Abstract

This work addresses issues of identity categories, particularly sex and gender, and the political operation of these categories as power discourses. It is divided into four chapters. ;Chapter I contains a general discussion of gender and sexuality as categories of identity. It considers how modern relations of domination are internalized into subjectivities based on identity categories. Some of Michel Foucault's theories on the circulation of modern discourses of power are presented. The connections between sex and gender are explored as they have been discussed in recent feminist and gay theory. ;Chapter II considers postmodernism as a methodology for understanding categories of identity and their political deployment in social relations. It addresses the uses and limits of postmodernism for understanding gender and sex. Joan Scott's analysis of the conflict between equality and difference in feminist politics and thought is discussed. Scott shows how postmodernism, particularly deconstruction, can help feminists come to grips with not only the theoretical issues involved in the conflict, but also the political stakes. Other feminist critiques of postmodernism are presented, as well as Linda Alcoff's overview of the various positions. ;Chapter III is a discussion of the bifurcation of sexuality into two categories of identity. The writings of Steven Epstein, Eve Sedgwick, Carole Vance, David Halperin and Diana Fuss are presented on the etiology of sexual identity and its political deployment in modern politics. The essentialist/social constructionist debate as it applies to sexuality is discussed in detail. The discussion of the etiology of sexuality and the strategic use of particular conceptions of identity prepares the way for the last chapter, which is discussion of some recent history of U.S. gay and lesbian political movements. ;Chapter IV focuses on particular occurrences in recent U.S. history where conceptions of sexual identity were advanced, contested and reversed. The 1988 Baltimore Justice Campaign provides an example of an instance when conceptions of sexual identity were advanced and contested, producing particular political outcomes. The chapter ends with a discussion of possible political consequences for differing strategic deployments of identity categories