Learning Objectives

Deborah Amory

Given this definition of LGBTQ+ Studies, we have identified the following learning objectives for the textbook. After having read this textbook, learners should be able to:

  1. Define LGBTQ Studies and why it matters.
    1. Identify key approaches and debates within the field.
    2. Distinguish legacies and intellectual histories.
  2. Explain the social construction of sex, gender, and sexuality.
    1. Define sex, gender, and sexuality.
    2. Summarize the history of nonnormative genders and sexualities, including homosexuality, bi/pansexuality, and transgender, in terms of queer identity and activism.
    3. Identify cross-cultural examples of same sex desire and contemporary LGBTQ lives.
    4. Describe the connections between identities and embodied experiences
  3. Describe intersectionality from an LGBTQ perspective
    1. Identify structures of inequality that shape our experience of gender, sexuality, class, race, ethnicity, ability, etc.
    2. Analyze how key social institutions shape, define and enforce these structures of inequality, both in North America and globally.
  4. Describe how people struggle for social justice within historical contexts of inequality.
    1. Describe/illustrate several examples of LGBTQ activism, particularly in relation to other struggles for civil rights.
    2. Recognize that “progress” faces resistance and does not follow a linear path.
    3. Identify forms of LGBTQ activism globally.
  5. Identify key approaches utilized in LGBTQ Studies.
    1. Define key terms relevant to particular methods of interpreting LGBTQ people and issues, such as anthropology and ethnography; cultural studies and representation; history and primary sources; methods of “queering”.
    2. Discuss at least one approach in detail.
  6. Identify key epistemological frameworks from LGBTQ history, political movements, and in relation to Queer Theory.
    1. Summarize the personal, theoretical, and political differences of the sexual liberation, gay liberation, radical feminism, LGBT civil rights and “queer” movements.
    2. Explain how various understandings of sexuality and gender differently impact on self- and community-understanding of LGBTQ people.