Selling Queer Rights: The Commodification of Queer Rights Activism

Queer Economies

Queer defies categorization and resists preset developmental trajectories. Practices of queering identities emerged near the end of the twentieth century as ways of resisting normalizing networks of power/knowledge. But how effective are queer practices at resisting networks of power/knowledge (including disciplines) that are not primarily normalizing in their functioning? This essay raises tha...

Queer Families

In December 2005, an appeals court in New York State ruled “that the state constitution does not require New York to treat gay couples the same as heterosexual couples in marriage licensing” (Keen 11). The ongoing gay marriage debate has set the stage for many lesbians, gays, and queers to ask what marriage equality really means for the gay movement. According to Michael Warner in the book The ...

The Queer Uncanny

Introduction In a preliminary, rather than exhaustive, exploration of the contemporary role of the uncanny, this article considers the relation between the queer and the uncanny, focusing on how the ‘queer uncanny’ may offer new ways of problematizing notions of ontological stability and notions of normality. It seeks to demonstrate how the uncanny may work to destabilize definitions of gender ...

' ~ Speaking in Queer Tongues

Rainbows for Rights: The Role of LGBT Activism in Gay Rights Promotion

Are advocacy efforts successful in improving the de jure rights of sexual minorities? In this paper, we argue that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights NGO movement has been a powerful force in the struggle against sexual discrimination. However, the work of LGBT organizations is much harder in areas of the world where pre-existing public attitudes are not supportive of the...