Essentialism of social categories and its consequences on intergroup relations constitute one of the most popular research topics in social psychology. Drawing upon the relevant literature, the present study explores essentialist and de-essentialist representations about homosexual men and their identity functions in discourse. Sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight men who identified themselves as homosexual and eight men who identified themselves as heterosexual. Interviews were analyzed by the use of the principles of discursive psychology and rhetoric. Analysis indicated the coexistence of essentialist and de-essentialist representations of homosexuality in the discourse of both groups as a result of the negotiation and reconceptualization of naturalness, historical stability and normality of social categories. However, similar essentialist representations –suchas the historical stability of homosexuality– perform different intergroup functions, whereas different entitative representations perform common intergroup functions in the discourse of homosexual and heterosexual participants.
The aim of this commentary on the papers that contribute to this special issue is to highlight the main points of convergence between them and to identify the position they take on some key argumentative debates on gender identity, within psychology. It is argued that an approach both to gender identity and to its psychological study as situated in the social context, the need to take into account intersectionality, and resistance to feminization constitute points of convergence between the studies.