My name is
Kerstin-Anja Münderlein, and I'm
a lecturer and postdoc at the Chair of
English Literature at
the University of Bamberg.
In this video I'm going to talk about
gender, sex and sexual orientation and
queerness from a Cultural Studies
perspective, and I'll be looking at some
of the terminology with you.
This is going to be a very colourful
video, because we're also looking at Pride
flags, some that are better known and
some that might be new to you.
Have you ever heard the saying "queer as
folk"? What do you think
the word "queer" means?
The term "queer" has been in the public
discourse for quite some time now and it
keeps getting used as
a variety of things.
Some people use it to describe
themselves, some use it to describe
others, positively and negatively, and
some people use it as an attack.
But what does it actually mean?
In the English language, the word "queer"
written in any of the ways you're going
to see, from the 16th century onwards
denoted something or someone strange or
weird or even questionable and dubious,
in other words, out of the
ordinary in a negative way.
Similarly, people in earlier times have
"come over queer" or "felt queer" when
they were feeling faint,
unwell or not quite normal.
In the early 20th century, the term was
specified as a mostly derogatory name for
homosexual people highlighting that
"they" were not normal and therefore
potentially dangerous.
For us, in the 21st century, the use of
the term "queer" in a positive sense is
only possible because of the gay rights
movement of the early 1970s, when queer
was reclaimed by homosexual men
protesting for equal rights.
It took another 20 years for the term to
finally shed much of its negative
connotation, so that today we can indeed
use "queer" as a positive term, allowing
the advent of Queer Studies in the 1990s.
But we should be aware of its history and
of the fact that it is still often used
by socially conservative groups as a
stigmatising word against the diverse
groups of people who
are labelled "queer".
According to a variety of dictionaries on
current uses of "queer", "queer" and
"queerness" refer to people who, as the
Oxford English Dictionary says,
"have a sexual and gender identity that
does not correspond to or that challenges
traditional, especially heteronormative,
ideas of sexuality and gender".
In other words, people who are outside of
the norm of being
heterosexual and cisgendered.
The American dictionary Merriam-Webster
is even more
encompassing in its definition,
"of, relating to, or characterized by
sexual or romantic attraction that is
not limited to people of a particular gender,
identity or sexual orientation"
and "of, relating to, or being a person
whose sexual orientation is not heterosexual
and/or whose gender identity is not cisgender".
It provides us with even more terms to
look at. So let's do that!
Despite having been reclaimed by the
queer community, the term "queer" is one
of many slurs which have been applied to
people who fall outside of cisgendered
and heterosexual identities.
You might recognise some here, which also
apply to people who have been seen as
religiously sinful or socially dangerous.
Queer people have experienced both
religious and legal persecution.
Acts of homosexuality between consenting
partners were criminalised
in many Western countries.
Other forms of social control included
the fear of social exclusion and diverse
forms of conversion therapy.
While contemporary society has become
more open, queer people are still not
well represented in
various forms of media.
For some, upholding "normality" or
"normativity" is the
central goal of representation.
Explanations as to why diversity is not
generally welcomed by all usually centres
on human beings' tendency to favour the
familiar rather than embracing change.
Power structures tend to be based on a
normative structure of society.
Challenging these norms, or the ideas of
norms in itself, undermines such
structures and exposes the arbitrariness
of power hierarchies.
Besides reclaiming the word "queer", many
people, including activists and
researchers, no longer use the term and
instead have moved on
to the acronym LGBTQIA+.
This stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual,
trans, queer, intersex and asexual.
As you can see, the acronym includes
sexual orientations like lesbian, gay, bi
and asexual, as well as the gender
identity trans and even the biological
difference intersex.
A plus sign was added to indicate that
the acronym is not a hermeneutic term and
can and must include other
varieties of non-normativity.
And yet, both terms, "queer" and "LGBTQIA+",
still lump gender and sexuality together.
So, let's get them untangled.
In Cultural Studies and elsewhere, we
tend to differentiate between a person's
biological sex, usually referring to
their reproductive organs and XY
chromosomes, and gender identity.
While scientific researchers and
anthropologists have debunked the
biological binary, see for example the
articles by Fuentes and
Clancy et al. in my works cited,
the belief in a binary of sex is still
prevalent, especially
in conservative thought.
Regardless of whether current biological
research is to be believed or not,
Social, Cultural or Literary Studies work
with gender, as it deals with social
construction of identity.
So, unlike sex, which deals with a
person's genetics and physical anatomy,
gender is based on socially and
individually constructed identities which
claim to be founded on biological sex.
It is this social construct, gender, that
we project to the world in gender-based
behaviours, like the
ways we dress or speak.
Gender expectations about how men and
women should behave, as men and women,
vary from society to society because
different cultures gender
behaviour in various ways.
The English language differentiates
between sex and gender. Other languages,
like German, are now increasingly
adopting the term "gender" to
denote the social construct.
We all know the typical binary of
"feminine" and "masculine" ascribed to
women and men respectively.
If the gender assigned to the person at
birth matches their own gender identity,
we call this person "cisgender" or "cis",
going back to the Latin word for "on this
side of" or "on the same side".
Cisgender people either use the pronouns
"she" or "her" when they are feminine or
"he" and "him" when they are masculine.
Being cisgender is regarded as the
cultural norm and thus holds most of the
representation of people
in literature and film.
Trans people are currently targets of
culture wars including trans-exclusionary
feminism, TERF for short, which actively
excludes trans women and regards them as
dangerous for biological women.
Conservative politicians have also
considered transgender people as a threat
to traditional family
values as they have defined them.
Transgender, according to the University
of Colorado Boulder's Center for
Inclusion and Social Change, is an
identity umbrella term "describing people
whose gender identity is different from
cultural expectations based on the sex
they were assigned at birth".
Despite the increasing cultural awareness
of diversity through public discourse,
media, literature and film, being trans
today is still not easy.
People are not only faced with their own
gender dysphoria, the feeling of not
aligning with the gender ascribed at
birth, and questions of what, if any,
medical interventions they may wish to
undertake, but also with
harassment and discrimination.
Trans people and people expressing
solidarity with trans people in the face
of discrimination against them often
identify with this flag.
If you want to read more about two trans
people's personal journeys, I can
recommend Juno Dawson's 2017 book "Gender
Games: The Problem with Men and Women, from
Someone Who Has Been Both" and Jamie
Raines' 2023 "The T in LGBT+:
Everything You Need to
Know About Being Trans".
Both books not only allude to their
authors' own transitions, but also
provide scholarly material on transness.
Another term that is now well known is
"non-binary". This term denotes people
who do not identify with either of the
binary genders, feminine and masculine,
but either fall somewhere in between or
outside altogether, according to Raines.
"Some people who are non-binary
experience their gender as both man and
woman, and others experience their gender
as neither man nor woman".
Non-binary people tend to use the pronoun
"they" in English and use this flag.
Recently, non-binary people have garnered
more representation in film and
literature, but they are
still often overlooked.
On Non-binary People's Day, on 14th July,
you might want to catch an episode of the
TV series "Heartstopper", based on Alice
Oseman's graphic novels of the same name,
which also features
non-binary characters,
or you can have a read through
Britannica's diverting article "6
Cultures That Recognize More Than Two
Genres", which you find in the works
cited list below this video.
Some more genders we should be aware of:
"genderqueer", "gender-fluid", "agender" and the
biological and sex-related term "intersex".
Genderqueer people "reject notions of
static categories of gender, embracing a
fluidity of gender identity.
People who identify as genderqueer may
see themselves as being both men and
women, or neither men nor women, or as
falling completely
outside the gender binary",
according to the University of Colorado
Boulder's Center for
Inclusion and Social Change.
Like non-binary, genderqueer can be used
as an umbrella term to refer to people
falling between or outside of the gender
binary or feminine and masculine.
It is important to note that these two
terms do not denote the same.
Gender-fluid people are people whose
gender is not fixed but changes as a part
of their day-to-day life.
They can "identify as any gender or any
combination of
genders at any given time",
again to quote from the University of
Colorado Boulder's Center for
Inclusion and Social Change.
And finally, the last gender-related term
on this list,
"agender", is defined as such.
Agender people reject the notion of
gender altogether and exist outside of
socially constructed norms entirely.
In literature and film, these three
gender identities are
markedly less visible.
Lastly, "intersex" is a term that bridges
the gap between gender and sex by
denoting people born with biological
variation in their reproductive system
that does not fit normative assumptions
of how humans develop.
Historically,
the term "hermaphrodite"
has been used to describe an intersex
person, a term which goes back to ancient
Greek mythology but which is
now regarded as derogatory.
This historical term does demonstrate
that people have been aware of wide
variances in human biology for centuries.
Moving on from sex and gender, sexuality
denotes a person's attraction.
This includes the gender of the people to
whom they might be attracted, or even if
they are attracted to
anyone at all, and in what ways.
We're now going to look first at a few
different terms used to
describe people's sexual orientation.
Since most people are more familiar with
non-normative sexual orientations than
with diverse gender identities, we'll
keep this section a bit shorter but
equally colorful because I'll be showing
you the flags associated with these sexual orientations, too.
Besides heterosexuality, the attraction
to the opposite binary gender, the best-
known queer sexuality, is homosexuality,
attraction towards the same gender.
Women often use the term "lesbian", and
men often use "gay". However, the term
"gay" is also used as a
synonym for homosexual overall.
People attracted to their own and other
genders are usually called "bisexual" or
"bi", with that flag, which
is different to pansexuality.
Because being pansexual or pan means that
a person is "attracted to people on
factors other than
gender", as Raines defines it.
So this is a sexuality that is not tied
to the partner's gender
identity but only to their person.
An omnisexual person can experience
sexual or romantic attraction to people
of all sexes and genders.
And lastly, people who feel little or no
sexual attraction to other people are
called "asexual" or "ace".
Since the degree to which people feel
attraction to others in ace people
varies, asexuality is a spectrum which
also includes people who not only feel
attraction to a person
they have already formed
an emotional bond with,
which is called demisexuality, as well as
people who either dislike sex altogether
and those who are sex-positive.
Being asexual does not mean that ace
people do not fall in love with other
people. A person not feeling romantic
attraction to others is
called "aromantic" or "aro".
Aces can and do fall in love and can thus
be heteroromantic, in love with another
gender, or homoromantic, in
love with the same gender.
While aro and ace representation in
media has been minimal and there are very
few asexual characters to be found
anywhere, this has recently slightly
improved, but asexuality and aromanticism
are still far from common knowledge,
which is partly due to
lacking medial representation.
Again, Alice Oseman's series
"Heartstopper"
includes an asexual character.
Now, this discussion of genders and
sexuality is of course not a complete one,
but this demonstrates just some of the
diversity in gender identity and
expression and sexual
orientation in the world.
But why are we talking about
gender and diversity at all?
Gender, diversity and queerness have been
in contemporary political discourse quite
a lot recently. Many people think this
diversity is a recent phenomenon.
Historically speaking, concerns about
gender and sexuality have often been
painted as a danger
to mainstream society.
One theory as to why communities create
outsiders is the
Scapegoat Theory by René Girard.
He posits that communities need a
scapegoat they can richly sacrifice when
violence erupts in a
society to re-establish peace.
As per Bernard Keenan, the idea is that
the "object of mimetic imitation
switches from the cycle of violence
towards mimetically heaping blame upon
a single target,
arbitrarily chosen by the community.
The individual may be selected because in
some way they stand
out as being different:
perhaps they are outsiders, or are
sick, or have a physical
disability that marks them out.
In any case, they are a person whose
death shall not be avenged."
"The victim is soon universally blamed for
the crisis and hates it for it."
"The group unanimously declares them
guilty and
collectively murders the victim."
This can be transposed to refer to the
group of queer people whose ritual
"sacrifice" in the form of heaping all the
blame for whatever goes wrong on them can
be read as a modern interpretation of the
scapegoat mechanism.
Marginalised people, including people
with a different religion, skin colour,
gender or sexual orientation than the
majority, are portrayed as harmful
elements that need to be controlled to,
in inverted commas, "protect society".
But really, as per Girard, this is more
about having someone to blame if things
go pear-shaped so those in power can
remain at the top of the heap.
Another theory comes from the Marxist and
cultural materialist Raymond Williams.
In his theory, society is described as an
ever-changing interplay of forces
affecting
contemporary mainstream culture.
"Williams introduces an incredibly useful
set of concepts that convey the complex
dynamism of cultural production:
dominant, residual and emergent.
Culture is crisscrossed by varied forces,
whether those forces are residual
elements from the past still active in
the present", emergent, "new meanings and
values, new practices, new relationships",
or "dominant mechanisms of incorporation
and acceptance integral to class rule".
These forces can be left over from
earlier mainstream cultures, called
residual forces, or, as you just heard,
they can be emergent
or even opposing forces.
In any case, society is not a stable
construct and dominant culture is always
only temporal, which is of course a
problem for people in power who wish to
maintain the status quo.
Including more diversity on medial
representation and moving away from the
rhetoric of scapegoating is crucial for
any society and the queer people or
otherwise Othered people in it.
By not showing the diversity that exists
in the human race, like focusing on only
white, middle class, straight people in
films and novels, not only fails to be a
realistic portrayal of the world, harms
people outside of this so-called norm.
People who are different from this
socially determined norm
often struggle with being Other.
Representing diversity offers
opportunities for people to see their
experiences in media, but it also
enriches society and makes it more
colourful, as the Rainbow flag used by the
queer community and
depicted here attests to.
Literature and film have begun to change
to include a variety of queer characters
on TV, in books and films, and these
characters do not simply play comic
sidekicks or villains. So here, let's
take a look at some of them.
On this incomplete list of titles, you
might recognise some of the titles I've
referenced in the video already. Alice
Oseman's "Heartstopper" is currently one of
the graphic novels and TV series that has
garnered critical acclaim and is
well-liked by lots of
readers and viewers.
Some of these titles here are novels that
have been turned into films, like "Red,
White & Royal Blue", some are TV series
like "Derry Girls" or "Sex Education", and
there are lots of films from the last 20
years including "The Danish Girl" and
"Portrait of a Lady on Fire".
Among those, you also find plays like
"Angels in America" and of course novels
that have not only yet been filmed like
"The House in the Cerulean Sea" or one of
the first radical queer books, Radclyffe
Hall's "The Well of Loneliness" from 1928.
We see that queer representation and
recognition is increasing despite the
ongoing vilification of queer people,
especially from the
right-wing political spectrum.
The queer community is "out, proud and
here to stay", and global events like the
Christopher Street Day parades you see
in many cities in summer,
or the celebration of June as Pride Month
to raise awareness not just of the
existence of queer people, but also of
the discrimination, harassment or social
exclusion queer people often still have
to deal with on a daily basis.
The inclusion of marginalized voices and
other people does not harm a society. It
may harm those people whose claim to
power is based on fear and exclusion
rather than love and inclusion, but
that's a different problem
and cannot be discussed here.
Rather, let's look at the inclusive Pride
flag one last time and see which colours
you recognise. If you have a mind to, go
ahead and browse the list of references
and the additional reading materials.