Jennifer Miller

This chapter has mapped the emergence of queer theory over time, and across disciplines, based on new ways of thinking that emerged out of the lived experiences of diverse LGBTQ people. Both activism and theory are historically and geographically contingent, tethered to time, space, and the material body in its specificity.

Queer theory is flexible enough to account for differences of race, class, gender, and nation; although it does not always do so. It does, however, have at its founding, and through the twists and turns of its development, an investment in radical social change tethered to a belief that since gender, sexual, and other forms of social hierarchy are reproduced and regulated through discourse and social institutions they can be changed – we can do better.