Queering Gay and Lesbian Studies. Thomas Piontek. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006; 132 pages; ISBN 0-252-07280-4; $33.95US (paper).
Thomas Piontek's Queering Gay and Lesbian Studies is an accessible and engaging study on the development of the tensions between gay and lesbian studies and queer theory. Aligning with current debates within the field, Piontek discusses the ways in which gay and lesbian studies have constructed queer identities and sexualities according to a linear, historical narrative, whereas queer theories generally seek to problematize the notion of a fixed sexual identity. Piontek focuses on the 1969 Stonewall riots, particularly how Stonewall has been articulated as the inauguration of America's gay rights movement. Undeniably, Stonewall acts as an adhesive force, foregrounding pride marches and celebrations, however, as Piontek argues "the rhetorical positioning of Stonewall as an originary historical moment...implies that all gays and lesbians are fundamentally alike and share a common history" (29). He further claims that the commitment to this shared history has resulted in a lim iting discourse within gay and lesbian social movements, rendering them dependent upon heteronorm ative models of identity, rather than allowing for the diversity - of race, class, ability, gender - that queer theory has the potential to offer.
To illustrate the potentialities offered by queer studies, Piontek engages in a dynamic queering of key topics in gay and lesbian studies including HIV/AIDS and the

debates that surround gay male promiscuity, the internalized surveillance of gay male identity, and perform ative drag identities. Revealing that each of these areas has been plagued by heteronormative conceptions of gender fostered from within the gay rights m ovem ent, Piontek argues that gay and lesbian studies' allegiance to fixed gender categories works against "the very legitimation of homosexual subjects that it hopes to effect while contributing to the continued oppression of transsexuals and other queer border dwellers" (80). A queer reading of these topics, then, involves destabilizing binary identities, revealing the m oral agendas that lie beneath gay and lesbian rhetoric, and proliferating public representations of gender, sexuality, and identity. In his final chapter, Piontek turns to practices of BDSM as they have been associated with queer comm unities. Although similarly constructed through lim iting m oralistic doctrines by both gay and lesbian texts and more mainstream discourses, Piontek argues that a queer reading of BDSM offers an alternative to heteronormative and hom onorm ative ideologies as it reconfigures desire as not dependent upon gender (or m ore specifically on genitalia), but rather on the realm of fantasy and artifice. As just one example of how lesbian and gay studies can be queered, this reading of BDSM offers a starting point for discussions of sexuality and identity that do not rely on fixed gender categories but instead reveal their contingency.
The developm ent of restrictive practices within political movements will be familiar to feminists as they recall the numerous times that the women's movement has had (and will continue) to re-invent itself in response to well-versed and much-needed criticisms from those who do not see themselves reflected in both its theory and practice. It was these histories of feminist struggles that nagged me as I read Piontek's text, which both lacked discussion of the issues salient to women, lesbians and trans-persons, and failed to credit the intersections between gay and lesbian studies

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and feminist theory that resulted in queer theory in the first place. Although an interesting and thoughtful read, these absences demonstrate that there is a lot of queering left to do.
Rachel Loewen W alker University of Saskatchewan