MATH 1P98 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Queer Theory, Transphobia, Gender Binary

• School: Brock University
• Department: Mathematics and Statistics
• Course: MATH 1P98
• Professor: Mark Willoughby

Document Summary

Gender categories are socially constructed and reinforced on many fronts: media, family, peers, schools, education system, socio-political policies, and religion. We have ideas of what it means to be a man or woman in the west - we judge accordingly and are judged by these norms. Our ideas/assumptions about sexuality are tightly bound to our gender assumptions. Belief that gender and sexuality are connected; gender does not equal sexuality. Gender and sexuality are not the same and one cannot be collapsed into the other. Sexuality is a form of power that exists regardless of one"s sexual identity. Sexuality is an organizing principle of social life and not just the property of individuals. Wide range of meanings associated with sexualities and identities. Queer: a broad term that is inclusive of people who are not straight and/or cisgender. The word was used as discriminatory in the past but has been reclaimed by those who identify with it.