Queer Theory 101

I can not cover every topic covered in "queer theory", that would be impossible. This post is meant to serve as a basic introduction to it and give the readers a basic understanding of it.

Queer theory is made up of philosophies and different belief systems for describing the "queer experience" as a member of the LGBTQIA movement. The idea of queer theory has been around for many years but didn't really get serious attention from professionals and/or the academic community until the 1990s.

Wikipedia describes queer theory as: "queer theory expands its focus to encompass any kind of sexual activity or identity that falls into normative and deviant categories". In plain English, this means it covers just about anything that isn't considered "monogamous, straight, cisgender people."

Queer theory is absolutely vital to gain a deeper understanding of the contemporary LGBTQIA community. It gives people an insight on how our views have changed throughout the years as well as give an idea of how certain belief systems came about. Some concepts discussed within queer theory (but it's certainly not limited to these subjects) are: drag culture, asexuality, how feminism interacts with the LGBT community, the intersex community, polyamorous individuals, and how the kink community interacts with the LGBT community (such as fetish balls and BDSM participation in lgbt night clubs).

Unfortunately a lot of the younger generations of LGBTQIA individuals never bother to look at LGBT history and/or queer theory, and it shows. Terms that were coined in say the 1990s (like the term pomosexual) get forgotten, become rediscovered in recent years and people suddenly accuse it of "being a special Tumblr word" when in reality the word has been around much longer than Tumblr. It's frustrating and aggravating to see these patterns with so many ideas, philosophies, and different philosophies within the LGBT community.