Queer property, queer persons: Self-ownership and beyond

The primary focus of this article is the relationship between property and personality with reference to the specific form of transgression offered by queer theory, that is, transgression of the conventional boundaries of sex ual identity and desire. Feminists have strongly challenged the gendered na ture of personal relations expressed through property - the association of masculinity with the position of proprietor and femininity with the positio n of object of property, which in its turn relies upon a fixed opposition b etween subject and object. It is argued here that attention to certain aspe cts of queer theory and praxis offers a further ground of critique and the potential for reconfiguration of these fundamental relationships.