Queer: A Graphic History

By Meg-John Barker and Jules Scheele

'Queer: A Graphic History Could Totally Change the Way You Think About Sex and Gender' Vice

Activist-academic Meg-John Barker and cartoonist Jules Scheele illuminate the histories of queer thought and LGBTQ+ action in this groundbreaking non-fiction graphic novel.

From identity politics and gender roles to privilege and exclusion, Queer explores how we came to view sex, gender and sexuality in the ways that we do; how these ideas get tangled up with our culture and our understanding of biology, psychology and sexology; and how these views have been disputed and challenged.

Along the way we look at key landmarks which shift our perspective of what's 'normal' - Alfred Kinsey's view of sexuality as a spectrum, Judith Butler's view of gendered behaviour as a performance, the play Wicked, or moments in Casino Royale when we're invited to view James Bond with the kind of desiring gaze usually directed at female bodies in mainstream media.

Presented in a brilliantly engaging and witty style, this is a unique portrait of the universe of queer thinking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Icon Books
• Release date: Sep 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781785780721

Book preview

HOW TO INTRODUCE QUEER THEORY

Writing an introduction to queer theory poses something of a challenge. Why? Here are some of the reasons:

THERE ARE MULTIPLE QUEER THEORIES RATHER THAN ONE QUEER THEORY. SEVERAL OF THESE ACTUALLY CONTRADICT EACH OTHER.

EVEN BACK WHEN QUEER THEORY BEGAN, PEOPLE WERE ALREADY ASKING WHETHER IT WAS OVER.

QUEER THEORY HAS BEEN INACCESSIBLE AND FULL OF DIFFICULT WORDS.

THE WORD QUEER ALSO HAS MANY DIFFERENT MEANINGS.

MANY QUEER THEORISTS REFUSE TO SAY WHAT QUEER THEORY IS, ARGUING THAT IT RESISTS DEFINITION AND IS IMPOSSIBLE TO CAPTURE.

IT IS A DISCIPLINE THAT REFUSES TO BE DISCIPLINED. - NIKKI SULLIVAN*

* Author of A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (2003). We’ll introduce a number of key authors throughout this book; bear in mind that speech bubbles attributed to them shouldn’t be read as direct quotes - they’re often paraphrased to give a sense of each author’s ideas, rather than their exact words.

WHO ARE YOU?

When we were putting this book together, we imagined it being helpful to these kinds of people.

AM I QUEER?

THIS DOESN’T WORK FOR ME AT ALL.

THIS IS SO HARD. NORMATIVITY? PERFORMATIVITY? WHAT DO ALL THESE LONG WORDS MEAN?

QLGBTTQIA?

MAKING THINGS PERFECTLY QUEER

Clearly, any introduction can only give you part of the picture, and can’t possibly cover the whole complex, diverse, and ever-changing world of queer theory. This book aims to:

WHEN YOUR APPETITE TO FIND OUT MORE (THERE’S A LIST OF ACCESSIBLE FURTHER RESOURCES AT THE END OF THE BOOK).

EXPLAIN HOW QUEER THEORY BECAME NECESSARY AS A WAY OF QUESTIONING POPULAR - PROBLEMATIC - ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT SEX, GENDER, AND IDENTITY.

INTRODUCE YOU TO SOME OF THE KEY QUEER THEORY IDEAS AND THINKERS - AS SIMPLY AS POSSIBLE - AS WELL AS TO SOME OF THE TENSIONS WITHIN QUEER THEORY, AND TO THE DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS THAT IT HAS TAKEN IN RECENT YEARS.

PULL OUT WHAT SEEMS MOST USEFUL FROM QUEER THEORY FOR OUR EVERYDAY LIVES, RELATIONSHIPS, AND COMMUNITIES.

THE IDEA IS TO INVITE YOU INTO QUEER THEORY AND TO ENCOURAGE YOU TO TRY THINKING QUEERLY.

WHERE WE’RE HEADED

Through the rest of this book we’re going to:

1. Explore the various meanings of the word queer.

2. Consider how wider Western culture came to understand sex and sexuality in the ways that it currently does, and how queer theory challenges this.

3. Introduce some of the scholars, writers, and activist movements which provided the foundations on which queer theory is built.

4. Explain some of the key concepts that queer theory initially put forward and where they came from.

5. Describe how queer theory has engaged with popular culture, biology, and sexology.

6. Cover some of the main criticisms of queer theory, and tensions within it, and how queer theorists have responded to these.

7. Outline some of the main directions queer theory has taken in recent years.

8. Suggest some ways in which you might think more queerly in your everyday life.

WHAT IS QUEER?

The word queer has had many different meanings in different times and places. It originally referred to strangeness or difference, and became a term of abuse. It has since been reclaimed as a positive word.

It can operate as an umbrella term for people outside of the heterosexual norm, or for people who challenge the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans) mainstream. It can also be a way of challenging norms around gender and sexuality through different ways of thinking or acting.

QUEER MEANING STRANGE

The original meaning of queer, in 16th-century English-speaking countries, referred to something strange or illegitimate, as in there’s nowt as queer as folk or being in queer street, meaning someone having financial difficulties.

Using queer to mean odd, in the 19th century, social reformer and founder of the cooperative movement, Robert Owen, famously said to a colleague: All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.

Even in the early 20th century the word queer was still often used in this way, for example, in Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. There’s also the American phrase queer as a three dollar bill, from a similar time, suggesting something odd and suspicious.

THE DIOGENES CLUB IS THE QUEEREST CLUB IN LONDON, AND MYCROFT ONE OF THE QUEEREST MEN.

QUEER AS HATE SPEECH

The earliest recorded use of queer as a form of homophobic abuse is said to be an 1894 letter by John Sholto Douglas, the Marquess of Queensberry. He was the father of Alfred Douglas and famously accused Oscar Wilde of having an affair with his son.

Queer quickly became a derogatory term for same-sex sex, or for people with same-sex attractions, particularly effeminate or camp gay men.

Queer was also used as a more general insult to make things questionable by associating them with same-sex attraction, in much the same way that the phrase that’s so gay has more recently been used to imply that something is rubbish.

RECLAIMING QUEER

One activist strategy for dealing with racism, sexism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression has been for people to reclaim the very words that are used against them. Examples include the reclaiming of words like nigger, slut, dyke, and faggot.

In the 1980s, people in LGBT communities began to reclaim the word queer as either a neutral word to describe themselves, or as a positive form of self-identity. One early example was the activist group Queer Nation who circulated a Queers Read This flyer at the 1990 New York Pride march.

Nowadays this neutral, or positive, use of queer has found its way into mainstream culture with TV shows such as Queer as Folk or Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Queer here is usually synonymous with gay men and sometimes still suggests that they might be good at stereotypically feminine things.

QUEER UMBRELLA?

Queer is also often used as an umbrella term for anyone who is not heterosexual (attracted to the opposite sex) or cisgender (remaining in the gender that they were assigned at birth). It’s a snappier and more encompassing word than the ever-extending LGBTTQQIA, etc. alphabet soup.

However … there are problems with this usage for many older people who have painful memories of queer being hurled at them as a term of abuse. Also many queer activists take issue with it because, for them, queer is about those who are further outside of normal. Queer theorists take issue with queer being used as an identity term.

QUEERER UMBRELLA?

Many queer activists see queer as an umbrella term for folk who are outside of the mainstream: both the heterosexual/cisgender mainstream and the conventional LG(BT)* mainstream.

They point out that being equal is not always equally good and question the gay rights movement’s focus on things like marriage, consumer culture, and serving in the military.

Maybe the focus should also be on the groups under the queer umbrella who are most marginalized, such as those who are at everyday

Reviews for Queer

[chris.wolak · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Solid intro and/or review of Queer Theory. Impressed by the amount of information covered in such a short book. Great jumping off point to learn more.

[amphipodgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Even a popular treatment of queer theory is necessarily dense and heady, and I'll have to look at this more times so I can absorb it further. At the moment my mind is blown by the notion of homonormativity.

[thereserose5 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

An oversimplification of queer theory and often conflates ideas or states things that are entirely incorrect. The art is cool though.

[drfuriosa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The title is a bit misleading: it really should be subtitled a history of theory, for this is what it is. It is a bit jargony for casual readers, but it does a great job breaking down the complex terms and inter-related academic fields. A must-read if you need a crash course in queer theory. I would have benefitted from this in my theory class.

[lydia1879 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Firstly, for a graphic novel called: Queer: a Graphic Novel, I expected more of a discussion on the word queer and its connotations. I use the word queer freely and like it for its umbrella term. I find that using queer (although it has been directed at me in a derogatory way) is something that I personally feel comfortable doing. I like it because I find that people who accept it really readily accept it and don’t challenge it. I find that people who ask me to clarify in a certain way, “So does that make you gay or like…?” instead of “How do you identify and what are your pronouns?” raises a red flag that allows me to keep a safe distance.

The word queer is something I use to protect me, to identify me, to celebrate myself. I understand that other people may not use it or be offended by it, and that I totally understand. I try not to use the word around them and respect them and their boundaries and choices. I also use the words gay / bi / pan to identify myself because those are all spaces I occupy and feel that multiple labels aren’t a hindrance on me.

And the first thing I was disappointed about with this book was its one-sentence discussion on how the word queer was a hurtful term to some people. That’s it. That’s all.

… okay?

This also doesn’t feel very cohesive at all. There are separate headings on each page, discussing one or two items or theories or people at a time and I get no sense of continuity when I read. I don’t feel a strong argument, there’s just lots and lots and lots of definitions of things I already know or have studied. That’s not to say I’m pretentious but I’ve heard of Freud before and I know his basic theories.

So to go into this graphic history with an open mind, an open heart, ready to learn and to find I could’ve written some of these pages myself was really a let-down. This might’ve been useful for me ten years ago, when I was starving for genuine queer thought but at the same time, some of its content really doesn’t fit with me. The way they define queer is not how I define queer but somehow, despite always insisting that the queer identity is fluid and is different to different people, they’ve… managed to tell me this is what queer is and this is what it means and if you’re outside of that then you’re performing as something else?

It’s weird and hard to explain or to give an exact quotation, but it feels odd considering the authors go to great lengths to discuss subjectivity without ever critiquing their own definitions.

I like my queer theory and critical feminist theory to challenge me. I read feminist books published by trans people, people of colour and first nations people for this reason. I try to push my own boundaries away from what I’ve learned and try to be inclusive as much as possible. I am the first to admit I need to be more active in my activism. I need to stop passively re-tweeting or sharing images and to take part in marches, protests, sit ins and to write letters to my representatives. I need to use my white privilege better.

However, this didn’t challenge me, it was perplexing. The two authors constantly talk about subjectivity without mentioning their own, deconstructing others’ biases and not their own. They seem to champion academia while only ever mentioning its pitfalls within academia itself, with one single page limited to “Queer theory should be open to all". The first real mention of trans people, by the way, is on page 80 of 175, which is “You might be wondering how trans people fit into this. We’ll get back to this soon.”

On page 83, which talks about disrupting binary / sexuality / gender norms, the three people pictured are Miley Cyrus, Ruby Rose and Kristen Stewart. I have nothing against these women but (I believe) they are all bisexual or gay and, as far as I know, all identify as cisgender. No trans people are included. No non-binary or asexual people are included. Non-binary people are not even mentioned until page 160 .

I feel as though this is confirming some deep-rooted neoliberal biases I’ve been trying very, very hard to get rid of and after page 83, I got tired of this book. The rest of the pages were just a total chore. This is a shame because there were many voices I was interested in hearing from (Julia Serano, Cordelia Fine and so on) that were included in this theory book. That said, I did learn things and wrote down a few names I’d be interested in looking up. Because of this, I kept reading because I kept discovering new names of people who sounded interesting and have contributed a lot to queer theory. Feels a lot like intermittent reinforcement.

With asexuality, crip / discussions around disabled people and discussions around fat phobia all lumped together on the one page, I can’t help but wonder if they could’ve done better. So many of these pages almost feel like afterthoughts, and for my body queer body to be considered an afterthought in a book about queerness is… othering, and sad. They did well in regards to discussing race and queerness and intersectionality multiple times throughout the book, so I know they could do it, but… it was just depressing to see them discuss how queering others happens in theory to have them do it in their own book.

It feels like a bunch of mismatched infographics rather than a graphic novel. This might be a great book to some people and that’s fine, but it’s not a book for me.

This was too broad and not critical enough. I learned a lot, but it was work.

I had such high hopes for this.

[villemezbrown · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I sought out this work because of the subtitle, "A Graphic History." I was hoping for a graphic novel and instead received a pretty dull PowerPoint presentation. Basically a droning lecture is typeset in big blocks of text that float over bland illustrations that exhibit little continuity or flow. The most amusing part of the book for me was the several minutes I spent afterward using Google Images to search for the various real people whose images appear in the book and counting how many times the illustrator used the very first picture to appear in the search as her direct photo reference. And then I spent more time registering how many times that single portrait was simply copied and pasted, tweaked or flipped as the person reappeared throughout the book. That seems like a pretty lazy and uninspired technique for an artist.

Speaking of lazy and uninspired, I always like to find my own thoughts on a work summarized within it: "Perhaps the most well-known criticism of queer theory is that it is inaccessible....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." I did not engage with this work, but I do appreciate the exposure to ideas that are new to me even if the presentation is lacking.

[london_stj · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Dr. Meg-John Barker and artist Julia Scheele team up to offer an introductory queer theory text that gives the lay of the rocky terrain that makes up the field in this graphic collaboration. Naming names and sharing ideas, Barker and Scheele offer both core figures and dissenting opinions, running through not just the 30-ish years that "queer theory" has been a force, but the fields and specialists who contributed to its development for over a century. Not intended to offer in-depth analysis or direct theory in itself, the book usefully offers key thinkers and theories to inspire further research and offer a greater level of familiarity for those just stepping into the research. Entertaining and informative, it's a good generalist, beginner volume.