Showing papers on "Heteronormativity published in 2018"

Looking back into trans persons’ experiences in heteronormative secondary physical education contexts

Abstract: Background: School is one of the primary settings where non-gender conformer children and adolescents emerge as vulnerable groups at high risk of suffering violence and harassment. Within schooling contexts, embodied experiences in physical education (PE) may become particularly problematic for trans students. However, there is little research focusing on trans persons’s experiences in PE. The purpose of this paper is to gather memories and impressions of a group of adult trans persons on their experiences in secondary PE.Theoretical framework: The concept of heteronormativity is used as a theoretical framework to provide insights and understanding to trans persons’s experiences in PE. It is used to characterize inequalities and hierarchies derived from the intersection of the dualistic logic of gender binarism with other social categories and ideologies. Heteronormative discourses also act regulating the way of looking at and over trans persons’ bodies, categorizing some of them as queer or abjec...

The organisation of sexuality and the sexuality of organisation: A genealogical analysis of sexual ‘inclusive exclusion’ at work

Abstract: This article problematises sexual inclusion in the workplace by theorising the social and historical processes that underpin heteronormativity in organisations. Drawing on a genealogical analysis o...

Too Many Boxes, or Not Enough? Preferences for How We Ask About Gender in Cisgender, LGB, and Gender-Diverse Samples

Abstract: As U.S. society has become more aware of gender identity issues, there has been a push for more inclusive demographic categories that go beyond the traditional gender binary of male/female. In three studies, we assessed the attitudes of U.S. cisgender men and women across sexual orientations (Study 1), heterosexual cisgender men and women (Study 2), cisgender LGB men and women (Study 3), and transgender and gender non-binary individuals across sexual orientations (Study 3) regarding different formats of gender questionnaires. Studies 2 and 3 showed a strong overall preference for the non-binary formats. Across all three studies, preferences for the binary format and objections to the non-binary formats were related to gender-binary beliefs, distinctiveness threat, cisgender and mostly heterosexual male participants, conservative political orientation, and religiosity. These findings suggest that general opposition to utilizing non-binary formats may be influenced by institutionalized binary gender norms and heteronormativity. Across both cisgender and gender-diverse samples, most participants preferred a non-binary gender question format, and gender-diverse individuals overwhelmingly preferred the expanded format. We suggest that those who collect gender data use the expanded format in order to be more inclusive and allow gender-diverse individuals to identify themselves if they choose to do so.

Still getting it on online: Thirty years of queer male spaces brokered through digital technologies

Abstract: Research across the social sciences testifies to an ongoing relationship between queerness and digital technology This article tracks how different online spaces for queer men have changed as the internet has developed over the past 30 years It argues that queer spaces have become increasingly dominated by, and predicated on, internet technology I review early interpretations of cyberspace as a liberatory space freed from heteronormativity and later more critical assessments of its potential, positioning arguments for and against the internet's status as a protective space I then evaluate the huge popularity of mobile phone-based dating and hook-up apps such as Grindr and Tinder These platforms have developed from static desktop offerings including Gaydar and PlanetRomeo, but emphasise a distinctly hybridised socio-technical experience in partner seeking Finally, I consider the impact of locative media on more traditional queer concepts of cruising and community, concluding that contemporary apps refigure both structures in distinctive ways reflecting larger changes in sexuality and space studies

Sexual violence against men in global politics

Abstract: INTRODUCTION - Sexual Violence Against Men in Global Politics Marysia Zalewski, Paula Drumond, Elisabeth Prugl, and Maria Stern "Tribulations" - Poem by Nziza D.Harouna SECTION 1: PROVOCATIONS Chapter 1 - Provocations in Debates about Sexual Violence against Men Marysia Zalewski Chapter 2 - Battle-Induced Urotrauma, Sexual Violence, and American Servicemen Chris Hendershot Chapter 3 - Masculinity, Men and Sexual Violence in the U.S. Military Elizabeth Mesok Chapter 4 - Languages of Castration - Male genital mutilation in conflict and its embedded messages Henri Myrttinen Chapter 5 - Medical Approaches to Sexual Violence in War, in Guidelines and in Practice Caroline Cottet Chapter 6 - The Political Economy of Sexual Violence Against Men and Boys in Armed Conflict Sara Meger Reflections Reflections on Sexual Violence Against Men and Boys in Global Politics Paul Higate and Nivi Manchanda Homo Interruptus Paul Kirby Can Our Intellectual Curiosity on Gender Cause Harm? Madeline Rees Gender, Sex and Sexual Violence Against Men Laura J. Shepherd Not for the faint of heart: reflections on rape, gender, and conflict Lara Stemple SECTION 2: FRAMING Chapter 7 - Uncovering Men's Narratives of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence Michele Leiby Chapter 8 - Sex, Violence and Heteronormativity: Re-visiting performances of sexual violence against men in former Yugoslavia Paula Drumond Chapter 9 - "Only a fool..." Why Men Don't Disclose Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in an Age of Global Media Chris Dolan Chapter 10 - Masculine subjectivities in United Nations discourse on gender violence (1970-2015): perpetrators, allies, and victims Gizeh Becerra Chapter 11 - Sexual Violence or torture? The Framing of Sexual Violence against Men in armed conflict in Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch Reports Thomas Charman Chapter 12 - Conflict-related Sexual Violence Against Men and the International Criminal Jurisprudence Patricia Viseur Sellers and Leo Nwoye Reflections Familiar Stories, the Policing of Knowledge and Other Challenges Ahead Maria Eriksson Baaz Reflections on the Slippery Politics of Framing Harriet Gray Male Victims: A blind spot in law Charu Hogg Sexual Violence Against Men and Boys in the Congo Ilot Muthaka SGBV Against Men and Boys as a Site of Theoretical and Political Contestation Jill Steans "People you May Know" - Poem by Kevin Kantor

Advancing Gendered Analyses of Entrepreneurship: A Critical Exploration of Entrepreneurial Activity among Gay Men and Lesbian Women

Abstract: This paper advances contemporary gendered analyses of entrepreneurial activity by exploring self-employment amongst gay men and lesbian women. Within current entrepreneurial debate, heterosexual women have become the visible embodiment of the gendered subject. Our contribution is to queer this assumption when focusing upon the entrepreneurial activity of gays and lesbians. Our core question investigates if ‘there is evidence of differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals in their likelihood of being entrepreneurially active?’ To address this question, we contrast competing notions of gender stereotypes and discrimination whilst drawing on findings from a large-scale population-based study of 163,000 UK adults. We find few differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals; this persists after examining intersectional patterns and considering if gay and lesbian entrepreneurs choose particular sectors, geographies or forms of self-employment. As our discussion highlights, the value of this study lies within its critique of contemporary analyses of gender which assume it is an end point rather than a foundation for analysing gender as a multiplicity.

The no-go zone: a qualitative study of access to sexual and reproductive health services for sexual and gender minority adolescents in Southern Africa.

Abstract: Adolescents have significant sexual and reproductive health needs. However, complex legal frameworks, and social attitudes about adolescent sexuality, including the values of healthcare providers, govern adolescent access to sexual and reproductive health services. These laws and social attitudes are often antipathetic to sexual and gender minorities. Existing literature assumes that adolescents identify as heterosexual, and exclusively engage in (heteronormative) sexual activity with partners of the opposite sex/gender, so little is known about if and how the needs of sexual and gender minority adolescents are met. In this article, we have analysed data from fifty in-depth qualitative interviews with representatives of organisations working with adolescents, sexual and gender minorities, and/or sexual and reproductive health and rights in Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Sexual and gender minority adolescents in these countries experience double-marginalisation in pursuit of sexual and reproductive health services: as adolescents, they experience barriers to accessing LGBT organisations, who fear being painted as “homosexuality recruiters,” whilst they are simultaneously excluded from heteronormative adolescent sexual and reproductive health services. Such barriers to services are equally attributable to the real and perceived criminalisation of consensual sexual behaviours between partners of the same sex/gender, regardless of their age. The combination of laws which criminalise consensual same sex/gender activity and the social stigma towards sexual and gender minorities work to negate legal sexual and reproductive health services that may be provided. This is further compounded by age-related stigma regarding sexual activity amongst adolescents, effectively leaving sexual and gender minority adolescents without access to necessary information about their sexuality and sexual and reproductive health, and sexual and reproductive health services.

To the Barricades or the Blackboard: Bioethical Activism and the "Stance of Neutrality"

Abstract: Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister famously dismissed a meeting with a group of medical royal college leaders as Ba mere trade union delegation.^ This was, of course, an affront to their professional status and dignity. It also provided a brutal lesson in the boundaries of professional authority in the eyes of government when what might be termed the Bstance of neutrality^ strays, perhaps unintentionally, into the political arena (however misguided the PM of the time might have been in her perceptions). In their editorial in this edition, Dawson and colleagues (2018) have posited the view that bioethics cannot stand by in a neutral Bacademic stance^ when it is confronted by abuses of human rights. They therefore question the concept of a Bneutral stance^ as an accepted norm in bioethics, largely derived from the academic Socratic tradition of even-handed enquiry and normative standards. In the last editorial in this journal (Ashby and Morrell 2018), we commented on the positioning of bioethicists in the wider scientific world and questioned whether they were sometimes embedded in the subject they were commenting on and therefore in some way no longer neutral. Dawson et al. now open up another important dimension of the Bgaze^ of the bioethicist: the academic activist. This role has the potential to generate conflicts for bioethicists themselves and their various audiences. The problem is that without a clear boundary between academic analysis and political engagement, the field risks losing its authority, primarily with governments and regulators, but also with other members of the academy and wider society. A non-political and dispassionate stance in bioethics gives the field a certain detached authority that is usually endorsed by governments and regulatory bodies. This is certainly the case with normative medical and health professional ethics, with particular regard to the codes of practice. These engender moral authority and, by setting clear standards and boundaries of practice and conduct, represent lines in the sand that can be respected by nearly all parties. The problem of neutrality comes into sharp focus at the hazy intersection between normative ethics and ethics as a field of argumentation. In this sense ethics Bioethical Inquiry (2018) 15:479–482 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-018-9887-0

Working with the Complexity and Refusing to Simplify: Undocuqueer Meaning Making at the Intersection of LGBTQ and Immigrant Rights Discourses.

Abstract: This study brings gender, sexuality, and immigration status, and their conceptual margins, to the center of analysis via the narratives of 31 self-identified undocuqueer immigrants. Undocuqueer immigrants ascribe meaning to their experiences by producing alternate subjectivities and subject positions that resist multiple axes of oppression. These subjectivities problematize the exclusionary repercussions of single axis identity categorization that mostly benefit those who already have some structural privileges. Undocuqueer as a form of resistance to essentialized identity discourses was evidenced in participant’s opposition to heteronormative, homonormative, and DREAMer discourses. This study has implications for further understanding the way that queer politics and identity interact with various axes of inequality.

Invisible Desires in Ghana and Kenya: Same-Sex Erotic Experiences in Cross-Sex Oriented Lives

Abstract: This article explores the tension between same-sex sexual practices and eroticism, on the one hand, and theoretical investigations on sexual diversity, on the other. The author’s analysis is based ...

'Staying in the mess': gender, sexuality and queer heterotopic space in Sarah Waters’s neo-historical narratives

Abstract: This thesis investigates the way Sarah Waters engages in queer spatiality as well as queer temporality in her historical fiction. Drawing on and extending Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, a space that is established within society but is able to contest its authority, this thesis argues that Waters’s characters create heterotopic spaces where their desire for queer fulfilment is, if partially and temporarily, achieved. Chapters Two through Five discuss how Waters utilises various types of space to articulate her gender and sexual politics, to call into question heteronormative authority that confines her characters, and to contribute to the creation of heterotopic space that allows the characters’ fulfilment of queer desire: the theatre and space of alternative kinship in Tipping the Velvet (Chapter Two), Italy and metatextual space in Affinity (Chapter Three), the bedroom and the library in Fingersmith (Chapter Three), the kitchen in The Paying Guests (Chapter Four), London during the blitz in The Night Watch (Chapter Four), and a country house in The Little Stranger (Chapter Five). Chapter Six aims to bring all of Waters’s novels together to discuss the queer potential of her queer characters’ act of walking the city to challenge the heteronormativity which abounds in the streets of London. In my Conclusion/Coda, I will consider the possibility of widening the scope of neo-Victorian/historical fiction by analysing The Handmaiden, a film adaptation of Fingersmith set in 1930s Korea. Discussion of the temporal and geographical gaps between Fingersmith and The Handmaiden provides an apt opportunity to return to the key concern of this thesis with the importance of queer spatiality and temporality in Waters’s novels. This thesis addresses Waters’s distinct use of space in understanding the link between her characters’ creation of queer heterotopic space and their yearning for a hopeful future, which is the contemporary reader’s present.

"Flabulously" femme: Queer fat femme women's identities and experiences.

Abstract: This article explores how queer fat femme women experience, negotiate, and resist heteronormativity, misogyny, and fatphobia, alongside other intersecting oppressions. By analyzing fat femmes' narratives presented in blogs and personal essays, this article examines themes including: the role of femme in fat queers (re)claiming femininities, the masculinizing and/or feminizing effects of "fatness" for queer femmes, the mutual constitution of fatphobia and femmephobia, femme fa(t)shion, fat femme (in)visibility, and the importance of intersectional conceptions of queer fat femininities. In doing so, this article argues that "queer fat femme" subjectivities offer fat and femme queers unique and significant opportunities for articulating resistant subjectivities, creating communities, and challenging oppressions.

Interpersonal violence and abuse in young people's relationships in five European countries: online and offline normalisation of heteronormativity

Abstract: Qualitative interviews with 91 young people aged 13–18 in Bulgaria, Cyprus, England, Italy and Norway explored their experiences of intimate partner violence and abuse (IPVA). Some young women experienced extensive offline sexual pressure and young women were substantially more negatively affected by IPVA than young men. The data revealed that online space has created new mechanisms of control and surveillance that can intensify the impact of offline abuse. Analysing the data in the light of existing theories of cultural violence and coercive control, we explore both the normalising influence of prevailing heteronormative models of femininity and masculinity as well as young people’s agency to resist such normalisation.

Same-Sex Marriage and the Assimilationist Dilemma: A Research Agenda on Marriage Equality and the Future of LGBTQ Activism, Politics, Communities, and Identities.

Abstract: This special issue of the Journal of Homosexuality, examines the impact of the marriage equality movement and the resulting landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision, Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) that legalized same-sex marriage in the U.S., on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) activism, politics, communities, and identities. The articles in this issue examine the complicated ways in which the discourse used in same-sex marriage court cases is related to heteronormative discursive frames; the lived reality of married same-sex couples and the complex ways in which they think about marriage and heteronormativity; the ways that heteronormativity is racialized, which affects how African Americans perceive the impact of same-sex marriage on their lives; how same-sex marriage has influenced public opinion and the likelihood of anti-gay backlash; and the impact of same-sex marriage on family law. In this article, I draw on the empirical research from these articles to develop a theoretical framework that expands a multi-institutional (MIP) approach to understanding social movements and legal change. I build on and develop three conceptual tools: the assimilationist dilemma, discursive integration and cooptation, and truth regime. I conclude by laying out an agenda for future research on the impact of same-sex marriage on LGBTQ movements, politics, identities, and communities.

Coming out Through an Intersectional Perspective: Narratives of Bisexuality and Polyamory in Italy

Abstract: Through an intersectional perspective, the author analyzes what it means to perform a bisexual and polyamorous identity in the Italian familistic welfare regime. Considering the intersections of po...

Experiences in bullying and/or peer victimization of vulnerable, marginalized, and oppressed children and adolescents: An introduction to the special issue.

Abstract: This is an introduction to the special issue "Bullying and Peer Victimization of Vulnerable, Marginalized, and Oppressed Youth." The study findings included in this special issue reveal that bias-based bullying and harassment are global social problems. Each article identifies suggestions for interventions, policy, and future research. Each study presented in this special issue contributes to the bullying and school violence scholarship, which can provide avenues for serious discussions on best ways to address not only bullying but also racism, sexism, heteronormativity, homophobia, ableism, classism, and Eurocentrism, all of which accompany bias-based bullying. (PsycINFO Database Record

Becoming intelligible woman: Gender, disability and resistance at the border zone of youth.

Abstract: This paper considers young disabled women navigating ableist and heteronormative constructs of adult womanhood. We consider adult womanhood at the embodied intersection of gender, sexuality and dis/ability (categories themselves mediated by race, class, coloniality, etc.). For young disabled women, questions of gender and sexuality were more often than not denied. Gendered and sexual identities were therefore politically and strategically used to claim "adult" and "woman." Yet, such identities often felt restricted to binary gendered frameworks. Already positioned through ableism as non-normative, to exist outside of heteronormativity felt dangerous, risking paternalism and non-consensual bodily intervention. Drawing on the cases of Ashley X and Marie Adams, we argue that these dangers are often more severe for those with labels of intellectual impairment and/or considered to have the most "severe" impairments. Adulthood needs to be understood, not as a natural state of development (the endpoint of youth), but as a heteronormative and ableist socio-cultural-political construct, as well as a complex site of negotiation, conflict and resistance, which (differently) restricts how young people are able to become in the world. We fill a gap in scholarship by exploring the intersection of critical disability studies, crip theory and youth studies from a feminist perspective.

Challenging Heteronormativity: Creating a Safe and Inclusive Environment for LGBTQ Students.

Abstract: Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) youth face hostile and exclusionary learning environments. A qualitative phenomenographic method involving semistructured intervie...

Gay and grey: participatory action research in Hong Kong:

Abstract: This article examines how a research project transformed into participatory action research (PAR) whose outcome was a self-help group for older (60+) gay men in Hong Kong. The overall process witnessed a change in the level of participation by both the researcher and researched, as well as the social transformation of the participants and production of knowledge on Chinese homosexuality. Most importantly, the morph into PAR can be seen as a process whereby the participants took control and felt empowered. By bridging the gap between queer studies and PAR, this research rethinks three power issues embedded in the research process: the power relation between researcher and researched, that between participants and the major form of oppression in queer lives, i.e. heteronormativity, and the knowledge–power relation in the formulation of Chinese homosexuality.

Language and Sexual Normativity

Abstract: This chapter highlights the role of the concept of normativity in language and sexuality studies. It is argued that normativity has played a central role in this field, even if as a largely undertheorized concept. The theoretical discussion of normativity is advanced by conceptualizing norms as discursive formations and by distinguishing prescriptive from descriptive norms as well as normative mechanisms on the social micro-level from those on the social macro-level. Central patterns that are involved in the discursive construction of various sexual normativity types are outlined, namely heteronormativity (i.e., the notion that a particular version of heterosexuality is natural or preferable), homonormativity (i.e., normative notions of how gay men and lesbian women are supposed to be), and other sexual normativities. The concluding section discusses potential agendas for language and sexuality scholars in terms of changes in sexual normativities.

‘Poison ivy’: Queer masculinities, sexualities, homophobia and sexual violence:

Abstract: This paper critically engages with notions of sexualities and male rape, using the concepts of heteronormativity and the social construction of sexualities to make sense of male sexual victimizatio...

Violating Gender Norms in the Canadian Military: the Experiences of Gay and Lesbian Soldiers

Abstract: Militaries are men-dominated and value a heteronormative masculine warrior ideal (Kaplan, 2003). Soldiers, however, are not necessarily heterosexual and men, nor do they always embody the prescribed warrior ideal. How the values related to hyper-masculinity and heteronormativity influence the experiences of gay and lesbian soldiers is an empirical question. In the present study, the Psycho-Social Ethnography of the Commonplace (P-SEC; Gouliquer & Poulin, 2005) methodology was used to investigate how the institutions of heterosexuality and the Canadian military shape gay and lesbian soldiers’ experiences. Interviews with 10 lesbian and 10 gay soldiers were conducted and analysed. The findings reveal that lesbian and gay soldiers face fairly widespread discrimination in the military environment. They must contend with the institutional demands to meet the requirements of a hyper-masculine-heteronormative soldier ideal. Gender differences are highlighted and social policy recommendations are discussed.

Male‐Partnered Bisexual Women's Perceptions of Disclosing Sexual Orientation to Family Across the Transition to Parenthood: Intensifying Heteronormativity or Queering Family?

Abstract: Drawing from queer and communication privacy management frameworks, this study examines the narratives of 22 bisexual, male-partnered women who were interviewed during the perinatal period and one year postnatally about their disclosures of sexual identity to family of origin. Most women rarely discussed their sexual identity with family; participants who had disclosed described such disclosures as provoking discomfort. Some women stated that their parental status seemed to invalidate the need to talk about their sexual history or identity with family, due its declining salience and increased concerns about judgment. This study reveals how partnership and parenthood statuses contribute to the intensification of heteronormative pressures in relation to family. Therapists should attend to the role of heteronormative values regarding partnering, family-building, and parenting.

Heteronormativity and sexuality politics in Singapore: the female-headed households of divorced and lesbian mothers:

Abstract: This article explores the family practices of female-headed households in Singapore, specifically, those of lesbian and divorced mothers as they negotiate the entrenched normative orders of sexuali...

Bodies out of place: Black queer students negotiating identity at the University of Cape Town

Abstract: The issue of racial identity and belonging appears to be foregrounded in current struggles around the transformation of higher education in South Africa. However, current debates about belonging as well as critiques of the masculinist nature of sectors of the student movement have drawn stark attention to the complexities of subjectivity. Intersectional subjectivities have been highlighted. This paper attends to the narratives of seven black queer students and their negotiations of identity at an historically white university in South Africa amid struggles around transformation/decolonisation. We employ the Photovoice method where participants produce photo-narratives around their identities as black queer persons. Our analysis reveals not only the extent to which participants’ experiences illustrate their struggles around belonging in a space not historically ‘theirs’ but also the extent to which their narratives are potentially transformative and challenge representations of them and their lives.

Masculinities, Sexualities and Love

Abstract: It can be said that societies today know little of how gender, sexuality and love interconnect in dissimilar contexts, and how they are collectively shaped by social structures. Underpinned by the theoretical writings of Michel Foucault, Masculinities, Sexualities and Love examines a range of empirical data, including interviews with gay and bisexual men, to understand the ways in which love is constructed and conceptualized. Clearly written, the book is grounded in personal narratives and intimate stories of love, hurt, pain and heartbreak, including the author’s own experiences; and analysed using theoretical frameworks such as hegemonic masculinity, heteronormativity, and post-structuralism. Furthermore, the reader will also find insightful discourse analysis of popular films, such as Fifty Shades of Grey and The Girl on the Train, to examine the construction of love through film. Forming a timely intervention, Masculinities, Sexualities and Love offers a fresh perspective on the sociology of love and will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as Gender and Sexuality Studies, Cultural Studies and Sociology.

The persistence of policies of protection in LGBTQ research & advocacy

Abstract: Schools across the United States have taken up the task of ‘protecting’ lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth, but their reliance on identity-based antidiscrimination policies...