ABSTRACT
Recent research shows that queer youth increasingly reject traditional sexuality labels in favour of more fluid identifications. While there are several debates as to why this is the case, few have specifically examined how post-feminist understandings of gender and sexuality influence queer young women’s identity politics. Furthermore, despite well-rehearsed discussions of queer identity politics under neoliberalism, little is known about how contemporary queerness is understood and expressed in rural Australia. This chapter draws on qualitative interviews with bisexual and queer young women and non-binary people to examine their relationships with sexual identity labels. It traces the history of queer theory and lesbian identity politics, before analysing young women and non-binary people’s experiences of rejecting labels, embracing labels, and their more critical disidentifications with such categories. Drawing on the work of Jose Esteban Muñoz and Lisa Duggan, this chapter demonstrates how queer young people’s identity politics are shaped by a combination of homonormativity and post-feminism while also having space for critical queer disidentifications. Such disidentificatory politics are central to queer post-feminist sexual citizenship.
