Queer studies, sexual diversity studies, or LGBT studies is the study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender dysphoria, asexual, queer, questioning, intersex people and cultures.
Gayle S. Rubin is an American cultural anthropologist best known as an activist and theorist of sex and gender politics. She has written on a range of subjects including feminism, sadomasochism, prostitution, pedophilia, pornography and lesbian literature, as well as anthropological studies and histories of sexual subcultures, especially focused in urban contexts. Her 1984 essay "Thinking Sex" is widely regarded as a founding text of gay and lesbian studies, sexuality studies, and queer theory. She is an associate professor of anthropology and women's studies at the University of Michigan.
Richard Dyer is an English academic who held a professorship in the Department of Film Studies at King's College London. Specialising in cinema, queer theory, and the relationship between entertainment and representations of race, sexuality, and gender, he was previously a faculty member of the Film Studies Department at the University of Warwick for many years and has held a number of visiting professorships in the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany.
E. Patrick Johnson is the incoming dean of the Northwestern University School of Communication. He is the Carlos Montezuma Professor of Performance Studies and Professor of African-American Studies at Northwestern University. He currently serves as the Chair of the African-American Studies Department at Northwestern University and is a Visiting Scholar at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Johnson is the Founding Director of the Black Arts Initiative at Northwestern. His scholarly and artistic contributions focus on Performance Studies, African-American Studies and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies.
David M. Halperin is an American theorist in the fields of gender studies, queer theory, critical theory, material culture and visual culture. He is the cofounder of GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, and author of several books including Before Pastoral (1983) and One Hundred Years of Homosexuality (1990).
Richard Fung is a video artist, writer, public intellectual and theorist who currently lives and works in Toronto, Ontario. He was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and is openly gay.
Del LaGrace Volcano is an American artist, performer, and activist from California. A formally trained photographer, Volcano's work includes installation, performance and film and interrogates the performance of gender on several levels, especially the performance of masculinity and femininity.
Feminist views on BDSM vary widely from acceptance to rejection. BDSM refers to bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and Sado-Masochism. In order to evaluate its perception, two polarizing frameworks are compared. Some feminists, such as Gayle Rubin and Patrick Califia, perceive BDSM as a valid form of expression of female sexuality, while other feminists, such as Andrea Dworkin and Susan Griffin, have stated that they regard BDSM as a form of woman-hating violence. Some lesbian feminists practice BDSM and regard it as part of their sexual identity.
Queer pornography depicts performers with various gender identities and sexual orientations interacting and exploring genres of desire and pleasure in unique ways. These conveyed interactions distinctively seek to challenge the conventional modes of portraying and experiencing sexually explicit content. Scholar Ingrid Ryberg additionally includes two main objectives of queer pornography in her definition as "interrogating and troubling gender and sexual categories and aiming at sexual arousal."
Robert McRuer is an American theorist who has contributed to fields in transnational queer and disability studies. McRuer is known as being one of the founding scholars involved in forming the field of queer disability studies, particularly for a theoretical outlook known as crip theory. He is currently professor of English at The George Washington University in Washington, DC.
Susan O'Neal Stryker is an American professor, historian, author, filmmaker, and theorist whose work focuses on gender and human sexuality. She is a professor of Gender and Women's Studies, former director of the Institute for LGBT Studies, and founder of the Transgender Studies Initiative at the University of Arizona, and is currently on leave while holding an appointment as Barbara Lee Distinguished Chair in Women's Leadership at Mills College. Stryker serves on the Advisory Council of METI and the Advisory Board of the Digital Transgender Archive. A transgender woman, she is the author of several books about LGBT history and culture.
Amber L. Hollibaugh is an American writer, filmmaker and political activist, largely concerned with feminist and sexual politics.
Michael Bronski is an American academic and writer, best known for his 2011 book A Queer History of the United States. He has been involved with LGBT politics since 1969 as an activist and organizer. He has won numerous awards for LGBTQ activism and scholarship, including the prestigious Publishing Triangle's Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. Bronski is a Professor of Practice in Media and Activism at Harvard University.
Carolyn Dinshaw is an American academic and author, who has specialised in issues of gender and sexuality in the medieval context.
Iain Morland is a British music technologist and author. He formerly lectured in cultural criticism at Cardiff University. His writings focus on issues of gender and sexuality, medical ethics, and science. In 2005, Times Higher Education described Morland as a leading academic in the field of sex research. He has edited an edition of the journal GLQ, and co-authored Fuckology, a critical analysis of the writings and practices of John Money. With Lih-Mei Liao, Morland co-founded in 2002 Critical Sexology, a continuing interdisciplinary seminar series on gender and sexuality. His audio work includes audio editing, sound design and programming.
Kara Keeling is an American humanities academic. As of 2016 she is Associate Professor at the University of Southern California in the Critical Studies of Cinematic Arts and in the Department of American Studies and Ethnicity.
Juana María Rodríguez is a Cuban-American professor of Ethnic Studies, Gender and Women's Studies, and Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her scholarly writing in queer theory, critical race theory, and performance studies highlights the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and embodiment in constructing subjectivity.
Dwight A. McBride an American academic administrator and scholar of race and literary studies. Since April 16, 2020, he has served as the ninth president of The New School. McBride previously served as provost, executive vice president for academic affairs, and Asa Griggs Candler Professor of African American studies at Emory University.
Eli Clare is an American writer, activist, educator, and speaker. His work focuses on queer, transgender, and disability issues. Clare was one of the first scholars to popularize the bodymind concept.
Kathryn Bond Stockton is an American writer and academic. She works at the University of Utah, where she serves as the inaugural Dean of the School for Cultural and Social Transformation and a Distinguished Professor of English. Her primary research areas are " queer theory, theories of race and racialized gender, and twentieth-century literature and film."
