Sexualities

Bathrooms, Boundaries, and Emotional Burdens: Cisgendering Interactions Through the Interpretation of Transgender Experience

“…The fluctuation between referring to Lisa as a woman and as someone “dressing up like a girl,” and then as “they” demonstrates the uncertainty many respondents felt about the “true” gender of the fictional person Lisa, even though all interviewers referred to her as “she.” Furthermore, this quote demonstrates dominant heteronormative assumptions (Schrock, Sumerau, and Ueno ) that if Lisa was “dressing up like a girl” she would also be inappropriately “looking” and “peeking” at the respondent through bathroom doors—a common conflation of transgender people with sexual deviants (Westbrook and Schilt ). Consequently, this respondent suggests Lisa should be apologetic and understanding that others will make this assumption.…”

“Oh My God, I Sound Like a Horrible Person”: Generic Processes in the Conditional Acceptance of Sexual and Gender Diversity

“…Echoing homonormative assertions originally promoted by LG churches in the 1960s (Wilcox ), respondents suggested that people who could not help being different might be okay, which also suggested anyone who could would (and perhaps should) choose to be heterosexual (Warner ). In so doing, they tolerated LGB existence by framing it as an uncontrollable defect from heterosexual nature or supremacy (Schrock, Sumerau, and Ueno ).…”

“…Similar to cisgender men who benefit from gender inequality while arguing it is not their problem (Ridgeway ) and white people who benefit from racial inequality that they argue is not their problem (Collins ), respondents who benefit from cis ‐mono‐hetero normativities (Schrock, Sumerau, and Ueno ) ignored their privileged position by defining the problems their privilege creates as not their responsibility to do anything about. In so doing, they symbolically claim to care, but stop short of taking any concrete responsibility for changing patterns they admit are unequal.…”

Foreclosing Fluidity at the Intersection of Gender and Sexual Normativities

“…Like lesbian/gay people, sexually fluid people experience systemic patterns of heteronormativity (Moss ). An ideology that requires belief in cisgender masculine and feminine natures created for the purposes of essential, natural, and static heterosexuality, heteronormativity is built into every major social structure and interactional pattern (Schrock, Sumerau, and Ueno ). An ever‐present force, much like other normative societal patterns (Sumerau, Cragun, and Mathers ), heteronormativity relies upon the assumption that same and multiple sex sexual desire and activity are deviant and inferior; it also relies upon societal patterns of sexism (Wolkomir ), transphobia (Schilt and Westbrook ), homophobia (Adams ), biphobia (Moss ), and compulsory monogamy (Schippers ) (For discussion of the connections between these normative systems, see Eisner ; Serano ; Schippers ; Sumerau and Mathers 2019).…”

“…While the roles of sexism, transphobia, and homophobia in the operation of heteronormativity have received much attention in sociology (Schrock, Sumerau, and Ueno ), the roles of biphobia and compulsory monogamy (together known as mononormativity, see Barringer, Sumerau, and Gay ) have received much less attention (even in emerging studies seeking to make sense of fluidity, see Silva ; Ward ). These patterns, however, are already implicit in some works.…”