ABSTRACT
Queer thought and queer practice have focused more on boundary-pushing rather than boundary-setting; contesting identities rather than establishing them; transgressing rather than institutionalising social norms. By uncovering the ways that sexual identities emerge and become contested sites of power and regulation, queer theory has revealed the ways that identity is central to modern governance. In this sense ‘queerness’ is a political ethos that works to question and deconstruct identarian logics. Queer theory and politics partly grew out of concerns that the more radical visions of the ‘gay liberation’ movement were increasingly being eclipsed and assimilated into a more conservative ‘equality and respectability’ politics. As it has been taken up within socio-legal studies, queer theory has contributed to the existing critical legal tradition. Queer theory as applied to socio-legal studies has been particularly attentive to the role that law plays in governing sex and sexualities, both overtly and more insidiously.
