In this course we’ve analyzed the manifold ways that U.S. society has surveilled, policed, regulated, and punished sexualities that don’t conform to patriarchal and heteronormative exigencies. We’ve examined how laws, policies, police practices, and social mores—including media, cultural, and marketing representations—have implicitly or explicitly subjugated, denigrated, or exploited members of the queer community, women, and gender minorities. To end this class on a positive note, your final assignment will be to analyze the flip-side of the coin.
Choose a specific activist organization or leader, policy initiative, or media text that has challenged, subverted, or posited an alternative to repressive patriarchal and heteronormative patterns of thinking. Consider how your chosen research subject has worked to help liberate or extend the rights of members of historically repressed groups.
