ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that for Queer and Transgender Studies 'many sexual and gender identities involve some degree of movement between bodies, desires, transgressions, and conformities'. The historical background of 'queer' in the context of 'Queer Theory' and, increasingly, 'Queer Studies' is somewhat different. The critical thinking that has come out of Queer and Transgender Studies is characteristically multidisciplinary and many-layered. It forces readers to acknowledge complexities and contradictions without giving in to the psychic or political pressure to simplify and reduce. The queer resistance to categorizing labels is most relevant for the three same-sex kisses exchanged on screen. Positing a distinction between biological sex and gender was especially useful to shift the attention toward cultural, social, and linguistic processes underlying the opposition between masculinity and femininity in any given society. The difficulty of categorization in a context of seeming bisexuality returns in the otherwise very different literary and cinematic narrative presented by The Hours.
