Postmodern feminism and queer theory

Although women's struggles for equality and the feminist movement have been in existence since the 17th century, the emergence of postmodern feminism and queer theory, which belong to the third wave of feminism, is much more recent For this reason, academic studies on these movements in Turkey are only recently being conducted. Therefore, this thesis was written in order to contribute to the literature. In the thesis, the relationship of queer theory with postmodern feminist thought is firstly discussed, and then the contents of a queer legal theory are discussed. The first part of this thesis, which is written in three parts, includes the relationship of queer theory with postmodern thought and the postmodern feminist movement and postmodern criticisms of women's identity, while the second part includes the emergence of queer theory, what it is and what it aims to achieve. In this section, where criticisms and views on identity are also examined, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's "The Epistemology of the Closet" and Judith Butler's "The Trouble with Gender", which are considered the fundamental books of queer theory, are also included. In the last section, there are thoughts on what queer legal theory means and what is aimed with this theory. It has been observed that queer legal theory is influenced by both postmodern and liberal ideas, and therefore the contribution of both movements to queer theory has been discussed. However, in this theory, which is found to be mostly driven by postmodern thought in the literature, different views under the influence of postmodernism and thoughts on postmodern feminist legal theory are examined under four headings. After these examinations, queer criticism of international and national legal rules involving human rights and court decisions on sexual orientations and gender identities has been attempted. Keywords Postmodernism, Feminism, Queer Theory, Law, Sex, Sexuality, Gender.