Queer Studies
FH JOANNEUM is committed to the equal treatment of queer forms of love and life.
FH JOANNEUM recognises the naturalness of sexual orientations and identities and promotes togetherness and tolerant coexistence.
Lesbians, gays, transgender people, bisexuals, intersexuals, asexuals, HIV-positive people and people with AIDS are often subsumed under the term "queer community"; but this key term comprises all those who are critical of a heteronormative order of hegemonic masculinity. People with different sexual identities, also called LGBIT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Intersexual and Transgender People), continue to be oppressed in many countries of the world. FH JOANNEUM recognises the naturalness of sexual orientations and identities and promotes togetherness and tolerant coexistence.
Students and staff have the right to a safe environment that is free from discrimination and hostility. Queer study and work are an enrichment for the university which respects "queer living". As with gender mainstreaming, in the queer area of life, women/men - with their respective needs, abilities and attributes – should be able to live and work in their own way, without prejudice and with equal rights. The historically loaded term "queer" (still used as an insult in 1950s Britain) has undergone a transformation in the recent past and is now considered an all-encompassing term for gays, lesbians, transgender people, bisexuals, asexuals and intersexuals, as well as for people suffering from HIV+ and AIDS. In queer studies, the term "queer" functions as a critical designation and encompasses all those areas that are outside of a heteronormative order of hegemonic masculinity. It is a concept that questions the hierarchies of social behaviour and ways of life as well as the prevailing order of gender and sexuality.
Initially, scientific questions relating to queer theory were part of gender studies. However, the discourses and results could only be peripherally assigned to the issue of gender, which is why the academic independence of this field was the logical consequence.
The focus of these studies, which cannot be assigned to any single discipline but rather must be understood in the same interdisciplinary way as gender studies, are the spheres of life, power, and action of queer identities. Family, job, work, health, the past and the present as well as psychological questions concerning puberty and subcultural behaviour are the subject of scientific examination. And here, too, the focus can originate from a variety of disciplines in order to capture the diversity of a queer community.
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