Glossary
Throughout this digital resource, you will notice that many of the key words and terms are linked to embedded glossary definitions. There are many more terms and concepts that we’ve determined to be critical or expansive in our cumulative, collective project of understanding the history of sexuality.
An invaluable resource to this project has been Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies (2021, NYU Press), edited by The Keywords Feminist Editorial Collective. This book contains 80 essays focused on 70 keywords relating to feminist and queer studies. Many of these essays are abridged and adapted in this glossary, and we could not be more grateful to the Collective for constructing this foundational text.
Here is our glossary.
Barbarian
by Kae
The term stems from the Greeks mocking foreigners’ languages, how it sounded like “bar bar bar”. The history behind this term indicates Eurocentric views in the age of the Greeks and foreigners were seen as strange people from a faraway place with strange languages and cultures. It also indicated that foreigners were deemed as uncivilized and savage.
An example of the barbaric behavior could be seen in the discourse in the play Medea, where Jason says, “I see now what I was blind to when I brought you from your barbarian home to a Greek household… not a woman, more savage than the Etruscan Scylla.”
Colonialism
by Kae
A practice where a superior group of people controls or directs an inferior group of people or areas by establishing political control, thereby exploiting it economically. It is a control of one power over a dependent area or people. “Colony” comes from the Latin word colonia, which is then in the context of a French colony, like a “farmer” or “cultivator”, “planter”, or “settler in a new place”.
We discussed about Foucault’s work, the History of Sexuality, and the discourses and repression surrounding sexuality. His ideas on colonialism included the theory of production and dissemination of knowledge on one hand and the expansion of power structures. Foucault further expresses how the colonial world is merely a space of conquest for European powers. Again, Foucault’s discourse on colonialism is just the same argument as his opinion on the discourse of sexuality. He is reiterating that European countries exert power over smaller regions and attempt to control them.
Discourse
Discourse colloquially describes written or spoken communication between individuals on a particular subject matter. In the field of sociology, discourse takes on additional meaning, describing the processes through which individual actors create knowledge or meaning from reality, creating real objects “imbued” with meaning. In the context of the history of sexuality, Michel Foucault’s definition of discourse revolves around concepts of power and knowledge. Foucault relies upon sociological, linguistic, or structuralist definitions of discourse as a network of communication creating meaning around a particular discursive object. However, for Foucault, discourse also defines what can and can’t be said about a certain subject, thereby defining who has the power to speak and suppress others in discourse and who has the ability to construct the knowledge around a given object in discourse.
Eros
by Clementine
Eros, also interchangeable with Love (capitalized), is the god of love and desire. This love can be sexual, platonic, or knowledge based.
Miriam Webster defines as “the sum of life-preserving instincts that are manifested as impulses to gratify basic needs, as sublimated impulses, and as impulses to protect and preserve the body and mind compare death instinct”
Eros can take multiple forms, and in one of the speeches given in Plato’s Symposium, its forms are Heavenly Eros and Common Eros. Heavenly Love is the desire for knowledge and the attraction is a larger, less tangible feeling. Common Eros is based more in a physical attraction that fades as physical appearance fades. Eros as a god has a debatable history, but he is generally agreed upon as being one of the oldest gods in existence.
From History Cooperative “Eros is the force that brings order to the universe, as it is love, or desire, that drives the first beings to form love bonds and enter into sacred marriage unions”
Erotic
by Madi
From the Sharon Patricia Holland entry in Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies and Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”
The erotic is a concept which can be simultaneously ambiguous and concrete, which can be somatically experienced, and which can and does often hold a “central space” in queer life (Holland, 83). Understanding how impenetrable of a term it can seem to be when unpacking it, Holland urges us to give as much credence to “how the erotic embraces us” as we do the practice of intellectualizing and even criticizing its power.
Most modern thought on the erotic in queer studies finds its roots in Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” a disruptive essay first delivered as at a conference in 1978 and later incorporated into her essay collection Sister Outsider. To Lorde, the erotic is a force we should move towards rather than distance ourselves from, as it can enliven us to make change in our world. She goes so far as to create an oppositional binary between the pornographic and the erotic, the former prioritizing sensation and the later prioritizing sensation with the addition of feeling, satisfaction, purpose, and satiety (Lorde 54). In trying to define the erotic, she writes:
“[the] erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling. In order to perpetuate itself, every oppression must corrupt or distort those various source of power within the culture of the oppressed that can provide energy for change” (Lorde, 53)
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, this essay sparked debate within the community (of what would come to be known as queer studies) around topics like women’s self-determination of their sexual lives, the use or lack thereof for pornography in understanding the erotic, and the harm done to “sexual cultures” by respectability politics (Holland, 84). Overall, these decades highlighted friction between various groups which eventually became a foundation for the diversity of opinion so critical to keeping queer feminist studies generative. As for the status of work on the erotic in 2023, Holland reminds us that our constant “revision and reimagining” of the term draws us “into experiences that encompass embodiments,” making it profoundly important work to still be engaging with (Holland, 85).
Eugenics
by Jane
Eugenics is a racist study of arranging human production. This views certain genetic characteristics as desirable- especially whiteness. This was developed largely by Sir Francis Galton, and has since been discredited since the Nazi party in the 20th century took on Eugenics doctrine in their genocide of Jewish people and other minority groups (Oxford Languages). This term is “loaded with historical significance and a strong negative valence. Its literal meaning – good birth – suggests a suitable goal for all prospective parents, yet its historical connotations tie it to appalling policies, including forced sterilizations, selective breeding programs in North America and Asia, and horrifying concentration camps and mass exterminations in Nazi Germany” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). In this course, we REJECT all racist ideologies of “good breeding” or reproduction. We COMMIT to expand ideas of what families look like beyond a white family with a mother and father.
Femininity
It is usually seen as a socially constructed idea, generally associated with behavior and attributes towards women and girls. Fragility can be associated with femininity oftentimes, and traditional notions about femininity and masculinity need to be challenged. Perceptions of femininity vary across cultures and time periods, and societal expectations regarding feminity are dynamic. In modern discourse on feminity, gender roles and expressions are diverse and not strictly binary, challenging stereotypical notions of femininity and masculinity.
Gender
It is usually defined as a cultural or social matter, different from the biological term of sex. Gender is a recent invention, dating from the mid-twentieth century. Prior to the term gender, sex was often the term used. It is now described as psychological and even cultural, whil sex is biological. Gender has been integral to the studies of Kimberle Crenshaw’s work on intersectionality as Black feminists have created complex models in thinking about oppression involving sex and gender.
It is crucial to recognize that gender is a specutrm, and there is a diverse range of gender identities and expressions beyond the traditional binary of male and female. Modern discussions on gender emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and respecting individual experiences and identities of people, fostering racial inclusivity and challenging stereotypical gender norms. A limitation to having thse discussions on gender spectrum creates a belief that gender lies in producing taxonomies, expecting everyone to name and express their “true” identity.
Heteronormativity
Scott L. Morgensen illuminates how the idea of heteronormativity, defined by him as “a social method for arranging sexual status unequally,” is inextricably linked to whiteness and white supremacy.
“Queer theorists proposed the idea of heteronormativity to highlight a form of power that uplifts heterosexuality by marginalizing sexualities outside its mold. Heteronormativity thus is a core, if incomplete, concept that queer theory provides to gender and sexuality studies for the relational analysis of marginal and normalized sexuality.”
Morgensen then illustrates how heteronormativity is situated in Europe or even in “the West”— which, as Edouard Glissant reminds us, “is not in the West. It is a project, not a place” (1989, 2). They rest, rather, in the intimacies (Lowe 2015) of landed relations of violence linking European, African, Asian, Arab, and Indigenous American and Pacific peoples across centuries, all of which condition the present and future of modernity.”
“To invoke heteronormativity in gender and sexuality studies, then, we must take an interest in the modern violences that condition it. Narrating it apart from race, colonialism, capital, or empire suggests an interest not in heteronormativity (as we now know it) but in some version of sexuality insulated by whiteness, which also would invite us to evade race in our account of it. And if that occurred, our account would simply fulfill heteronormativity’s proper function: to propagate sexuality discourses that normalize white supremacy within modern life” (Frankenberg 1994).
Heterosexuality
(summarized from Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies)
“Heterosexual” as an adjective describes sexual or romantic partnerships as being between men and women.
Although heterosexual behavior is evidently older than history, the identity of “heterosexual,” or of experiencing a normative sexuality by attraction to a member of the opposite sex, is only as old as the identity of “homosexual.” The first usage of these terms was by white European cis male physicians in the late nineteenth century. They argued that normative sexuality comes from the human drive to reproduce, and all sex beyond heterosexual sex resulting in conception was extraneous and amoral.
Heterosexuality as an identity was weaponized institutionally and culturally as a method by which women were forced into submission in marriage and sexually, by which white supremacy was enforced and spread, and by which queer people, people of color and of other marginalized people were dehumanized.
Homosexual
by Kevin
Homosexual, as an adjective or noun, characterizes an individual as someone who is attracted to individuals of the same gender or sex or qualifies an act/behavior as one involving sexual activity between individuals of the same gender or sex. Derived from homosexuality, homosexual has come to describe individuals’ sexual identity since the nineteenth century.
Similarly to homosexuality, homosexual often does not accurately describe the complex historical experiences of individuals who may have exhibited same-sex or same-gender attraction or behavior.
Homosexuality
by Kevin
Homosexuality often refers to sexual attraction or sexual behavior between individuals of the same gender or sex. Generally speaking, homosexuality is considered heterosexuality’s opposite, and both are perceived to exist on a binary spectrum of sexuality, with heterosexuality at one end and homosexuality at the other. The term “heterosexual” and “homosexual” were first created in the 1860s to describe what were considered morally incorrect forms of attraction, with heterosexuality too referring to attraction to sexual acts performed with the opposite gender without explicit procreative ends. Eventually, heterosexuality became normalized around 1930, while homosexuality continued to be considered abnormal and dangerous. Homosexuality has come to encompass a broader range of meaning than just attraction and general sexual behavior, and has often been associated with “deviant” forms of sexual attraction. Additionally, homosexuality and heterosexuality’s polar opposition has presented challenges as the nature of sexual attraction has been challenged, as the binary spectrum of sexuality cannot accurately portray the complexities of human attraction. In recent years, homosexuality has been increasingly used in medical and scientific fields rather than in humanities oriented fields. As a modern term, homosexuality often does not accurately describe the complex historical experiences of individuals who may have exhibited same-sex attraction or behavior.
Intersectionality
Intersectionality, coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 (1) and elaborated upon by Patricia Hill Collins, began as a tool for exposing the invisibility of Black women, as sites of multiple marginalizations, in the American legal system (2). It finds its foundations on the idea of street intersections – understanding the layers of marginalization that can exist from standing in the intersection of different identities, political agendas, and power structures. In essence, intersectionality’s ideal is a profound appreciation for how relationships to race, gender, sexuality, and class cannot be separated, as they construct and multiply each other simultaneously through life experiences.
As Jennifer Nash notices in Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies, the term “intersectionality” has been one of the most rapidly circulating terms in the history of feminist politics and theory, in part due to its claim to be “precisely what can disrupt so-called white feminism and even save feminism from its racial exclusivity” (128). However, as intersectionality reached a much more public status, Nash notes that its connotations drifted from its “vision of a capacious and robust feminism committed to all forms of justice” to an ending point in Black feminist theoretical thought which lacks nuance (129). She asks us to hold space for a complex conversation of how many different Black women self-conceptualize in relation to power and in response to marginalization. Especially for queer and trans theorists like Marquis Bey, we should note that terms like “black feminism” and “trans feminism” might hold more capacity for grappling with relationships than the often muddled term “intersectionality” does (Black, Trans, Feminism., 59).
(1) It should be noted that intersectionality has a history far preceding Crenshaw, yet academia’s significant failure to even acknowledge the contributions of Black women theorists up until very recently has left us with a gap in citation. Brittney Cooper and Vivian May have been working to historicize intersectionality, yet Nash also warns that the emphasis on intersectionality has the power to cement the dangerous idea that this term is all Black feminists have contributed.
(2) For more on its origins, you can read about Crenshaw’s response to the obscenity charges brought against the rap group 2 Live Crew.
Knowledge
The relationships in pederasty are focused on knowledge and the exchange happening between the older man, who is passing down the knowledge, and the younger boy, who is receiving the knowledge while maintaining a physical relationship. There is a heavy focus on the exchange of knowledge and the beauty of the mind and the soul in the Symposium, and Plato emphasizes the importance of knowledge in these relationships for them to remain moral.
Lesbian
*informed by Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies*
As it is broadly understood, a Lesbian is an individual who identifies as a woman and is primarily or exclusively attracted to other women, both romantically and sexually. However, as with any and all terms under the queer umbrella, Lesbianism can be used flexibly, and by people who are gender-nonconforming, trans, or attracted to people who don’t identify as cis women.
Lesbian is a term that has been used historically to both empower and perpetuate violence upon queer individuals. Some people find strength and community in this association, but homophobia has required lesbians to fight for rights, recognition, and safety as well. Often homophobes will perpetuate hate by asserting that people who identify with this term are less woman or human, or are dangerous to children.
The word Lesbian was derived from the Greek island of Lesbos, where famed queer poet Sappho lived in Ancient Greece.
Masculinity
by Tristen
(using Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies)
Historically, behaviors, activities and politics informed the construction of masculinity, which is inextricably tied to manhood. Moreover, masculinity has often been defined in relation to white manhood and has been non inclusive of Black, Latinx, Asian and other minority identities. The identity of white manhood, as explored by historians of gender, has been connected to modern conceptions of power. With white men continuously being the figure heads of national power, white manhood became synonymous with national dominance and colonialism. Feeling threats from feminism, homosexuality, and other minority masculine identities, white men used their power to exert dominance.
Recently, the understanding of masculinity has been called into question by movements that empower women and call out sexual harassment and assault. Moreover, there has been a large rise in visibility of transgender males as well as normative gay people. With the emergence of nonbinary and gender nonconforming communities, the gender binary is being challenged with changes in societal structures of the “family, intimacy, relationality, gender norms, and sociality” (149). While there are positive changes, white masculinity continues to be the dominant force within the realm of manhood.
Miscegenation
by Jane
Merriam Webster Dictionary defines Miscegenation as:
“A mixture of races”
“Especially: a marriage, cohabitation, or sexual intercourse between a white person and a member of another race”
They leave this note under their definition:
“NOTE: The word miscegenation is associated especially with historical laws against interracial marriage. In the United States, such laws were declared unconstitutional in 1967.”
Oxford Languages defines Miscegenation as:
“Sexual relationships or reproduction between people of different ethnic groups, especially when one of them is white.”
Note: they include a “derogatory” warning for this term.
This term is important to know before reading Siobhan Somerville’s piece “Scientific Racism and the Emergence of the Homosexual Body.” It seems intentional that Somerville used this word to describe sex between people of different ethnicities, as the piece is situated in a conversation around scientific racism. By using a term that has derogatory connotations, rather than writing “interracial relations,” Somerville intentionally unmasks how inter-race sex was looked down upon (in a big way).
Misogyny
By Corinne
Misogyny is the hatred of women.
Misogyny among gay men has been attributed to the idea that gay men do not see value in women because they are not attracted to them. The sentiment comes up a lot in readings (Symposium, Foucault) that any sexual activity that could occur without the inclusion of a woman must be far superior to anything involving a woman, intense disdain/disgust for women in the context of wanted to cut them out completely when they are not sexual objects, don’t have worth outside of a sexual context, if they aren’t needed for sex then aren’t needed for anything.
Objectivity
The OED definition of objectivity, or objective, is “not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.” The rise in discussions surrounding objectivity within the field of history started with historian and theorist Leopold Ranke, who in the 19th century argued for a positivist approach to the field of history. His goal was to create objective history free from historians’ personal biases. A century later, Peter Novick published That Noble Dream, which tracks how the ideas and ideals of objectivity have changed and developed over time. Novick, like the majority of historians today, understand it is impossible to have objective history — and most importantly, “objective” history leaves out those that have been traditionally left out of the production of knowledge.
In Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies, “Women,” by Kyla Schuller, the concept of objectivity is discussed in relation to the study of gender and sexuality. Schuller analyzes the continuing dynamic that exists within studies of knowledge: “women” positioned as an object to be studied in contrast to “man” who is positioned as the universal human subject. She puts it as, “women was a role in society; man was society itself” (pg 248). By positioning “women” as an object to be studied, approaching the subject through an objective lens seems possible. But once “women” is moved into a different role outside of just being an object, the understanding and methods of knowledge change. Feminist theories then developed approaches to studying the field that rejected the idea of neutral knowledge, and rather emphasized the researchers specific subject position within the field — these theories included ones such as, “situated knowledges” and “strong objectivity” (pg 248).
Ultimately, this shift of placing the object into the role of subject is where we see the idea of objectivity dismantled throughout the history of sexuality, gender, and within other areas of study that highlight those historically left out, such as subaltern studies and the history of enslaved women.
Patriarchy
Dominance and privileges are usually held by men in a society or government. Women are repressed in a patriarchy, stemming from sexual differentiation. We pondered this question in class, maybe something that you could ask yourself too, “Did patriarchy always exist or was there ever a pre-patriarchal matriarchy?”
Performativity
Mostly from the Tavia Nyong’o entry in Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies
Oxford Bibliographies defined “performativity” in 2015 as “the power of language to effect change in the world.” The word performativity does have its origins in language philosophy of the mid-20th century, and it was given more use within the contested term “queer performativity” in the 1990s. Judith Butler, using the term performative in her 1990 Gender Trouble to describe the use of “woman” as a mere linguistic citation rather than a biological essence or a cultural phenomenon, was one of the first to call for a deconstruction of the sex/gender distinction. To her, the process of creating gender was an ongoing and a social one, and one constructed through constant performative acts. For an example of performativity in action, Butler points to drag queens’ use of satirical theatricality and transgressions of social practices in addition to language in order to perform gender. Given this ability to create identity via performance, she also notes that rejection of performativity can open a new space for gender nonconforming individuals to exist outside of, and even disrupt, gender expectations.
Taking a different approach to performativity – a Black feminist narrative of performativity – Hortense Spillers employs a non-western and non-patriarchal understanding of language in her 1987 essay “Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe.” She elucidates how the slave trade “violently ungendered Black bodies,” and in doing so she is able to index race in a way that is outside of language or symbolism (Nyong’o, 164). Her intervention into language’s dealings with race created what Nyong’o calls a “rupture of flesh out of which modern genders and sexualities become thinkable” (Nyong’o, 164).
While some challenge the framework of performativity as too linguistic, stating that it abandons the embodied and somatic, Nyong’o reaffirms its ability to help us address immediately relevant word problems like misgendering, deadnaming, and callout culture (Nyong’o, 164). Especially in the digital age where algorithms transcribe our language, compute it, and spit it back to us, it seems that to Nyong’o, discussion around performativity will continue to evolve in both linguistic and sexuality studies.
Pleasure
by Clementine
Pleasure is “the feeling when ones wishes are met” and it is “a particular desire or inclination”.
Pleasure and desire can become interchangeable in distinct settings. However, they actually refer to two different points in the “feeling” experience: “desire is creative tension, while pleasure is the release of that tension” (from the Stillpoint Magazine) It is the difference between the wanting and the having. In the Symposium, it is hypothesized that Eros (as the god), does not experience pleasure for he is the god of desire. Pleasure is the good humans and gods desire.
L.D. Katz does an inclusive dive into different definitions of pleasure:“awareness of processes of fulfilling very diverse needs, systematically accounting for both pleasure’s unity and diversity” and “Perhaps pleasure expresses the unimpeded functioning (Aristotle) of our Natural anxiety-free and pain-free State (Epicurus) by which we are able to reach outward from our hedonic core to engage with more representational brain processes – and through these, with love, to all the world.”
Population
by Sophie
The definition of population within the history of sexuality can, unfortunately, not be discussed without Foucault. First introducing the idea of “biopower” in his 1978 book, History of Sexuality, which is a theory that allows scholars to analyze how power is diffused and connected across multiple scales. It also allows scholars to connect the body to the power of scientific, medical, legal etc knowledge. In Foucault’s argument about biopower, he cites the historical shift from European monarchies to the European liberal nation-state. Foucault argues that during the Enlightenment, political power began to shift from the monarch into a more diffuse network of penal, medical, and educational institutions. The best way to describe biopower, as Kyla Wazana Tompkins puts it in Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies, “biopower works through sexuality as “a dense transfer point of power” with a clear eye to maximizing the population as a labor and energy resource for the capitalist nation-state” (pg 30).
In terms of the history of sexuality, biopower took the form of management of birth and death rates, life expectancy, fertility, and health. In short, the sexuality of a population, in Foucault’s example the subjects of 18th century European states, became the unit of analysis.
Queer
by Mikayla
*informed by Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies
Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender, it is often used to generally identify people who identify outside of the normative conception of patriarchal heteronormative sexuality. Originally meaning ‘strange’ or ‘peculiar’, Queer was used as an insult against gay people historically, but has been strongly reclaimed since then. Queer can feel like a more expansive or less constraining label for many individuals who have a flexible identity or don’t specifically align with any one label.
Racial Inclusivity
Racial inclusivity is to create environments where an individual or group can feel welcomed and respected. It is synonymous with organizational change, driven by leadership. The creation of this press book is made by peers at the Claremont Colleges, who are interested in organizational change, driven by leadership to create a toolkit for high school students. However, we still wonder what it would look like if racial inclusivity occurred at the Claremont Colleges, and we discussed how the possibility for individual transformation is wide-opening. A question we ponder about is how would we decide who gets to be at the institution with racial inclusivity and include everyone. At these liberal arts colleges, spatial limits in these institutions limit racial inclusivity to its full potential.
Sapphic
The word “Sapphic” or “sapphic” is an adjective that means, according to the OED, “of, relating to, characteristic of, or reminiscent of Sappho or her writings,” and “of, relating to, engaging in, or characterized by sexual activity between women or female same-sex desire.” It has been used as a specific or an umbrella sexuality label as well for WLW (women/femmes loving women).
Sex
by Tristen
(using Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies)
Sex itself is an all encompassing term that relates to “gender, subjectivity, sexuality, pleasure, privacy, race, colonialism, and the erotic” (200). Sex inherently relates to power in conversations of both sex as freedom and liberation and in the restrictive sense of who is allowed to discuss sex, who can have it and what is permissible sexually.
Foucault argued, in reference to power, that since the 19th century, sex can reveal “the most essential part of each person” (200). Sexuality is intrinsically tied to self actualization. Historically, male pleasure in sex and sexuality has been prioritized as a result of gender and queer oppression.
Moreover, sex can be used to gain power through the use of coercion. While we might normally associate sex with pleasure alone, sex can be used to force reproduction as a war tactic, or, conversely sex can be prohibited to contribute to annihilation of a group for another group to gain dominance.
There is also an obvious tension between the public and private domains involving sex. While sex occurs privately, usually within a domestic space, the public continuously tries to limit and control sexual practices through law, public discourse, etc. (201).
Recently, there have been more conversations about what “sex” is really. Heteronormative, and colonial, conceptions of sex, assume penetration with a penis as being the classic way of engaging in sexual activity. However, with regard to the queer community, and also ideas of decolonization, sex has become more of a broad term of understanding “the erotic” experience.
Sexuality
by Jane
Durba Mitra writes that “sexuality is a term used to describe the state of being sexual and sexual activity as an expression of sexual interest, especially when seen as excessive.” Sexuality can be used to express one’s specific desires, preferences, or orientation. Mitra expands this definition beyond what is deemed “biological” or “natural” by some and describes how the interdisciplinary field of knowledge that studies sexuality can push beyond white and heteronormative spaces, instead providing outlets for liberation and critique. Our class is called History of Sexuality because we set out to study this phenomenon, feeling, and term through classic Greek texts.
- See Angela Davis, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Gloria Anzaldúa, for examples of works that discuss colonialism (see colonialism definition), exploitation, and history as they relate to feminist scholarship.
- See core questions of our course on the welcome page: Is sexuality a modern construct that didn’t exist in the premodern past? Why does ancient Greece occupy center stage in so many artistic, literary, philosophical, and scientific explorations of sexuality? How might the study of sexuality in the ancient Greek world enable us to better understand our own experiences?
Theory
In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks writes:
“I came to theory because I was hurting – the pain within me was so intense that I could not go on living I came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend – to grasp what was happening around and within me. Most importantly, I wanted to make the hurt go away. I saw in theory then a location for healing…. Theory is not inherently healing, liberatory, or revolutionary. It fulfills this function only when we ask it to do so and direct our theorizing towards this end.” (1994, 59 – 61)
What does it mean to ask theory to support healing? How might engaging in critical inquiry about the history of sexuality foster liberatory healing in us as individuals and as a community?
Understood as a way to interrogate power and structures of oppression, theory becomes an invitation to think with others in transformative ways. Two limits that one might experience when attempting to engage with theory in this way are (1) the highly specialized language and inaccessible writing style and (2) the adherence to “thinking” over “feeling.”
As an entry point into engagement with theory, bell hooks is an antidote to both of these limits: her essays and books are written in accessible language and she deliberately critiques the hierarchy present in much theory, of mind over body and thoughts over emotions.
If you are curious about the radical potential of theory, please visit the THEORY PART of this Toolkit and check out the work bell hooks.
Trans
By Ellen J.
(summarized from Keywords for Gender and Sexuality Studies)
Like “queer,” “trans” as a term comes from a long history of politicized identities and subjectivity— it challenges the political, social, economic status quo of the past, present, and future relating to gender and sexuality. In its most common usage, a trans person is a person whose gender does not correspond with their sex as assigned at birth.
The Latin prefix “trans-,” as defined in the OED, means “across,” “beyond,” or “through,” and is often understood as the opposite of Latin prefix “cis,” which is defined as “on the same side as.” Trans thus implies movement. It has been used as a prefix for “sex” and “sexuality,” but that usage is archaic—it’s now mostly used as a prefix for “gender.”
Within the field of critical Trans theory, there has been moves to understand “trans” identity as one of perpetual movement and transversal– trans may not be a stable identity category at all, as trans people continuously move against normative gender expression/presentation, and are continuously perceived as non-normative.
But further, as gender binaries are continually dismantled by queer and trans people and scholarship, some understand the term “transgender” to exist alongside a binary understanding of gender. “Trans” on its own steps outside of and challenges the gender binary while still acknowledging the etymology and history of the use of the prefix in queer identity and expression.
“Trans” can be used and thought of as an adjective, and rarely, as a verb (like “queering”—“transing”), and can be written with an asterisk (trans*) or as a prefix (trans-).
Critical Trans theory has explored the use of “trans” as a verb that may have applications to other kinds of movement across identity, such as “transing” nationality (transnational) and other such boundary-crossing.
A critical, intersectional definition of “trans” must acknowledge the medical and legal histories of Europe and the United States— how medical and legal institutions have regulated and weaponized identities, in particular gender and sexual identities, to malign, enact violence upon, ignore, and subjugate marginalized people.