Diversity In Lisa Duggans's 'Making It Perfectly Queer'

“Queer”, once a slang for “odd” or “abnormal”, before it was attributed to lesbian and gay men as a homophobic insult, now portrays a spectrum of academic modalities and acknowledges the lives of thousands of fluid gendered peoples. Essentially, Queer Studies is the examination of issues pertaining to and intersectionality of gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, class, and ethnicity—revolving around ubiquitous structural and institutional inequality. Lisa Duggans in her article “Making it Perfectly Queer” discusses the diversity of
“Queer” as a term of an inclusive community, an “oxymoronic community of difference” which identifies the foundations of the Queer community based on similar resistance to conventional norms rather than their shared experiences or sexual
Moreover, Cohen is arguing the term Queer creates its foundation in the inclusion of any and all individuals who experience oppression and inequality based on their sex, race, class, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation.
Queer studies still faces a number of challenges despite it’s academic breakthrough. One key challenge is working within Heteronormative institutional structures. The former creates the foundation of family life and sexual relationships, as well as dating culture and social norms.
Through a heteronormative academic institution, the field of Queer studies is limited in its ability to fund and thrive and create a thriving field of study. Scholars have reported that the subject of
‘Gender, race, and Queer-related’ studies are relatively new, thus too narrow to create a program in many Universities. Because of low funding and little support from academic institutions,
Queer Studies was, and still is, limited in its ability to provide a comprehensive education on the queer community, different sexualities, transgender and intersex peoples. This is an issue as the subject rejects the very heteronormative institution by which it teaches under.
Palmer