 Only partly, however, in that Queer and Now also sees a critical impulse in survival and ensuring the survival of lesbian and gay children, an impulse Fear of a Queer Planet addresses only through its comments on the 'buffer zone' politics practiced previous to its publication. 
	Queer and Now addresses queer survival; what survival means in the wake of queer, queer in the wake of survival, by which means the queer subject is threatened and for what reasons. 
To that end, deconstruction is employed. For example, the essay deconstructs traditional notions of the family and sexual identity to better delineate at what points does the queer identity exactly disagree and upset alignments and, with a larger focus, how queer can be understood as a site in which concepts like sexual identity are deconstructed and made unstable. This is capitalized by a reflection of queer as a speech act, a linguistic expression that signifies an action through utterance. 

This stands in heavy contrast to Sedgwick's queer subject, who, though political, is typified more by personal dissatisfaction and resistance to aligned and non-deconstructed modes of existence. 
	  Although Fear of a Queer Planet and Queer and Now both champion deconstruction and understand queer to be an identity marker of a deconstructive existence, the texts display surprising disagreements about the role of queer theory. Some of this is to be expected, one text uses the personal to advance theories on the political while the other almost unilaterally concerns politics; however, Fear of a Queer Planet understands queerness unilaterally as a political identity while Queer and Now focuses on applications of the identity among a variety of subjects who are only linked by a personal dissatisfaction with a rigid mode of existence relative to dominant society. Furthermore, while Queer and Now has a powerful focus on queer survival, Fear of a Queer Planet rejects survival and expect queer to mount attacks on heteronormativity.


Queer theory, despite its relative youth in academia, has nevertheless attracted a multitude of critiques, most of which focus on the material realities of queer and material constructions of the queer subject. Two studies, Punks, Bulldaggers and Welfare Queens; and “Quare” Studies, have exemplified this approach, examining the ways in which queer interacts with a variety of non-white, lower class subjects, though major differences lie in the externality of the subject to queer between the two texts. However, queer theorists may find a rejoinder in prioritizing non-heterosexual subjects and the inherent instability to queer as an identity category.
	Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens locates its critical thrust within problematizing binary constructions that place queer and heterosexuality at opposing poles. Cohen argues that this dichotomy misrepresents the topographies of marginalization and dominance within heterosexuality; that race, gender, and class are critical elements of heterosexual interpellation, that politics founded on single characteristics stifle the 'liberatory, tranformative, and radical potential of queer', which should focus on developing a politics in awareness of the ways in which 'race, gender, and class' can marginalize heterosexuals. 
