Desire Lines: ‘Queering’ Health and Social Welfare

Abstract

This article considers how knowledge about lesbians and gay men is produced in health and social welfare texts. It looks at the consequences of a reliance upon the liberal 'ethnic model' of sexuality. The authors provide a critique of 'anti-discriminatory practice' versions of sexuality categories which, in their view, assert the liberal model at the expense of ideas found in the sociological traditions of gay liberation, lesbian feminist, interactionist and queer/postmodern theories. Through a queer reading of health and social welfare texts specifically addressed to sexuality, the article considers the hierarchy of sexual knowledges which promote heteronormativity; the reliance upon fixed identity models of sexuality; the functionalist view of a "gay culture"; the silencing of lesbian feminism; and the traditionally gendered and fetishistic versions of 'the lesbian' produced. The authors argue against merely 'adding in' lesbians and gay men, and in terms of practice, encourage a reflexive engagement by all practitioners with the ways in which these dominant discourses concerning sexuality populate and discipline knowledges within health and social welfare.

Facilitating LGBT Medical, Health and Social Care Content in Higher Education Teaching

“…Prevailing approaches to LGBT people in medical, health and social care education have tended to position heterosexuality and gender normativity -people conforming to dominant social standards of 'appropriate' feminine and masculine behavior -as the primary context in which health and illness is viewed. A small amount of research has shown that patterns of healthcare which endorse some forms of sexuality and gender identity over others can create pedagogical environments in which gender stereotypes and heteronormativity -the cultural bias favoring opposite-sex over same-sex sexual relationships -result in LGBT people becoming 'add ins,' (Hicks & Watson, 2003) or special cases, if and when they are considered at all. For example, one area that is unremitting in health-focused literature is sexual health and sexual health promotion for gay and bisexual men, especially in the area of HIV.…”

Absent but present: a critical analysis of the representation of sexuality in recent youth policy in the UK

“…For example, at a macro level, key issues arise concerning the development and implementation of youth policy in the context of sexuality where different countries are part of a global movement with regard to youth and indeed part of wider discourses of the globalisation and cultural politics of childhood and youth (Prescott and Hartill 2008). Similarly, at a micro level, practitioners face and have to manage the challenge of working with young people in a policy environment where sexuality is either completely absent or 'preferred' expressions of sexuality are promoted over others (Hicks and Watson 2003). This poses the question as to how they are able to work in ways that ensure that all young people they work with are supported in the authorship of their sexual stories and the development of their sexual identities.…”

The Lies That Bind: Heteronormative Constructions of “Family” in Social Work Discourse

“…Queer theory is willing to investigate and imagine manifestations of sexuality, gender, desire, relationalities, politics, and experiences that are not tethered or prescripted by the idea of having a "real," self-owned, sexual identity, but these queer explorations are conspicuously missing from social work research on sexuality (Hicks 2008;Hicks & Watson, 2003). Queer theory's formidable move primarily occurred in the humanities, leaving the social and applied sciences in a binding limbo between modern and postmodern notions of reality and selfhood;…”

“…In his article, Thinking Through Sexuality, Steven Hicks (2008) submits that social work's attempts to include LGBTQ family research also tends to reify fixed sexual identity typologies, which affirm and entrench the constraints of the hetero/homo binary construction, which "is itself a homophobic production" (Halperin, 1995, p. 44) in that it naturalizes and privileges the unmarked heterosexual position. This essentializing and potentially divisive "anti-discrimination model" (Thompson, 1993 as cited in Hicks & Watson, 2003;Hicks, 2008) acts upon its subjects in a way that renders these families and these sexualities as marginalized, static entities, promoting homogeneity while also producing and perpetuating, unflinching heteronormative dominance (Butler, 1990;Elia, 2003;Fish, 2008;Halperin, 1995;Hicks, 2008;Jeyasingham, 2008). According to the "anti-discrimination" framework, "resolution of the 'problem' of homosexuality is to be found through gradual legal and civil change, resulting in assimilation" (Hicks, 2008, p "Social work and social welfare literature and practice are far from being socially neutral or limited to technical interventions; they are deeply implicated in the construction of power relations in sexuality" (O'Brien, 1999, p. 151), and since it has been illustrated that sexuality is so intrinsic to the construction of family discourse, it can be similarly posited that social work is also "deeply implicated" in the power relations present in contemporary productions of "family.…”