Editing Queer theory (section)

==Lens for power==
Queer theory is the lens used to explore and challenge how scholars, activists, artistic texts, and the media perpetrate gender- and sex-based binaries, and its goal is to undo hierarchies and fight against social inequalities.<ref name="Barber">{{Britannica|2074269|author=Barber, Kristen; Hidalgo, Danielle Antoinette}}</ref> Due to controversy about the definition of ''[[queer]]'', including whether the word should even be defined at all or should be left deliberately open-ended, there are many disagreements and often contradictions within queer theory.<ref name="Barber" /> In fact, some queer theorists, like Berlant and Warner<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Berlant |first1=Lauren |last2=Warner |first2=Michael |title=Guest Column: What Does Queer Theory Teach Us about X ? |journal=Publications of the Modern Language Association of America |date=May 1995 |volume=110 |issue=3 |pages=343–349 |doi=10.1632/S003081290005937X |s2cid=155177456 }}</ref> and Butler, have warned that defining it or conceptualizing it as an academic field might only lead to its inevitable misinterpretation or destruction, since its entire purpose is to critique academia rather than become a formal academic domain itself.<ref name="Jagose">{{cite book |last1=Jagose |first1=Annamarie |title=Queer Theory: An Introduction |date=1996 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-4234-1 |page=1 }}</ref>

Fundamentally, queer theory does not construct or defend any particular identity, but instead, grounded in [[post-structuralism]] and [[deconstruction]], it works to actively critique [[heteronormativity]], exposing and breaking down traditional assumptions that sexual and gender identities are presumed to be [[heterosexual]] or [[cisgender]].<ref name="SAGE"/><ref name="Jagose"/>