Identity Politics: Limits of Postmodernism and Queer Theory

Abstract

In 1993, a 31-year-old Canadian female disclosed that she had once been sexually abused as a ninth grader by one of her female high school teachers. Cavanagh (2008) deconstructs the details of the situation and other related cases in her article, “Sex in the Lesbian Teacher’s Closet: The Hybrid Proliferation of Queers in School.” Instead of being troubled by the unequal dimensions of power and authority behind teacher and student relationships, which contributes to the flourishing of conditions for sexual harassment, Cavanagh targets “child protectionist” discourse as the source of the problem:

Queer time does not respect chronological age and generational differences that organize thought about the “child,” the “teen,” and the “adult.” Part of what it means to be queer is to upset heterosexual life-stages. The coming-of-age stories we tell about who we are authenticate our gender identities and naturalize our sexual orientations. Queer tales of seduction in school upset the nature and linearity of heterosexual life-stories; they are out of time and place, rendered perverse, abusive, and criminal, (p. 389)