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Queer Legal Theory

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Feminist Approaches to Law

Part of the book series: Gender Perspectives in Law ((GPL,volume 1))

Abstract

The article explores the understanding of the notion, concept and method of queer legal theory. In other words, what do we mean by “queer legal theory”? If we are to understand it as a theory and practice of liberation and struggle for the rights of LGBT people, it can be subsumed under the general theory of human rights, prohibition of discrimination, equality, and freedom. We can also understand it through different variations of critical legal studies. Understood in this way, queer legal theory is viewed through the prism of “outsider” jurisprudence and has tremendous critical potential. In this sense, the article aims to explore the methodological perspectives for a legal theory which tries to position law “outside” of the traditional streams of legal positivism. That is, the different levels of content and concepts of “queer” and queer legal theory, its methodology, approach, comprehension, as well as understanding of identity. Finally, the aim is to present one’s own reflection on the possible understanding of and interrelationships within the broadly understood field of queer legal theory.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    More on this: Butler (1994), p. 21.

  2. 2.

    Jagose (1996), pp. 1–2.

  3. 3.

    See also: Unger (1983), Kennedy (2017), Klare (2001) and Gordon (1982/1990).

  4. 4.

    Delgado (1993), p. 743.

  5. 5.

    Legal Information Institute (n.d.).

  6. 6.

    Delgado (1993), p. 744; Unger (1983); Kennedy (2017); Gordon (1982/1990).

  7. 7.

    Legal principles and legal doctrine can be vague in two directions. First, legal rules immanently contain internal gaps, conflicts and uncertainties, whether they are “difficult” or “simple” legal cases. Also, conflict exists in legal principles that support legal norms and are the basis of their interpretation.

  8. 8.

    See more: Delgado (1993), p. 744.

  9. 9.

    Delgado (1993), p. 744.

  10. 10.

    Delgado (1993), p. 745. Narrative scholarship includes chronicles, parables, counter stories and accounts of the writer’s personal experience (Delgado 1993, p. 751). As Delgado continues, narrative works often advance no argument, offer no balanced assessment of different models or approaches to a legal question, and typically aim not at changing doctrine but changing mindset (Delgado 1993, p. 751). Scholars are writing about story-telling in law, employing or analysing “voices” and narratives putting women, race or queer in the centre and treating law as stories and trial as theatre (Delgado 1993, p. 759).

  11. 11.

    The realists were deeply sceptical of the ascendent notion that judicial legislation is rarity. While not entirely rejecting the idea that judges can be constrained by rules (constitution, statutes, bylaws, etc.), the realists argued that judges create new law through the exercise of law-making discretion more often than is commonly supposed. In their view, judicial decision is frequently more guided by political, moral and ideological intuitions about the facts of the case than theorists of legal positivism and natural legal theories are willing to acknowledge.

  12. 12.

    Himma (n.d.).

  13. 13.

    Himma (n.d.).

  14. 14.

    Himma (n.d.).

  15. 15.

    Altman (1986).

  16. 16.

    Himma (n.d.).

  17. 17.

    Himma (n.d.).

  18. 18.

    Dworkin (1986).

  19. 19.

    Altman (1986), p. 189; Corlett (2000), pp. 43–44; Culver (2001). While the realists stress competing rules, the CLSers stress competing, and indeed irreconcilable, principles and ideals. (Altman 1986, p. 189).

  20. 20.

    Altman (1986), p. 191; Corlett (2000), pp. 43–46.

  21. 21.

    Altman (1986), p. 191.

  22. 22.

    Altman (1986), p. 192.

  23. 23.

    Černič (2022).

  24. 24.

    Altman (1986), p. 192.

  25. 25.

    Altman (1986), p. 192.

  26. 26.

    The CLS analyses have demonstrated the deep and pervasive incoherence of doctrine in areas such as constitutional law, labour law, contract law, administrative law, criminal law, etc. (Altman 1986, p. 193). Moreover, as the CLS’s argumentation develops “(…) the authoritative legal materials, in replicating the ideological conflicts of the political arena, contain a sufficient number of doctrines, rules and arguments representing any politically significant ideology that a judge who conscientiously consults the material would find his favoured ideology in some substantial portion of the settled law and conclude that it was the soundest theory of law” (Altman 1986, p. 196).

  27. 27.

    Altman (1986), p. 193.

  28. 28.

    Himma (n.d.).

  29. 29.

    Himma (n.d.).

  30. 30.

    Himma (n.d.).

  31. 31.

    Himma (n.d.).

  32. 32.

    Fineman (2009), p. 2.

  33. 33.

    Fineman (2009), p. 2.

  34. 34.

    Many scholars are concerned with the dismantling of the existing social and legal norms, as well as structures with a goal to reach equality (Fineman 2009, p. 2).

  35. 35.

    Fineman (2009), p. 2.

  36. 36.

    Fineman (2009), p. 2.

  37. 37.

    Delgado (1993), p. 741.

  38. 38.

    Valdes (2009), p. 91.

  39. 39.

    Valdes (2009), p. 91.

  40. 40.

    Delgado (1993), p. 741.

  41. 41.

    Delgado (1993), pp. 741–742.

  42. 42.

    Delgado (1993), p. 742.

  43. 43.

    Delgado (1993), p. 742.

  44. 44.

    Delgado (1993), p. 742; Valdes (2009), pp. 89–90.

  45. 45.

    Valdes (2009), pp. 89–90.

  46. 46.

    Ball (2001), p. 271.

  47. 47.

    Ball (2001), p. 271.

  48. 48.

    Ball (2001), p. 272.

  49. 49.

    Ball (2001), p. 272.

  50. 50.

    Ball (2001), p. 272.

  51. 51.

    Ball (2001), p. 272.

  52. 52.

    Fineman (2009), p. 5.

  53. 53.

    Fineman (2009), p. 5.

  54. 54.

    Fineman (2009), p. 5.

  55. 55.

    Fineman (2009), p. 5; Valdes (2009), p. 92.

  56. 56.

    Fineman (2009), pp. 5–6; Valdes (2009), p. 92; Ball (2001), pp. 272–274.

  57. 57.

    Fineman (2009), p. 6.

  58. 58.

    Valdes (2009), p. 95.

  59. 59.

    Halley (2009), p. 14.

  60. 60.

    Halley (2009), p. 14.

  61. 61.

    Halley (2009), p. 14.

  62. 62.

    Halley (2009), p. 14.

  63. 63.

    Halley (2009), p. 14.

  64. 64.

    Halley (2009), p. 14.

  65. 65.

    Halley (2009), p. 14.

  66. 66.

    Halley (2009), p. 14.

  67. 67.

    In its contemporary understanding, “queer” has been usually associated with prideful opposition to and transgression of sexual, gender, intimacy and kinship norms (Romero 2009, p. 190). Queer is a relational concept: one thing is queer in relation to something else which is usually dominant (Romero 2009, p. 190).

  68. 68.

    Fineman (2009), p. 6; Ball (2001), pp. 271–282.

  69. 69.

    Fineman (2009), p. 6.

  70. 70.

    Halley (2009), p. 15.

  71. 71.

    Halley (2009), p. 15.

  72. 72.

    Ball (2001), p. 273.

  73. 73.

    Romero (2009), pp. 190–191.

  74. 74.

    Ball (2001), p. 273.

  75. 75.

    Queer theorists emphasise the historical contingency and the incoherence of social constructions, such as polarisation, compartmentalisation and categorisation of men from women, male from female, masculinity from femininity, heterosexual from homosexual etc. (Romero 2009, p. 190).

  76. 76.

    Ball (2001), p. 273.

  77. 77.

    Romero (2009), p. 190.

  78. 78.

    Halley (2009), p. 15.

  79. 79.

    Halley (2009), p. 15.

  80. 80.

    Valdes (2009), p. 92.

  81. 81.

    Valdes (2009), p. 92.

  82. 82.

    Valdes (2009), p. 92.

  83. 83.

    Valdes (2009), p. 93.

  84. 84.

    Valdes (2009), p. 94.

  85. 85.

    Fineman (2009), p. 6.

  86. 86.

    Fineman (2009), p. 6.

  87. 87.

    Fineman (2009), p. 6.

  88. 88.

    Fineman (2009), p. 6.

  89. 89.

    Kepros (1999–2000), pp. 282–283.

  90. 90.

    Kepros (1999–2000), p. 283.

  91. 91.

    Kepros (1999–2000), p. 283.

  92. 92.

    Kepros (1999–2000), p. 283.

  93. 93.

    Romero (2009), p. 190.

  94. 94.

    Kepros (1999–2000), p. 284; Fineman (2009), p. 6.

  95. 95.

    Romero (2009), p. 190.

  96. 96.

    Romero (2009), p. 190.

  97. 97.

    Romero (2009), p. 190.

  98. 98.

    Romero (2009), p. 191.

  99. 99.

    Romero (2009), p. 191.

  100. 100.

    Romero (2009), p. 191.

  101. 101.

    Legal theory (n.d.).

  102. 102.

    Legal theory (n.d.).

  103. 103.

    Legal theory (n.d.).

  104. 104.

    Ball (2001), p. 274.

  105. 105.

    Ball (2001), p. 282.

  106. 106.

    Ball (2001), p. 282.

  107. 107.

    Ball (2001), p. 286.

  108. 108.

    Ball (2001), pp. 286–288.

  109. 109.

    Ball (2001), p. 290.

  110. 110.

    Ball (2001), p. 291.

  111. 111.

    Banović (2021), p. 47.

  112. 112.

    Banović (2021), p. 48.

  113. 113.

    Banović (2021), p. 48.

  114. 114.

    Banović (2021), p. 48.

  115. 115.

    Banović (2021), p. 48.

  116. 116.

    Banović (2021), p. 48.

  117. 117.

    Ball (2001), p. 274.

  118. 118.

    Ball (2001), p. 274.

  119. 119.

    Ball (2001), p. 274.

  120. 120.

    Valdes (1995), p. 344.

  121. 121.

    Valdes (1995), p. 349.

  122. 122.

    Valdes (1995), p. 353.

  123. 123.

    Valdes (1995), p. 354.

  124. 124.

    Valdes (1995), pp. 355–356.

  125. 125.

    Valdes (1995), p. 357.

  126. 126.

    Valdes (1995), pp. 362–372; Romero (2009), pp. 191–192.

  127. 127.

    Romero (2009), p. 192.

  128. 128.

    Romero (2009), p. 192.

  129. 129.

    Romero (2009), p. 192.

  130. 130.

    Romero (2009), p. 193.

  131. 131.

    Romero (2009), p. 193.

  132. 132.

    Halley (2009), p. 26.

  133. 133.

    Halley (2009), p. 26.

  134. 134.

    Halley (2009), p. 197.

  135. 135.

    Legal theory (n.d.).

  136. 136.

    Legal theory (n.d.).

  137. 137.

    Legal theory (n.d.).

  138. 138.

    Legal theory (n.d.).

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  1. University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Law, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

    Damir Banović

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  1. University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Dragica Vujadinović

  2. University of Cádiz, Cadiz, Spain

    Antonio Álvarez del Cuvillo

  3. Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

    Susanne Strand

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Banović, D. (2023). Queer Legal Theory. In: Vujadinović, D., Álvarez del Cuvillo, A., Strand, S. (eds) Feminist Approaches to Law. Gender Perspectives in Law, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14781-4_4

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