A discussion at Wednesday night’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Ally Alliance meeting covered controversial topics, ranging from the possibility of a sexuality studies course at Iowa State to whether “queer” is an appropriate reference to the gay community.

Beth Loffreda, assistant professor of English, lectured about queer theory, a concept that stems in part from post-modernist thought. Queer theory acknowledges that human beings live in a world in which biology, gender and sexual desire are supposed to line up uniformly.

Queer theory also touches on gender stereotypes, including that the male role is to dominate sexually, and the female role is to be passive sexually.

“Queer theory takes that belief and investigates it,” Loffreda said. She added that queer theory examines the simplistic system of labeling people by their sexual orientation.

Loffreda discussed the use of the word “queer,” which, like other formerly negative epithets, has been adopted by some members of the gay community as a positive term.

“The word ‘queer’ has become a term of choice,” she said. “Queer is taking a word that has been used to demonize people. It’s very in-your-face.”

Loffreda acknowledged that not all members of the gay community approve of the term.

She mentioned that although “queer” is supposedly intended to be an “umbrella” term to encompass all members of the gay community, other minorities in the gay community often get overlooked.

She also said in organizations like Queer Nation, which predominantly consists of white males, “It is tough for a lesbian woman to get heard.”

She compared the problems some members of the gay community are now having to similar issues faced by women of color when feminism first became popularized.

Loffreda said even though feminism was intended to include all women, it became something that was represented only by white females.

Loffreda said since queer theory is all-encompassing in its views on sex, that she questions queer theorists’ feelings about practices that have been traditionally considered sexually deviant.

“Queer is political … [certain] things are usually considered either right or wrong. That’s the nature of politics,” she said. “Rape sure doesn’t sound like something you’d like to dub ‘queer’ and celebrate.”

The topic of an ISU queer studies program also was broached.

Loffreda said the studies program would take time to procure, but that “There is no reason, other than bureaucracy, why you can’t make it happen.”