Glossary

assimilationist
Fixing the system from within, trying hard to fit into the status quo; integrating.
Charlene A. Carruthers
A black queer feminist activist and organizer. Her work aims to create young leaders in marginalized communities to fight for community interests and liberation.
constructionist
The view that identity is a socio-cultural construct that influences identity formation.
cultural anthropologist
A branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of the anthropological constant.
discourses
An institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
“Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) was the official United States policy on military service by gays, bisexuals, and lesbians, instituted by the Clinton Administration on February 28, 1994. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service
drag
The wearing of clothing of the opposite gender (cross-dressing), and may be used as a noun as in the expression in drag, or as an adjective as in drag show.
drag queen
A drag queen is a person, almost always male, who uses drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, most drag queens have been men dressing as women. In modern times, drag queens are associated with gay men and gay culture, but queens can be of any gender and sexual identity.
essentialist
The view of sexuality that assumes individuals possess a fixed and innate sexual identity that is both universal and transhistorical.
homonormativity
The privileging of heteronormative ideals and constructs onto LGBT culture and identity. It is predicated on the assumption that the norms and values of heterosexuality – monogamy, gender binary, assumptive cisgenderism – should be replicated and performed in the homosexual community.
Homophile Movement
Coined by the German astrologist, author and psychoanalyst Karl-Günther Heimsoth in his 1924 doctoral dissertation Hetero- und Homophilie, the term was in common use in the 1950s and 1960s by homosexual organizations and publications; the groups of this period are now known collectively as the homophile movement
Human Rights Campaign
The largest LGBTQ advocacy group and political lobbying organization in the United States. The organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGBTQ individuals, most notably advocating for marriage equality, anti-discrimination and hate crimes legislation, and HIV/AIDS advocacy.
intersectional
Overlapping or intersecting social identities, such as race, class, and gender and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination.
Jack Halberstam
Also known as Judith Halberstam, a gender and queer theorist and author, often focusing on the topic of tomboys and female masculinity.
Jose Esteban Muñoz
A Cuban American academic in the fields of performance studies, visual culture, queer theory, cultural studies, and critical theory. His first book, Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics (1999) examines the performance, activism, and survival of queer people of color through the optics of performance studies.
minoritizing
A term introduced by Eve Sedgwick to describe the view of homosexuality as relevant only to homosexuals. This view sees homosexuals as a specific group of people, a minority, within a largely heterosexual world.
neoliberalism
A political ideology or ideological trend based on neoclassical economics that espouses economic liberalism, favouring trade liberalisation, financial deregulation, a small government, privatisation and liberalisation of government businesses, passive antitrust enforcement, accepting greater economic inequality and disfavouring unionisation.
performativity
The capacity of language and expressive actions to perform a type of being.
same-sex marriage
The marriage of two people of the same sex or gender, entered into in a civil or religious ceremony.
sex-gender system
A phrase coined by Gayle Rubin to describe the social apparatus that oppresses women.
sexology
The scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behaviors, and functions.
Susan Stryker
An American professor, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses
on gender and human sexuality.
universalizing
A term introduced by Eve Sedgwick to describe viewing sexuality and sexual definition as important to everyone, rather than focusing on homosexuals as a distinct group.