Since its appearance in the early 1990s, queer theory has been first and foremost characterised by the problematisation of stable normative identity categories, stressing that the concepts of gender, sex and sexuality do not have to be necessarily related. While most scholars working on queer theory often focus on its potential to redefine both heteronormative and homonormative paradigms of gender identity as well as on a pervading fascination with ‘gender performativity’ (Butler 1990, 1993), only a few have explicitly noticed the transatlantic component in the genesis of queer theory. Besides acknowledging such interdisciplinary coalition, the present contribution explores other discourses, such as (non-white) lesbian feminism, that have been queerly silenced in an attempt to de-center the rapid globalisation and Westernisation of queer studies.
