ABSTRACT
Scholarship mapping the terrain between law and the emerging field of “queer theory” attempts to move away from reliance upon identity politics. Since the 1986 Supreme Court decision in Bowers v. Hardwick is the legal case around which queer legal theory initially organized itself, this chapter focuses on queer legal theorists’ response to Hardwick. It describes briefly how this decision forced gay and lesbian rights activists to rethink their strategies for engaging with law, and how queer legal theorists have met this challenge. The chapter suggests that if queers refuse the discursive subject positions and configurations of community embedded in a politics of “official recognition,” then they might focus instead on the cultural contestations, and the transformation and shifting of identifications which legal decisions enable. In short, queer legal theory needs to take into account the new styles of politics.
