor: Sexual content
3frenchtoast's review
challenging
informative
slow-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Minor: Sexism, Homophobia, Misogyny, Acephobia/Arophobia, Biphobia, Transphobia, and Lesbophobia
rini's review against another edition
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Biphobia and Lesbophobia
Minor: Colonisation, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Fatphobia, Mental illness, Outing, Racism, Suicide, and Transphobia
pastelkerstin's review against another edition
funny
informative
fast-paced
4.0
A good introduction to Queer Theory that holds your attention by being concise and having lots of illustrations (some of which are quite funny). It's definitely just an overview but lots of authors and their works are referenced in the text and there is a further reading list in the back, so if you want to read more, you'll have a lot of jumping off points. I don't always agree with Queer Theorists on everything and this book also mentions a lot of criticisms of aspects of Queer Theory, but some ideas I don't agree with are kind of just presented in a value-neutral way. Maybe that's a me-problem though.
Overall, a quick read, and I would recommend this to people who want to know what the gist of Queer Theory is but who find other longer works inaccessible, too complicated or boring. Know what you're getting into though: This book is about Queer Theory as an academic field first and foremost.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Sexual content
Minor: Biphobia, Body shaming, Bullying, Colonisation, Confinement, Deadnaming, Death, Fatphobia, Hate crime, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Misogyny, Outing, Pregnancy, Racism, Religious bigotry, Sexism, Sexual harassment, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Xenophobia, Adult/minor relationship, Abortion, and Ableism
notthatlibrarian's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Biphobia, Homophobia, Misogyny, Racism, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, and Transphobia
Minor: Ableism, Acephobia/Arophobia, and Body shaming
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