ABSTRACT
From its emergence in the early 1990s, queer, as a new perspective that heavily relies on the Butlerian critique of identity categories as instruments of regulatory regimes securing a base of heteronormativity, rapidly became a dominant approach to (homo)sexuality. In line with postmodernism’s critique of empiricism and grand narratives, queer theory calls into question the notion of sexuality as a stable, fi xed identity and exposes the multiplicity, instability and fl uidity of subject positions. Moreover, revealing identities as conventions and parts of (hetero)normalizing practice, postmodern lesbian and gay theory poses a strong critique of all forms of identity politics for essentializing and reifying existing social norms, categories and divisions through their notion of identity as obvious and authentic embodiment (Hennessy 1993b).
