Through the looking glass. A '70s lesbian feminist considers queer theory

Abstract

Lesbian feminists who began their work in the 1970s probably share my mixed feelings about and attitudes towards Queer Theory: curiosity, envy, indignation and occasional agreement. The solar center of mostly male Queer Theory has young lesbian scholars orbiting around it. Gender used to share the stage with sexuality but now seems relegated to the wings. Like Marxists in the 1950s who remembered the heady days of the 1930s, we veteran lesbian feminists cannot help recalling the excitement and sense of possibility in Lesbian Studies twenty-five years ago.