ABSTRACT
The emergence of queer theory during the past decade represents a transformation in our approaches to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered peoples. It has claimed new avenues for treating sexuality and gender as worthy subjects in their own right, rather than as offshoots of lesbian and gay studies or of general cultural theory. Queer theory asserts that inclusiveness requires relativity, and that it is with this perspective that we can free our analyses from fixed, if hidden, meanings and structures of power. I will suggest here, however, that it is doubtful that this framing alone can initiate social change. While gay and lesbian studies developed from the new social movements of the 1960s, queer theory has dismissed the usefulness of the disciplines that they drew on, such as political economy, for analyzing exploitation and inclusion. I will also suggest that the ontology of queer theory, through postmodernism and poststructuralism, surreptitiously mirrors the development of late capitalism and the concurrent ideology of the ego-centered individual. The highlighting of the impossibility (and undesirability) of identification and the relativity of experience closely follows current capitalist relations of production, where the self-contained individual is central to the economic goal of creating profit through production and its by-product, consuming. It is thus my view that the tenets of queer
theory closely pattern those characteristics of late capitalism that it claims to reject. l
This mirroring of late capitalism in queer theory has unforeseen consequences for the individual in society and has hindered its practioners from engaging important ways of envisioning collective action. Queer theory promotes the "self' of the individual as an alternative to wider social interaction, disassembling the social ties that bind. Recognizing that oppression and violence, symbolic and physical, are part of the daily reality for those of us who do not correspond to dominant standards is compromised by queer theory's rejection of the category of identity, and indeed, categories as a whole. The stance that it is limiting to pose categories of behavior and belief, even if those constructs are fluid and changing, puts the individual subject in the position of internalizing thoughts and feelings without the benefit of peer feedback. Too, this aspect of marginality can itself become an identity: if one recognizes and embraces the fact that one is marginalized, there is no need to seek support or to engage social action. It declares that the only way to prevent being overwhelmed by power is to "disclaim" (Butler, 1993, p. 308). But to simply disclaim creates isolation, and, as I will maintain, reinforces internalized homophobia.
