3 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
American philosopher who transformed feminist and queer theory with the concept of gender performativity — arguing that gender is not an expression of identity but a repetition of acts that constitutes the appearance of a stable identity.
American literary critic and one of the founders of queer theory — whose Epistemology of the Closet (1990) established that the closet (the open secret of homosexuality) is a structuring principle of modern Western culture.
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's foundational queer theory text — arguing that the homo/heterosexual distinction is a structuring principle of modern Western culture and that the closet (knowledge-ignorance about sexuality) shapes cultural epistemology broadly.