Part of me is really looking forward to the showdown between Queer Theory and Critical Race Theory for primacy. The theories are wholly incompatible because they theorize identity in the same way (social construction) but in opposite directions. https://twitter.com/AManCalledSrao/status/1274071197785956356

I suppose this might need some explanation. Why are Queer Theory and Critical Race Theory (almost) incompatible because of how they Theorize identity? Both are social constructivist to the extreme, but one seeks to reify difference of categories (CRT) while the other doesn't (QT)

That's gobbledygook, though, I know.

Being social constructivist in orientation, both see identity categories as being the products of social relations and processes, not really something rooted in physical or material reality.

They're not so naive (usually) as to say that there's no underlying reality, like melanin levels in skin or primary sex characteristics, but they do believe that the only relevance these things have is in the social universe, where categories have been "constructed" for them.

So, for them, identity categories like "black," "white," "male," "masculine," "straight," "gay," and so on are all considered to be products of how our culture has attempted to classify people (kind of right) specifically so that they can be socially located (less right, ish).

Historically, this was undoubtedly the case. The "white race" was invented by Europeans who wanted to classify people "like themselves" one way and in contrast to people who seem clearly distinct, not least by skin melanin content. Key, though, was linking this to heritability.

Before early science started coming into being, people noticed differences, obviously, but had no idea where they came from, often thinking of them environmentally, and tribe, sect, clan, faith, or language had more to do with identifying groups than "identity."

CRT isn't wrong that the "white race" and "black race" were European proto-scientific inventions used to justify European colonialism and their slave trade, then things that followed. They're just wrong about what that means now.

Liberalism (e.g., the American Constitutional promises and freedoms) has slowly chipped away at the social significance of racial categories. Critical Race Theory, being a form of radical identity politics, sees this as a scam and wants to put them back for conflict approaches.

Critical Race Theory isn't itself really Marxist, but it has taken on the Marxian conflict theory (oppressor vs. oppressed in class struggle) in total and applied it to "racial categories" that it insists Whiteness created and enforces to everyone else's oppression.

So, the key here is that Critical Race Theory adds social significance to all racial categories. Whiteness means something. Blackness means something. The other race-nesses mean something, and they all mean something *political*. This is exactly the point of Critical Race Theory.

The meaning in these socially constructed racial categories derives from that category's relationship to the racial power dynamics allegedly established, enforced, and maintained by Whiteness. So, whites must learn they're white thus oppressor caste. You get the idea.

In particular, though, the oppressed racial castes, as Critical Race Theory has it, have unique insights about the experiences of oppression and traditional knowledges which are believed to be invisible or excluded by Whiteness. And, knowledge and power are one (Foucault).

Thus, to be Black (meaning Critical Race Theory-approved politically Black and racially black at the same time) means something quite specific in terms of access to knowledge (power) and thus must be gatekept. So, no transracial identities allowed. You can't fake race victimhood.

Queer Theory is just the opposite. Queer Theory believes that oppression (especially in gender, sex, sexuality, but also ability status, fat status, etc.) comes from being unfairly placed into an identity category one doesn't believe fits them or that limits them.

This derives heavily from a garbled reading of Michel Foucault, largely by Judith Butler. Categorization limits one's "potentialities of beingness." Following Butler, this was characterized as a kind of "violence of categorization" that must be unmade.

Thus, the imperative in Queer Theory is to make the categories of sex, gender, sexuality, etc., seem absurd, inapplicable, meaningless, and/or oppressive and to disrupt and subvert them, usually by being intentionally flamboyantly absurd in exaggerating performances of them.

So, like CRT, QT sees identity categories as having been socially constructed, thus not really real, by dominant forces in society and sees this as a huge problem. They don't agree on what to do about this problem, though.

Like CRT, QT sees identity as being forced upon people by the dominant, hegemonic power, but CRT leans into this in order to make strategic political use of it while QT seeks to undermine it (almost and ish). So stable identity categories in CRT are good, bad in QT.

CRT sees racial identity as forced upon "racialized" groups/people by the establishment of Whiteness and inescapable because of skin color, etc.. QT sees gender, sex, sexual, etc., identity as performances defined by society and its (unjust) expectations for conformity.

So, Queer Theory works to make that performative aspect really visible and kind of absurd, by intention (this is called queering, in some respects). The goal is to get people to realize they can be something other than what society tells them they have to be, by acting it.

Critical Race Theory, on the other hand, tries to forward an attitude of "if I have to be this race, I'm going to use it, and you made me do it." This is probably because of a kind of cultural protectionism, as minorities who integrate are said to "act white" and are traitors.

If you look hard, you can see how this is really the same understanding of identity, though, with different ways to theorize what victimhood and resistance must look like. "Queer" identities = "racialized" (POC) identities. They're not compatible, though.

Btw, cultural protectionism isn't necessarily racial, per se. Much of the same behavior of "racialized minorities" with regard to "dominant" or elite culture shows up in Appalachian whites, e.g., who often see bettering themselves or their children as cultural betrayal.

Nonetheless, CRT and QT only have two options because of this incompatibility. One is to rule in tandem, left and right hands of the Woke despot, and mostly ignore each other. The other (likelier) is to gnaw at one another over what identity and victimhood/oppression really mean.

Queering CRT requires saying CRT is wrong about what makes an oppressed identity oppressed and about what to do about it. That won't happen. Racializing QT is more likely and happening, but it relegates the QT parts to a rather frivolous status and just kind of erases it.

What happens when you try to mix them is getting statements that really happened like "straight black men are the white people of black people," which isn't great for solidarity (with the black racial category), which is what CRT is after. It's really fraught to mix them.

There's obviously room for a lot of power in the intersection (queer black people, perhaps especially autogynephilic black trans women), but this doesn't seem to work out in practice, at least not yet. CRT doesn't stand for anything but politically-Black solidarity.

In more realistic aspects of practice, what we see are Queer Theory types doing stuff like this, which CRT types see as stealing attention from Black issues and centering something that might include mostly bourgie white people who can afford to be flamboyantly queer.

This is getting rambling, so I'll finish up by saying that there's an alternative to all this idiocy!

Treat people as individuals.

Some people happen to be black. Get over it. Some people happen to be gay. Get over it. Other people don't. Get over it.