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Saturday, April 22, 2023

Anti-gender movement



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Gender no more": demonstrators from Con mis hijos no te metas during a pro-life march in Lima, 2018
 
Anti–gender protest in Warsaw, Poland
"Gender is death — it kills identity, soul and body": picketing against "gender ideology" in Warsaw, 2014

The anti-gender movement is an international movement which opposes what it refers to as "gender ideology", "gender theory" or "genderism". The concepts cover a variety of issues and have no coherent definition. Members of the anti-gender movement include right-wingers and the far right, right-wing populists, conservatives, and Christian fundamentalists. Members of the anti-gender movement oppose some LGBT rights, some reproductive rights, government gender policies, gender equality, gender mainstreaming and gender studies departments. Anti-gender rhetoric has seen increasing circulation in trans-exclusionary radical feminist discourse since 2016.

The term gender ideology has been described by the academics Stefanie Mayer and Birgit Sauer as an "empty signifier" and by Agnieszka Graff as a "catch-all term for all that conservative Catholics despise". The idea of gender ideology has been described by scholars as a moral panic or conspiracy theory, as it alleges that there is a secret cabal out to undermine society. A report by the European Parliament linked the rise of the anti-gender movement in Europe to disinformation campaigns that are sponsored in large part by Russia.

The movement derives from Catholic theology and can be dated to the late twentieth century, but the protests that brought the movement to attention did not start until around 2012–2013. The historian Andrea Pető states that the anti-gender movement is not a form of classical anti-feminism but instead "a fundamentally new phenomenon that was launched to establish a new world order".

Terminology

The phrase anti-gender is seldom used in English-speaking communities; it is primarily used in other language communities to attach a "foreign" label to progressive policies connected to gender, sexuality, or reproductive freedom.

The concept of gender ideology does not have a coherent definition and covers a variety of issues; for this reason, it has been described by academics Stefanie Mayer and Birgit Sauer as an "empty signifier" and by Agnieszka Graff as a catch-all term "for all that conservative Catholics despise". The term gender ideology and related terms gender theory and genderism, used interchangeably, are not equivalent to the academic discipline of gender studies, within which significant controversies and disagreements exist. Anti-gender proponents are often unaware of these debates and disagreements. Elizabeth Corredor writes: "gender ideology serves as both a political and epistemological counterclaim to emancipatory conceptions of gender, sex, and sexuality". She adds that the anti-gender movement combines "gender ideology" rhetoric with attempts to exploit the existing divisions within LGBT and feminist movements. The movement accuses various actors of being bearers of "gender ideology", including "liberal, green or leftist politicians, women's rights activists, LGBT activists, gender policy officers of public administrations, and gender studies scholars".

Origin theories

There are various theories about when and where the anti-gender movement originated.

International conferences in the mid-1990s

Most scholars studying the anti-gender movement have dated its origins to 1990s discussions within the Catholic Church to counter the results of the United Nations' 1994 International Conference on Population and Development and the 1995 World Conference on Women, following which the UN began to recognize sexual and reproductive rights. The Holy See feared that this recognition would lead to abortion being seen as a human right, delegitimization of motherhood, and the normalization of homosexuality. The term gender "was understood by the Holy See as a strategic means to attack and destabilize the natural family". In 1997, American anti-abortion journalist Dale O'Leary, who is affiliated to the Opus Dei, wrote a book titled The Gender Agenda: "the Gender Agenda sails into communities not as a tall ship, but as a submarine, determined to reveal as little of itself as possible". In Catholic thought, the concept of gender ideology emerged from John Paul II's theology of the body, in which the sexes are held to be different and complementary. Although the ideas of the anti-gender movement were developed by 2003, protests related to the movement first emerged in most European countries around 2012–2013. Although it is still promoted by Catholic actors, the anti-gender movement spread more generally throughout the right-wing by 2019.

1980s Church origin

Alternately, the anti-gender movement is dated to the early 1980s when Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the later Pope Benedict XVI, noticed that feminist books arguing that gender was socially constructed were bestsellers in Germany and noticed changes in German law allowing transgender people to legally change their gender. Researcher Mary Anne Case therefore argues that "Trans rights claims were, together with feminist claims, thus a foundational component, not a recent addition, to the Vatican's sphere of concern around 'gender' and to the focusing of that concern on developments in secular law."

Later developments

Trans-exclusionary radical feminism

Pearce et al. said that the concept of gender ideology "saw increasing circulation in trans-exclusionary radical feminist discourse" from around 2016. Claire Thurlow noted that "despite efforts to obscure the point, gender critical feminism continues to rely on transphobic tropes, moral panics and essentialist understandings of men and women. These factors also continue to link trans-exclusionary feminism to anti-feminist reactionary politics and other 'anti-gender' movements."

Foreign influence

A report commissioned by the European Parliament found that anti-gender activity in Europe was funded to a large degree by Russian and American actors.

Central figures and issues

Key proponents of the anti-gender movement include Dale O'Leary, Michel Schooyans, Tony Anatrella, Gabriele Kuby, and Marguerite Peeters [Wikidata]. According to Łukasz Wawrowski, it is not possible to have a scientific discourse between gender studies scholars and anti-gender proponents, because for the former gender is a scientific concept that can be researched and falsified, whereas anti-gender proponents derive their arguments from transcendent truths handed down by God, which are not subject to empirical verification.

Members of the anti-gender movement oppose some reproductive rights, particularly abortion, as well as some LGBT rights, especially same-sex marriage, along with some campaigns against gender-based violence. They may also campaign against anti-bullying programs, sex education in schools, and gender studies in higher education. According to Kováts, not all the movements fitting under the "anti-gender" label (by opposing "gender" or "gender ideology") are overtly anti-feminist or anti-LGBT, and the anti-gender movement is a novel phenomenon distinct from previous anti-feminism and homophobia. The anti-gender movement is not synonymous with the far-right, as not all far-right movements espouse anti-gender views, and anti-gender themes extend beyond the far-right.

"Gender ideology"

The anti-gender movement often use the term "gender ideology". Anti-gender activists may portray the EU and international organizations as manipulated by lobbies, such as American billionaires, Freemasons, feminists, or Jews. To promote the idea that gender is a foreign concept imposed by corrupt elites, they often use the English word gender, rather than a translation into the local language.

Proponents present themselves as the defenders of the freedoms of speech, thought, and conscience against the "gender ideology", which they label as "totalitarian".

Some in the anti-gender movement consider "gender ideology" to be a totalitarian ideology, worse than Communism or Nazism. This is allegedly pushed by a secret cabal or foreign entities (such as the European Union, World Health Organization, or United Nations) for the purpose of weakening, undermining, or destroying families, the Catholic Church, the nation, or Western civilization.

Related concepts

According to sociologists Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, "the invention of 'gender ideology' is closely connected to debates within the Catholic Church". Pope Francis has stated that "gender ideology" would undermine the Catholic Church's position on gender complementarity, comparing it to nuclear weapons, and said it was one of the "Herods that destroy, that plot designs of death, that disfigure the face of man and woman, destroying creation". In 2019, the Catholic Church released the first major document dealing specifically with "gender ideology", which states that there are only two biologically determined genders or sexes. According to Corredor,

the Holy See's perspective deeply depends on a stable and predictably correlated relationship between biological sex, gender identity, and heterosexual orientation, which is expressed in the Church's terms as the one and only natural unity of mind, body, and soul. Because this unity is believed to be rooted within natural and divine law—as a direct creation of God—it transcends political, historical, and social arrangements shaped by man.

The anti-gender movement is closely related to right-wing populism, nationalism, and the Christian right. According to Kuhar and Paternotte, "anti-gender campaigns are [not] the direct consequence of the right-wing populist wave, but the shift towards the Right reinforces these campaigns and provides them with new supporters who took over a concept of 'gender ideology' which shares some ideological structures with right-wing populist ideology". In line with their populist framing, referendums are often used to secure the outcomes desired by the anti-gender movement.

Analyses and responses

It is disputed the extent to which the anti-gender movement is a reaction to events and other movements, or a proactive movement attempting to create social change. Hande Eslen-Ziya argues that the anti-gender movement relies on what she calls "troll science," that she describes as "(distorted) scientific arguments moulded into populist discourse, creating an alternative narrative on the conceptions of gender equality."

According to Marta Rawłuszko, the anti-gender movement is, in part, a backlash against the devolution of power from democratically elected national governments to unelected equality bodies and international organizations, such as the European Union, which demand changes. Because these policies are not approved by voters or their elected representatives, they generate a democratic deficit. She notes that "gender equality policies have been implemented without engaging a wider audience or public debate".

However, Paternotte rejects the idea that the anti-gender movement is a backlash, writing that the idea is "conceptually flawed, empirically weak and politically problematic", because comparative research has shown that in different countries, the anti-gender activism is "sparked by extremely different issues".

The emergence and success of anti-gender movements is considered by political scientist Eszter Kováts to be a symptom of a deeper underlying socioeconomic, political, and cultural crisis of liberal democracy and a reaction to neoliberalism. Similarly, political scientist Birgit Sauer refers to these movements as, among other things, a reaction to deregulation, precarization of labor, the erosion of the welfare state and the widening of the gap between the rich and poor. In the journal LuXemburg in 2018, sociologist Weronika Grzebalska and political scientists Eszter Kováts and Andrea Pető analyze the term gender as the "symbolic glue" of the anti-gender movement, which unites different political and religious actors who would otherwise not cooperate with each other. They view the "gender ideology" that these actors mobilize against as a metaphor for the insecurity and unfairness produced by the neoliberal socioeconomic order.

The idea of gender ideology has been described as a moral panic or conspiracy theory. According to two political psychologists writing for The Conversation, the conspiracy theory contributed to a debate in Poland in 2020 about "whether the coronavirus pandemic is a punishment for gender theory". An Ipsos survey in October 2019 found that a plurality of Polish men under 40 believe that "the LGBT movement and gender ideology" is the "biggest threat facing them in the 21st century".

Those said to support gender ideology are delegitimized, negating pluralism and undermining liberal democracy, in a similar way to the far-right. Lorena Sosa, assistant professor at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights  (SIM), states that the anti-gender movement has challenged human rights, such as protection from violence against women, and contributed to democratic erosion.

Pető argues that "The anti-gender movement is not merely another offshoot of centuries-old anti-feminism... The anti-gender movement is a fundamentally new phenomenon that was launched to establish a new world order." She also argues that the movement "is saturated with hatred"—citing online harassment against gender researchers—and argues that it "attacks liberalism and therefore democracy". In 2021 the philosopher Judith Butler described the anti-gender movement as a fascist trend and cautioned self-declared feminists against allying with such movements in targeting trans, non-binary, and genderqueer people. In a 2019 paper Butler argued that "the confusion of discourses is part of what constitutes the fascist structure and appeal of at least some of these [anti-gender] movements. One can oppose gender as a cultural import from the North at the same time that one can see that very opposition as a social movement against further colonization of the South. The result is not a turn to the Left, but an embrace of ethno-nationalism."

Marie Wittenius of the Gunda Werner Institute for feminism and gender democracy argues that the term "gender ideology" "functions as a broad projection area for racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and transphobia, ethnicnationalist ideas as well as hostility towards elites."

In August 2021, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović said the anti-gender movement are "instrumentalising existing societal prejudices and verbally attacking LGBTI people to achieve political objectives for their own benefit" and said the targeting of "LGBTI people for political gain is a costly strategy which harms the lives and well-being of those affected and undermines social cohesion in general." The Commissioner said that "by permeating the political scene, the anti-gender movements are increasingly well-placed to erode the protection of human rights in Europe" and concluded that "by standing up for LGBTI people, we defend the equal human dignity of all, protect our societies' wellbeing and the strength of our precious human rights system."

In February 2022, the European Parliament Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality organised a public hearing on "Countering the anti-gender movement", highlighting the anti-gender movement as a threat to gender equality.

By region

March against "gender ideology" in Chile, 27 October 2018

The anti-gender movement emerged in Europe in the early 2010s and, as of 2019, was making headway in Latin America. The movement is transnational, with campaigns in different countries borrowing strategies and rhetoric from other countries. However, in individual countries the anti-gender movement overlaps with appeals to nationalism and national sovereignty.

Besides Catholicism, anti-gender rhetoric is used by other Christians, Confucians, Hindus, Muslims, and Jews.

Europe

Before the emergence of the anti-gender movement, activists and scholars believed that Europe was on an inexorable course towards complete gender equality and full LGBT rights, serious opposition to which was deemed a holdover from the past or else a phenomenon confined to Eastern Europe and Catholic countries. The anti-gender movement proved this perception to be incorrect. Since the 1990s, the European Commission has made eligibility for funding from the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund conditional on local gender equality policies, which led to rapid changes after Poland joined the European Union in 2004.

In February 2019, the European Parliament passed a resolution against the "backlash in women's rights and gender equality in the EU".

France

La Manif pour tous demonstration, 26 May 2013 in Paris

The anti-gender movement in France is spearheaded by Farida Belghoul and La Manif pour tous (LMPT), a protest movement which originated in early 2013 to oppose same-sex marriage in France and pivoted to opposing equality curricula after same-sex marriage was legalized in May 2013. The anti-gender movement in France has spread false rumors and hoaxes, such as the claim that masturbation is being taught in French kindergartens. Professor Jayson Harsin  analyzes LMPT as a populist, post-truth movement.

Germany

In Germany, right-wing extremists and right-wing populists mobilized against the concept of "gender madness," which was characterized as a "weapon" against "the German people" in a 2013 call by neo-Nazis.

Even outside the extreme right, there has been critical discussion of gender mainstreaming since 2006, when Eva Herman commented on the role of women in society and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung debated "political gender reassignment". Right-wing extremists used this as a prelude to a targeted campaign against gender mainstreaming.

Additionally, since 2013, the fundamentalist Christian protest alliance Demo für Alle  has mobilized against same-sex marriage and gender mainstreaming.

Hungary

According to Eszter Kováts and Andrea Pető, writing in 2017, there was "no significant anti-gender movement" in the country, but "a palpable anti-gender discourse", especially in the later 2010s, which to date had only sporadically intersected with the national public debate. They write that the Hungarian anti-gender discourse emerged in 2008, when a textbook was published that was criticized by a Fidesz MP. The politician said that the textbook contained "gender ideology" and that "the greatest danger of this trend is that society will lose its sexual identity". In politics, the anti-gender discourse first attained prominence in 2010, when the left-wing government inserted a sentence into the national curriculum stating that early childhood educators should "deliberately avoid any strengthening of gender stereotypes and facilitate the dismantling of the prejudices concerning the social equality of genders". Right-wing media gave the change much coverage; it was alleged to promote "gender ideology".

Italy

Anti-gender in Italy has been sponsored by Lega Nord party as well as the groups Pro Vita (associated with the neo-fascist party New Force) and Manif pour Tous Italia, later called Generazione Famiglia. In the 2018 Italian general election, Lega Nord placed Catholic representatives on its electoral lists, sealing an anti-gender alliance.

Lithuania

The 2020 Lithuanian parliamentary elections and the formation of coalition between the Homeland Union and Freedom Party, which shares a positive stance on LGBT-related policies, led to the formation of anti-gender movements such as the Lithuanian Family Movement and political parties like the National Alliance.

Norway

Gender studies scholar Elisabeth L. Engebretsen has identified groups such as the Norwegian branch of Women's Declaration International and LLH2019, a self-declared sister organization of LGB Alliance, as key anti-gender actors in Norway. According to Engebretsen these groups are part of a "complex threat to democracy."

Poland

Catholic anti-gay protesters during the 2018 equality march in Rzeszów

In late 2013, the term gender, which had been confined to academic discourse, became popularized as part of an anti-gender campaign by the right-wing and the Catholic Church. The campaign against "gender ideology" is promoted by the ruling, national-conservative PiS party, by the Catholic Church's hierarchy, and more radically nationalist groups with which PiS has a fluid boundary: All-Polish Youth, the National Rebirth of Poland, and the National-Radical Camp. Sociologists Piotr Żuk [pl] and Pavel Żuk write that: "The right in Poland perceives both feminist and homosexual circles as a threat to the national identity associated with the Catholic religion and as a threat to the traditional family model and social order." Anti-LGBT rhetoric from the Polish right increased following the conclusion of the 2015 European migrant crisis, during which anti-migrant rhetoric was prominent. With anti-gender rhetoric, the LGBT community served as the scapegoat or demonized enemy required by populist politics.

A 2020 survey of a representative sample of 1,000 Poles found that 30% believed in the existence of a gender conspiracy, "defined as a secret plan to destroy Christian tradition partly by taking control over public media". The survey found that belief in the gender conspiracy did not correlate with religiosity; it was strongly associated with the belief that the Catholic Church should occupy a privileged position in society and rejection of LGBT people as neighbors. Marta Rawłuszko suggests that Polish people may be prone to finding conspiracies because of the actual plots during communist rule. In June 2020, Polish president Andrzej Duda of PiS drew attention when he called LGBT an "ideology" and a form of "neo-Bolshevism", ahead of the 2020 Polish presidential election.

Bulgaria

In February 2023 the Bulgarian Socialist Party called for a national referendum on "Gender Ideology". Later in the month, the party praised a Supreme Court ruling that only biological sex can be listed on government documents and could not be changed.

North America

United States

In 2021, Puerto Rico experienced a march against the introduction of a "Gender Perspective curriculum" in public schools that was created under former Governor Alejandro García Padilla and being enacted under Governor Pedro Pierluisi. The marchers, who numbered in the tens of thousands, described the event as marching against "Gender Ideology". Speakers included Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres, political scientist Agustín Laje [es], along with other religious leaders.

Latin America

Brazil

Former President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro has characterized "gender ideologists" as a force that is opposed to conservative Christianity. He has also said that he wants to ban "gender ideology in schools".

Colombia

During the 2016 Colombian peace agreement referendum, evangelical Christian pressure groups and right-wing politicians that opposed the peace agreement argued that protections for LGBT people in the treaty were "an instrument to impose gender ideology". This helped motivate much of the evangelical electorate to oppose the agreement, which was ultimately rejected by voters, 50.22% (No) to 49.78% (Yes).

Gender identity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gender identity is the personal sense of one's own gender. Gender identity can correlate with a person's assigned sex or can differ from it. In most individuals, the various biological determinants of sex are congruent, and consistent with the individual's gender identity. Gender expression typically reflects a person's gender identity, but this is not always the case. While a person may express behaviors, attitudes, and appearances consistent with a particular gender role, such expression may not necessarily reflect their gender identity. The term gender identity was coined by psychiatry professor Robert J. Stoller in 1964 and popularized by psychologist John Money.

In most societies, there is a basic division between gender attributes assigned to males and females, a gender binary to which most people adhere and which includes expectations of masculinity and femininity in all aspects of sex and gender: biological sex, gender identity, and gender expression. Some people do not identify with some, or all, of the aspects of gender assigned to their biological sex; some of those people are transgender, non-binary, or genderqueer. Some societies have third gender categories.

The 2012 book Introduction to Behavioral Science in Medicine says that with exceptions, "Gender identity develops surprisingly rapidly in the early childhood years, and in the majority of instances appears to become at least partially irreversible by the age of 3 or 4". The Endocrine Society has stated "Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity. Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity."

Essentialists argue that gender identity is determined at birth by biological and genetic factors, while social constructivists argue that gender identity and the way it is expressed are socially constructed, instead determined by cultural and social influences. These positions are not mutually exclusive, as an innate gender identity can be expressed in different ways in different cultures.

Age of formation

There are several theories about how and when gender identity forms, and studying the subject is difficult because children's immature language acquisition requires researchers to make assumptions from indirect evidence. John Money suggested children might have awareness of and attach some significance to gender as early as 18 months to 2 years; Lawrence Kohlberg argued that gender identity does not form until age 3. It is widely agreed that core gender identity is firmly formed by age 3. At this point, children can make firm statements about their gender and tend to choose activities and toys which are considered appropriate for their gender (such as dolls and painting for girls, and tools and rough-housing for boys), although they do not yet fully understand the implications of gender. After age three, it is extremely difficult to change gender identity.

Martin and Ruble conceptualize this process of development as three stages: (1) as toddlers and pre-schoolers, children learn about defined characteristics, which are socialized aspects of gender; (2) around the ages of five to seven years, identity is consolidated and becomes rigid; (3) after this "peak of rigidity", fluidity returns and socially defined gender roles relax somewhat. Barbara Newmann breaks it down into four parts: (1) understanding the concept of gender, (2) learning gender role standards and stereotypes, (3) identifying with parents, and (4) forming gender preference.

According to UN agencies, discussions relating to comprehensive sexuality education raise awareness of topics, such as gender and gender identity.

Factors influencing formation

Nature vs. nurture

Although the formation of gender identity is not completely understood, many factors have been suggested as influencing its development. In particular, the extent to which it is determined by socialization (environmental factors) versus innate (biological) factors is an ongoing debate in psychology, known as "nature versus nurture". Both factors are thought to play a role. Biological factors that influence gender identity include pre- and post-natal hormone levels. While genetic makeup also influences gender identity, it does not inflexibly determine it.

Social factors which may influence gender identity include ideas regarding gender roles conveyed by family, authority figures, mass media, and other influential people in a child's life. When children are raised by individuals who adhere to stringent gender roles, they are more likely to behave in the same way, matching their gender identity with the corresponding stereotypical gender patterns. Language also plays a role: children, while learning a language, learn to separate masculine and feminine characteristics and subconsciously adjust their own behavior to these predetermined roles. The social learning theory posits that children furthermore develop their gender identity through observing and imitating gender-linked behaviors, and then being rewarded or punished for behaving that way, thus being shaped by the people surrounding them through trying to imitate and follow them. Large-scale twin studies suggest that rather than shared environmental factors (i.e., cultural factors), which have a negligible role, the development of both transgender and cisgender gender identities is due to innate genetic factors, with a small potential influence of unique environmental factors.

John Money was instrumental in the early research of gender identity, though he used the term gender role. He disagreed with the previous school of thought that gender was determined solely by biology. He argued that infants are born a blank slate and a parent could be able to decide their babies’ gender. In Money's opinion, if the parent confidently raised their child as the opposite sex, the child would believe that they were born that sex and act accordingly. Money believed that nurture could override nature.

A well-known example in the nature-versus-nurture debate is the case of David Reimer, born in 1965, otherwise known as "John/Joan". As a baby, Reimer went through a faulty circumcision, losing his male genitalia. Psychologist John Money convinced Reimer's parents to raise him as a girl. Reimer grew up as a girl, dressing in girl clothes and surrounded by girl toys, but did not feel like a girl. After he tried to commit suicide at age 13, he was told that he had been born with male genitalia. Reimer stopped seeing Money, and underwent surgery to remove his breasts and reconstruct his genitals.

In the early 1970s, Money reported that Reimer's sex reassignment to female was a success, influencing the academic consensus toward the nurture hypothesis, and for the following 30 years, it became standard medical practice to reassign intersex infants and male infants with micropenises to female. However in 1997, sexologist Milton Diamond published a follow-up, revealing that Reimer had rejected his female reassignment, and arguing against the blank slate hypothesis and infant sex reassignment in general.

Diamond was a longtime opponent of Money's theories. Diamond had contributed to research involving pregnant rats that showed hormones played a major role in the behavior of different sexes. The researchers in the lab would inject the pregnant rat with testosterone, which would then find its way to the baby's bloodstream. The females that were born had genitalia that looked like male genitalia. The females in the litter also behaved like male rats and would even try to mount other female rats, proving that biology played a major role in animal behavior.

One criticism of the Reimer case is that Reimer lost his penis at the age of eight months and underwent sex reassignment surgery at seventeen months, which possibly meant that Reimer had already been influenced by his socialization as a boy. Bradley et al. (1998) report the contrasting case of a 26-year-old woman with XY chromosomes whose penis was lost and who underwent sex reassignment surgery between two and seven months of age (substantially earlier than Reimer), whose parents were also more committed to raising their child as a girl than Reimer's, and who remained a woman into adulthood. She reported that she had been somewhat tomboyish during childhood, enjoying stereotypically masculine childhood toys and interests, although her childhood friends were girls. While she was bisexual, having had relationships with both men and women, she found women more sexually attractive and they featured more in her fantasies. Her job at the time of the study was a blue-collar occupation that was practiced almost exclusively by men. Griet Vandermassen argues that since these are the only two cases being documented in scientific literature, this makes it difficult to draw any firm conclusions from them about the origins of gender identity, particularly given the two cases reached different conclusions. However, Vandermassen also argues that transgender people support the idea of gender identity as being biologically rooted, as they do not identify with their anatomical sex despite being raised and their behaviour reinforced according to their anatomical sex.

One study by Reiner et al. looked at fourteen genetic males who had suffered cloacal exstrophy and were thus raised as girls. Six of them changed their gender identity to male, five remained female and three had ambiguous gender identities (though two of them had declared they were male). All the subjects had moderate to marked interests and attitudes consistent with that of biological males. Another study, using data from a variety of cases from the 1970s to the early 2000s (including Reiner et al.), looked at males raised as females due to a variety of developmental disorders (penile agenesis, cloacal exstrophy or penile ablation). It found that 78% of those males raised as females were living as females. A minority of those raised as female later switched to male. However, none of the males raised as male switched their gender identity. Those still living as females still showed marked masculinisation of gender role behaviour and those old enough to reported sexual attraction to women. The study's authors caution drawing any strong conclusions from it due to numerous methodological caveats which were a severe problem in studies of this nature. Rebelo et al. argue that the evidence in totality suggests that gender identity is neither determined entirely by childhood rearing nor entirely by biological factors.

Biological factors

Several prenatal, biological factors, including genes and hormones, may affect gender identity. It has been suggested that gender identity is controlled by prenatal sex steroids, but this is hard to test because there is no way to study gender identity in animals. According to biologist Michael J. Ryan, gender identity is exclusive to humans.

In a position statement, the Endocrine Society stated:

The medical consensus in the late 20th century was that transgender and gender incongruent individuals suffered a mental health disorder termed "gender identity disorder." Gender identity was considered malleable and subject to external influences. Today, however, this attitude is no longer considered valid. Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity. Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity.

Transgender and transsexuality

Some studies have investigated whether or not there is a link between biological variables and transgender or transsexual identity. Several studies have shown that sexually dimorphic brain structures in transsexuals are shifted away from what is associated with their birth sex and towards what is associated with their preferred sex. The volume of the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of a stria terminalis or BSTc (a constituent of the basal ganglia of the brain which is affected by prenatal androgens) of transsexual women has been suggested to be similar to women's and unlike men's, but the relationship between BSTc volume and gender identity is still unclear. Similar brain structure differences have been noted between gay and heterosexual men, and between lesbian and heterosexual women. Another study suggests that transsexuality may have a genetic component.

Research suggests that the same hormones that promote the differentiation of sex organs in utero also elicit puberty and influence the development of gender identity. Different amounts of these male or female sex hormones within a person can result in behavior and external genitalia that do not match up with the norm of their sex assigned at birth, and in a person acting and looking like their identified gender.

Social and environmental factors

Social scientists tend to assume that gender identities arise from social factors. In 1955, John Money proposed that gender identity was malleable and determined by whether a child was raised as male or female in early childhood. Money's hypothesis has since been discredited, but scholars have continued to study the effect of social factors on gender identity formation. In the 1960s and 1970s, factors such as the absence of a father, a mother's wish for a daughter, or parental reinforcement patterns were suggested as influences; more recent theories suggesting that parental psychopathology might partly influence gender identity formation have received only minimal empirical evidence, with a 2004 article noting that "solid evidence for the importance of postnatal social factors is lacking." A 2008 study found that the parents of gender-dysphoric children showed no signs of psychopathological issues aside from mild depression in the mothers.

It has been suggested that the attitudes of the child's parents may affect the child's gender identity, although evidence is minimal.

Parental establishment of gender roles

Parents who do not support gender nonconformity are more likely to have children with firmer and stricter views on gender identity and gender roles. Recent literature suggests a trend towards less well-defined gender roles and identities, as studies of parental coding of toys as masculine, feminine, or neutral indicate that parents increasingly code kitchens and in some cases dolls as neutral rather than exclusively feminine. However, Emily Kane found that many parents still showed negative responses to items, activities, or attributes that were considered feminine, such as domestic skills, nurturance, and empathy. Research has indicated that many parents attempt to define gender for their sons in a manner that distances the sons from femininity, with Kane stating that "the parental boundary maintenance work evident for sons represents a crucial obstacle limiting boys options, separating boys from girls, devaluing activities marked as feminine for both boys and girls, and thus bolstering gender inequality and heteronormativity."

Many parents form gendered expectations for their child before it is even born, after determining the child's sex through technology such as ultrasound. The child thus is born to a gender-specific name, games, and even ambitions. Once the child's sex is determined, most children are raised in accordance with it to be a man or a woman, fitting a male or female gender role defined partly by the parents.

When considering the parents' social class, lower-class families typically hold traditional gender roles, where the father works and the mother, who may only work out of financial necessity, still takes care of the household. However, middle-class "professional" couples typically negotiate the division of labor and hold an egalitarian ideology. These different views on gender from a child's parents can shape the child's understanding of gender as well as the child's development of gender.

Within a study conducted by Hillary Halpern it was hypothesized, and proven, that parent behaviors, rather than parent beliefs, regarding gender are better predictors for a child's attitude on gender. It was concluded that a mother's behavior was especially influential on a child's assumptions of the child's own gender. For example, mothers who practiced more traditional behaviors around their children resulted in the son displaying fewer stereotypes of male roles while the daughter displayed more stereotypes of female roles. No correlation was found between a father's behavior and his children's knowledge of stereotypes of their own gender. It was concluded, however, that fathers who held the belief of equality between the sexes had children, especially sons, who displayed fewer preconceptions of their opposite gender.

Intersex people

Estimates of the number of people who are intersex range from 0.018% to 1.7%, depending on which conditions are counted as intersex. An intersex person is one possessing any of several variations in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, sex hormones, or genitals that, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, "do not fit typical binary notions of male or female bodies". An intersex variation may complicate initial sex assignment and that assignment may not be consistent with the child's future gender identity. Reinforcing sex assignments through surgical and hormonal means may violate the individual's rights.

A 2005 study on the gender identity outcomes of female-raised 46,XY persons with penile agenesis, cloacal exstrophy of the bladder, or penile ablation, found that 78% of the study subjects were living as female, as opposed to 22% who decided to initiate a sex change to male in line with their genetic sex. The study concludes: "The findings clearly indicate an increased risk of later patient-initiated gender re-assignment to male after female assignment in infancy or early childhood, but are nevertheless incompatible with the notion of a full determination of core gender identity by prenatal androgens."

A 2012 clinical review paper found that between 8.5% and 20% of people with intersex variations experienced gender dysphoria. Sociological research in Australia, a country with a third 'X' sex classification, shows that 19% of people born with atypical sex characteristics selected an "X" or "other" option, while 52% are women, 23% men, and 6% unsure. At birth, 52% of persons in the study were assigned female, and 41% were assigned male.

A study by Reiner & Gearhart provides some insight into what can happen when genetically male children with cloacal exstrophy are sexually assigned female and raised as girls, according to an 'optimal gender policy' developed by John Money: in a sample of 14 children, follow-up between the ages of 5 to 12 showed that 8 of them identified as boys, and all of the subjects had at least moderately male-typical attitudes and interests, providing support for the argument that genetic variables affect gender identity and behavior independent of socialization.

Gender variance and non-conformance

Gender identity can lead to societal security issues among individuals that do not fit on a binary scale. As of 2022, only 23 states plus Washington D.C. currently have state laws that explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Moreover, only "53% of [the] LGBTQ population live in states prohibiting housing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity," while "17% of [the] LGBTQ population lives in states explicitly interpreting existing prohibition on sex discrimination to include sexual orientation and/or gender identity." In some cases, a person's gender identity is inconsistent with their biological sex characteristics (genitals and secondary sex characteristics), resulting in individuals dressing and/or behaving in a way which is perceived by others as outside cultural gender norms. These gender expressions may be described as gender variant, transgender, or genderqueer (or non-binary) (there is an emerging vocabulary for those who defy traditional gender identity), and people who have such expressions may experience gender dysphoria (traditionally called gender identity disorder or GID). Transgender individuals are often greatly affected by language and gender pronouns before, during, and after their transition.

In recent decades it has become possible to provide sex reassignment surgery. Some people who experience gender dysphoria seek such medical intervention to have their physiological sex match their gender identity; others retain the genitalia they were born with (see transsexual for some of the possible reasons) but adopt a gender role that is consistent with their gender identity. Within recent years modern society has made strides towards the acknowledgement and destigmatization of those who identify as non-binary or a gender variant, with sex reassignment surgery expected to grow by an annual rate of about 11% from the years 2022 to 2030. Although sex reassignment surgery is expected to become more popular, the surgery is still not destigmatized in a lot of countries, including the United States. Such stigmatization has been shown to have adverse health effects on LGBTQ+ individuals, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

History and definitions

Definitions

The terms gender identity and core gender identity were first used with their current meaning—one's personal experience of one's own gender—sometime in the 1960s. To this day they are usually used in that sense, though a few scholars additionally use the term to refer to the sexual orientation and sexual identity categories gay, lesbian and bisexual. Gender expression is distinct from gender identity in that gender expression is how one chooses to outwardly express their gender through one's "name, pronouns, clothing, hair style, behavior, voice or body features." It is thus distinct from gender identity in that it is the external expression of gender but may not necessarily portray a person's gender identity and may vary "according to racial/ethnic background, socio-economic status and place of residence."

Early medical literature

In late-19th-century medical literature, women who chose not to conform to their expected gender roles were called "inverts", and they were portrayed as having an interest in knowledge and learning, and a "dislike and sometimes incapacity for needlework". During the mid-1900s, doctors pushed for corrective therapy on such women and children, which meant that gender behaviors that were not part of the norm would be punished and changed. The aim of this therapy was to push children back to their "correct" gender roles and thereby limit the number of children who became transgender.

Freud and Jung's views

In 1905, Sigmund Freud presented his theory of psychosexual development in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, giving evidence that in the pregenital phase children do not distinguish between sexes, but assume both parents have the same genitalia and reproductive powers. On this basis, he argued that bisexuality was the original sexual orientation and that heterosexuality was resultant of repression during the phallic stage, at which point gender identity became ascertainable. According to Freud, during this stage, children developed an Oedipus complex where they had sexual fantasies for the parent ascribed the opposite gender and hatred for the parent ascribed the same gender, and this hatred transformed into (unconscious) transference and (conscious) identification with the hated parent who both exemplified a model to appease sexual impulses and threatened to castrate the child's power to appease sexual impulses. In 1913, Carl Jung proposed the Electra complex as he both believed that bisexuality did not lie at the origin of psychic life, and that Freud did not give adequate description to the female child (Freud rejected this suggestion).

1950s and 1960s

During the 1950s and '60s, psychologists began studying gender development in young children, partially in an effort to understand the origins of homosexuality (which was viewed as a mental disorder at the time). In 1958, the Gender Identity Research Project was established at the UCLA Medical Center for the study of intersex and transsexual individuals. Psychoanalyst Robert Stoller generalized many of the findings of the project in his book Sex and Gender: On the Development of Masculinity and Femininity (1968). He is also credited with introducing the term gender identity to the International Psychoanalytic Congress in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1963. Behavioral psychologist John Money was also instrumental in the development of early theories of gender identity. His work at Johns Hopkins Medical School's Gender Identity Clinic (established in 1965) popularized an interactionist theory of gender identity, suggesting that, up to a certain age, gender identity is relatively fluid and subject to constant negotiation. His book Man and Woman, Boy and Girl (1972) became widely used as a college textbook, although many of Money's ideas have since been challenged.

Butler's views

In the late 1980s, Judith Butler began lecturing regularly on the topic of gender identity, and in 1990, they published Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, introducing the concept of gender performativity and arguing that both sex and gender are constructed.

Present views

Medical field

Transgender people sometimes wish to undergo physical surgery to refashion their primary sexual characteristics, secondary characteristics, or both, because they feel they will be more comfortable with different genitalia. This may involve removal of penis, testicles or breasts, or the fashioning of a penis, vagina or breasts. In the past, sex assignment surgery has been performed on infants who are born with ambiguous genitalia. However, current medical opinion is strongly against this procedure on infants, and recommends that the procedure be only conducted when medically necessary. Today, sex reassignment surgery is performed on people who choose to transition so that their external sexual organs will match their gender identity.

In the United States, it was decided under the Affordable Care Act that health insurance exchanges would have the ability to collect demographic information on gender identity and sexual identity through optional questions, to help policymakers better recognize the needs of the LGBT community. In 2020, however, the Trump administration finalized a rule that "would remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people when it comes to health care and health insurance" in the Affordable Care Act and extends to "regulations pertaining to access to health insurance." This rule "is one of the many rules and regulations put forward by the Trump administration that defines 'sex discrimination' as only applying when someone faces discrimination for being male or female, and does not protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity."

Gender dysphoria and gender identity disorder

Gender dysphoria (previously called "gender identity disorder" or GID in the DSM) is the formal diagnosis of people who experience significant dysphoria (discontent) with the sex they were assigned at birth and/or the gender roles associated with that sex: "In gender identity disorder, there is discordance between the natal sex of one's external genitalia and the brain coding of one's gender as masculine or feminine." The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (302.85) has five criteria that must be met before a diagnosis of gender identity disorder can be made, and the disorder is further subdivided into specific diagnoses based on age, for example gender identity disorder in children (for children who experience gender dysphoria).

The concept of gender identity appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in its third edition, DSM-III (1980), in the form of two psychiatric diagnoses of gender dysphoria: gender identity disorder of childhood (GIDC), and transsexualism (for adolescents and adults). The 1987 revision of the manual, the DSM-III-R, added a third diagnosis: gender identity disorder of adolescence and adulthood, nontranssexual type. This latter diagnosis was removed in the subsequent revision, DSM-IV (1994), which also collapsed GIDC and transsexualism into a new diagnosis of gender identity disorder. In 2013, the DSM-5 renamed the diagnosis gender dysphoria and revised its definition.

The authors of a 2005 academic paper questioned the classification of gender identity problems as a mental disorder, speculating that certain DSM revisions may have been made on a tit-for-tat basis when certain groups were pushing for the removal of homosexuality as a disorder. This remains controversial, although the vast majority of today's mental health professionals follow and agree with the current DSM classifications. In recent years, however, there has been a "growing chorus of voices contesting the pathologization of transgender lives and the dominance of medical-scientific narratives about trans experience." As such, in 2019, the World Health Organization removed gender dysphoria from the mental illness chapter and moved it instead to the sexual health chapter, changing the term "Gender Dysphoria" to "Gender Incongruence," thereby removing gender dysphoria as a pathological mental illness. 

International human rights law

The Yogyakarta Principles, a document on the application of international human rights law, provide in the preamble a definition of gender identity as each person's deeply felt internal and individual experience of gender, which may or may not correspond with the sex assigned at birth, including the person's sense of the body (which may involve, if freely chosen, modification of bodily appearance or function by medical, surgical or other means) and other experience of gender, including dress, speech and mannerism. Principle 3 states that "Each person’s self-defined [...] gender identity is integral to their personality and is one of the most basic aspects of self-determination, dignity and freedom. No one shall be forced to undergo medical procedures, including sex reassignment surgery, sterilisation or hormonal therapy, as a requirement for legal recognition of their gender identity." and Principle 18 states that "Notwithstanding any classifications to the contrary, a person's sexual orientation and gender identity are not, in and of themselves, medical conditions and are not to be treated, cured or suppressed." Relating to this principle, the "Jurisprudential Annotations to the Yogyakarta Principles" observed that "Gender identity differing from that assigned at birth, or socially rejected gender expression, have been treated as a form of mental illness. The pathologization of difference has led to gender-transgressive children and adolescents being confined in psychiatric institutions, and subjected to aversion techniques – including electroshock therapy – as a 'cure'." The "Yogyakarta Principles in Action" says "it is important to note that while 'sexual orientation' has been declassified as a mental illness in many countries, 'gender identity' or 'gender identity disorder' often remains in consideration." These Principles influenced the UN declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity. In 2015, gender identity was part of a Supreme Court case in the United States called Obergefell v. Hodges in which marriage was no longer restricted between man and woman.

Measurement

No objective measurement or imaging of the human body exists for gender identity, as it is part of one's subjective experience.  Numerous instruments for assessing gender identity as a clinical measure exist, including questionnaire-based, interview-based and task-based assessments. These have varying effect sizes among a number of specific sub-populations. Gender identity measures have been applied in clinical assessment studies of people with gender dysphoria or intersex conditions.

Terminology

Before the § 1950s and 1960s, the term gender was used exclusively as a grammatical category. The terms male and man, or female and woman, were used more or less interchangeably when referring to people of one sex or the other. As the term gender took on new meaning following the work of John Money, Robert Stoller, and others, a distinction began to be drawn between the terms sex and gender. As a result of the new understanding of gender, academic usage of the term sex began to be more restricted to biological aspects, and associated with the choices male and female, while the term gender was associated initially with man or boy, girl or woman.

Binary gender identities

While academic usage of terms man and woman began to diverge at the same time, and become more restricted to concepts related to gender, this distinction was not universal (and still isn't) even in academic usage, and even less so in more informal writing or in speech, which often conflate the two.

Non-binary gender identities

Some people, and some societies, do not construct gender as a binary in which everyone is either a boy or a girl, or a man or a woman. Those who exist outside the binary fall under the umbrella terms non-binary or genderqueer. Some cultures have specific gender roles that are distinct from "man" and "woman." These are often referred to as third genders.

Fa'afafine

In Samoan culture, or Faʻa Samoa, fa'afafine are considered to be a third gender. They are anatomically male but dress and behave in a manner considered typically feminine. According to Tamasailau Sua'ali'i (see references), fa'afafine in Samoa at least are often physiologically unable to reproduce. Fa'afafine are accepted as a natural gender, and neither looked down upon nor discriminated against. Fa'afafine also reinforce their femininity with the fact that they are only attracted to and receive sexual attention from straight masculine men. They have been and generally still are initially identified in terms of labour preferences, as they perform typically feminine household tasks. The Samoan Prime Minister is patron of the Samoa Fa'afafine Association. Translated literally, fa'afafine means "in the manner of a woman."

Hijras

Hijras are officially recognized as third gender in the Indian subcontinent, being considered neither completely male nor female. Hijras have a recorded history in the Indian subcontinent since antiquity, as suggested by the Kama Sutra. Many hijras live in well-defined and organised all-hijra communities, led by a guru. These communities have consisted over generations of those who are in abject poverty or who have been rejected by or fled their family of origin. Many work as sex workers for survival.

The word "hijra" is a Hindustani word. It has traditionally been translated into English as "eunuch" or "hermaphrodite", where "the irregularity of the male genitalia is central to the definition". However, in general hijras are born male, only a few having been born with intersex variations. Some Hijras undergo an initiation rite into the hijra community called nirvaan, which involves the removal of the penis, scrotum, and testicles.

Khanith

The khanith form an accepted third gender in Oman. The khanith are male homosexual prostitutes whose dressing is male, featuring pastel colors (rather than white, worn by men), but their mannerisms female. Khanith can mingle with women, and they often do at weddings or other formal events. Khaniths have their own households, performing all tasks (both male and female). However, similarly to men in their society, khaniths can marry women, proving their masculinity by consummating the marriage. Should a divorce or death take place, these men can revert to their status as khaniths at the next wedding.

Two-spirit identities

Many indigenous North American Nations had more than two gender roles. Those who belong to the additional gender categories, beyond cisgender man and woman, are now often collectively termed "two-spirit" or "two-spirited". There are parts of the community that take "two-spirit" as a category over an identity itself, preferring to identify with culture or Nation-specific gender terms.

Queer theory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Queer theory is a field of post-structuralism that emerged in the early 1990s out of queer studies (often, formerly, gay and lesbian studies) and women's studies. The term can have various meanings depending upon its usage, but has been broadly associated with the study and theorisation of gender and sexual practices that exist outside of heterosexuality, and which challenge the notion that heterosexual desire is 'normal'. Following social constructivist developments in sociology, queer theorists are often critical of what they consider essentialist views of sexuality and gender. Instead, they study those concepts as social and cultural phenomena, often through an analysis of the categories, binaries, and language in which they are said to be portrayed.

History

Informal use of the term "queer theory" began with Gloria Anzaldúa and other scholars in the 1990s, themselves influenced by the work of French post-structuralist philosopher Michel Foucault, who viewed sexuality as socially constructed and rejected identity politics. Teresa de Lauretis organized the first queer theory conference in 1990. David Halperin, an early queer theorist, writes in his article "The Normalization of Queer Theory" that de Lauretis' usage was somewhat controversial at first, as she chose to combine the word "queer" which was just starting to be used in a "gay-affirmative sense by activists, street kids, and members of the art world," and the word "theory" which was seen as very academically weighty. In the early 1990s, the term started to become legitimized in academia.

Although it is an academic discipline that gained traction within academia, queer theory's roots can also be traced back to activism, with the reclaiming of the derogatory term "queer" as an umbrella term for those who do not identify with heteronormativity in the 1980s. This would continue on in the 1990s, with Queer Nation's use of "queer" in their protest chants, such as "We're here! We're queer! Get used to it!"

Other early queer theorists include Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Michael Warner, Lauren Berlant, Judith Butler, and Adrienne Rich.

Definition

According to Jay Stewart, "Queer theory and politics necessarily celebrate transgression in the form of visible difference from norms. These 'Norms' are then exposed to be norms, not natures or inevitabilities. Gender and sexual identities are seen, in much of this work, to be demonstrably defiant definitions and configurations."

In an influential essay, Michael Warner argued that queerness is defined by what he called 'heteronormativity'; those ideas, narratives and discourses which suggest that heterosexuality is the default, preferred, or normal mode of sexual orientation. Warner stated that while many thinkers had been theorising sexuality from a non-heterosexual perspective for perhaps a century, queerness represented a distinctive contribution to social theory for precisely this reason. Lauren Berlant and Warner further developed these ideas in their seminal essay, "Sex in Public". Critics such as Edward Carpenter, Guy Hocquenghem and Jeffrey Weeks had emphasised what they called the 'necessity of thinking about sexuality as a field of power, as a historical mode of personality, and as the site of an often critical utopian aim'. Whereas the terms 'homosexual', 'gay' or 'lesbian' which they used signified particular identities with stable referents (i.e to a certain cultural form, historical context, or political agenda whose meanings can be analysed sociologically), the word 'queer' is instead defined in relation to a range of practices, behaviours and issues that have meaning only in their shared contrast to categories which are alleged to be 'normal'. Such a focus highlights the indebtedness of queer theory to the concept of normalisation found in the sociology of deviance, particularly through the work of Michel Foucault, who studied the normalisation of heterosexuality in his work The History of Sexuality.

In The History of Sexuality, Foucault argues that repressive structures in society police the discourse concerning sex and sexuality and are thus relegated in the private sphere. As a result, heterosexuality is normalized while homosexuality (or queerness) is stigmatized. Foucault then points out that this imposed secrecy has led to sexuality as a phenomenon that needs to be frequently confessed and examined. Foucault's work is particularly important to queer theory in that he describes sexuality as a phenomenon that "must not be thought of as a kind of natural given which power tries to hold in check" but rather "a historical construct." Judith Butler extends this idea of sexuality as a social construct to gender identity in Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, where she theorizes that gender is not a biological reality but rather something that is performed through repeated actions.

Because this definition of queerness does not have a fixed reference point, Judith Butler has described the subject of queer theory as a site of 'collective contestation'. They suggest that 'queer' as a term should never be 'fully owned, but always and only redeployed, twisted, queered from a prior usage and in the direction of urgent and expanding political purposes'. While proponents argue that this flexibility allows for the constant readjustment of queer theory to accommodate the experiences of people who face marginalisation and discrimination on account of their sexuality and gender, critics allege that such a 'subjectless critique', as it is often called, runs the risk of abstracting cultural forms from their social structure, political organization, and historical context, reducing social theory to a mere 'textual idealism'.

Analysis of same-sex partnerships

Queer theory deals with the micro level - the identity of the individual person, the meso level - the individual in their immediate groups such as family, friends, and work, and the macro level - the larger context of society, culture, politics, policies and law. Accordingly, queer theory not only examines the communities surrounding the queer people, but also the communities they form. Same-sex living communities have a significant priority in the formation of a queer theory. The standard work of Andreas Frank, "Committed Sensations", highlights comprehensively the life situation of coming-out, homosexuality and same-sex communities to the millennium.

Queer theory and communication studies

As an interdisciplinary concept, queer theory is applied to different disciplines, including communication studies and research. It was introduced to the field of communication through Jeffrey Ringer's Queer Words, Queer Images: Communication and the Construction of Homosexuality in 1994, which offered a queer perspective to communication research findings. Queer theory has also contributed to communication research by challenging the heteronormative society's notions of what's considered deviant and taboo—what is considered normative and non-normative.

Queering family communication

Queer theory's interdisciplinarity is evident in its application in and critique of family communication. One of the criticisms regarding family communication is its focus on "mainstream" families, often focusing on heterosexual parents and children.

Although more studies on family communication have started to include nontraditional families, critical rhetorical scholar Roberta Chevrette argues that researchers continue to look at nontraditional families, including families with openly queer members, from a heteronormative lens. That is, when studying LGBTQ+ families, many scholars continue to compare these families to their cis-heterosexual counterparts' norms. As Chevrette writes, "Queering family communication requires challenging ideas frequently taken for granted and thinking about sexual identities as more than check marks."

Chevrette describes four ways that scholars can "queer" family communication: (1) revealing the biases and heteronormative assumptions in family communication; (2) challenging the treatment of sexuality and queerness as a personal and sensitive topic reserved for the private sphere rather than the public; (3) interpreting identity as a socially constructed phenomenon and sexuality as being fluid in order to expose the ways gender roles and stereotypes are reinforced by notions of identity and sexuality as being fixed; and (4) emphasizing intersectionality and the importance of studying different identity markers in connection with each other.

Lens for power

Queer theory is the lens used to explore and challenge how scholars, activists, artistic texts, and the media perpetrate gender- and sex-based binaries, and its goal is to undo hierarchies and fight against social inequalities. Due to controversy about the definition of queer, including whether the word should even be defined at all or should be left deliberately open-ended, there are many disagreements and often contradictions within queer theory. In fact, some queer theorists, like Berlant and Warner and Butler, have warned that defining it or conceptualizing it as an academic field might only lead to its inevitable misinterpretation or destruction, since its entire purpose is to critique academia rather than become a formal academic domain itself.

Fundamentally, queer theory does not construct or defend any particular identity, but instead, grounded in post-structuralism and deconstruction, it works to actively critique heteronormativity, exposing and breaking down traditional assumptions that sexual and gender identities are presumed to be heterosexual or cisgender.

Intersectionality and Queer Theory

The concept of Queer Theory has emerged from multiple avenues that challenge the definition of normality. However, institutions often tend to prioritize one marginalized group over others, resulting in limited social change. As activist Charlene A. Carruthers describes in her book Unapologetic, it is important to imagine “alternative economics, alternative family structures, or something else entirely” from an imagination of cross-sectional communities – such as her stance as a Black queer feminist. Imagination is a crucial aspect of Queer Theory. It is a tool for creating new worlds that are currently not viable for underrepresented or oppressed communities, prompting a transformative stance to current norms. An intersectional approach decentralizes Queer Theory and thus shifts power to a more radical set of narratives, aligning with the definition of Queerness itself: challenging prominent, white, and heterosexual discourses.

Intersectionality recognizes that complex identities and social categories form from “structured multiple oppression.” Therefore, the personal identities of intersectional people are inherently political. Groups such as the Human Rights Campaign have previously employed this understanding in formal rights advocacy for Queer legal protection. However, Queer theorists and activists like Lisa Duggan have noted that such groups prioritize the voices of some groups over others by focusing on specific identities like “gay middle-class men” rather than complex and intersectional ones. They have emphasized the importance of intersectionality in Queer discourse and activism.

Queer theory in online discourse

One of the ways queer theory has made its way into online discourse is through the popularity of Adrienne Rich's 1980 essay, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence." Rich's theory regarding compulsory heterosexuality (or comp-het)—the socio-cultural expectation that women must be attracted to men and desire a romantic heterosexual relationship—inspired the creation of the "Lesbian Masterdoc", a 30-page Google Document originally written in 2018 by Anjeli Luz, a Tumblr user who was in the midst of questioning her own sexuality as a teenager.

Katelyn McKenna and John Bargh's studies of online groups consisting of marginalized groups found an interesting phenomenon called “identity demarginalization” — how participation in a group consisting of people with shared marginalized identity can lead to a higher level of self-acceptance, which could lead to eventually coming out to their friends and family.

Online groups and interactions also contribute to normalizing queerness and challenging heteronormativity by serving as a networked counterpublic. Sarah Jackson, Moya Bailey, and Brooke Foucault Welles' discourse analysis of the hashtag #GirlsLikeUs shows how trans women have used the hashtag to build community in ways that normalize being trans and offering counter-narratives to the often stereotypical and caricatured portrayal of trans people's lives in popular mainstream media.

Butane

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