Queer studies or Sexual Diversity Studies is the critical theory based study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people and cultures. Universities have also labeled this area of analysis Sexual Diversity Studies, Sexualities Studies or LGBTQ Studies (Q for "Questioning" and/or "Queer").
Originally centered on LGBT history and literary theory, the field has expanded to include the academic study of issues raised in biology, sociology, anthropology, the history of science, philosophy, psychology, sexology, political science, ethics, and other fields by an examination of the identity, lives, history, and perception of queer people. Marianne LaFrance, the former chair of the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale University, says, "Now we're asking not just 'What causes homosexuality?' 'What causes heterosexuality?' and 'Why is sexuality so central in some people's perspective?'"
Queer studies is not the same as queer theory, an analytical viewpoint within queer studies (centered on literary studies and philosophy) that challenges the putatively "socially constructed" categories of sexual identity.
Read more about Queer Studies: Background, History
Famous quotes containing the words queer and/or studies:
“With my desire to write he seemed in full sympathy, and in urging our early marriage he argued that my first necessity was leisure in which to develop and to master my craft. It appeared to me that with such a man as teacher and guide I could not fail, and it was in a queer mixture of young love and vaulting ambition that I became a wife.”
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“You must train the children to their studies in a playful manner, and without any air of constraint, with the further object of discerning more readily the natural bent of their respective characters.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)