Heteronormativity
Encyclopedia
Heteronormativity is a term invented in 1991 to describe any of a set of lifestyle norm
s that hold that people fall into distinct and complementary gender
s (man
and woman
) with natural roles in life. It also holds that heterosexuality
is the normal sexual orientation
, and states that sexual and marital relations are most (or only) fitting between a man and a woman. Consequently, a "heteronormative" view is one that involves alignment of biological sex
, sexuality
, gender identity
, and gender role
s.
coined the term in 1991, in one of the first major works of queer theory
. The concept's roots are in Gayle Rubin
's notion of the "sex/gender system" and Adrienne Rich
's notion of compulsory heterosexuality
.
In a series of articles, Samuel A. Chambers calls for an understanding of heteronormativity as a concept that reveals the expectations, demands, and constraints produced when heterosexuality is taken as normative within a society. Originally conceived to describe the norms against which non-heterosexuals
struggle, "heteronormativity" quickly became incorporated into both the gender
and the transgender
debate.
, Michael Warner
, and Lauren Berlant
argue that they are oppressive, stigmatizing, marginalizing of perceived deviant forms of sexuality and gender, and make self-expression more difficult when that expression does not conform to the norm. This includes lesbian
, gay
, bisexual, intersex
, transgender
(LGBTQ) people, as well as others such as racial minorities. Heteronormative culture "privileges heterosexuality as normal and natural" and fosters a climate where LGBTQ are discriminated against in marriage, tax codes, and employment.
, heternormativity in mainstream society creates a "sex hierarchy" that gradates sexual practices from morally "good sex" to "bad sex." The hierarchy places reproductive, monogamous sex between committed heterosexuals as "good" and places any sexual acts and individuals who fall short of this standard lower until they fall into "bad sex." Specifically, this places long-term committed gay couples and promiscuous gays in between the two poles. Patrick McCreery, lecturer at New York University
, views this hierarchy as partially explanatory for the stigmatization of gay people for socially "deviant" sexual practices that are often practiced by straight people as well, such as consumption of pornography or sex in public places.
McCreery states that this heteronormative hierarchy carries over to the workplace, where gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals face discrimination such as anti-homosexual hiring policies or workplace discrimination that often leaves "lowest hierarchy" individuals such as transsexuals vulnerable to the most overt discrimination and unable to find work.
Applicants and current employees can be legally passed over or fired for being non-heterosexual or perceived as non-heterosexual in many countries, such as the case with chain restaurant Cracker Barrel
, which garnered national attention in 1991 after they fired an employee for being openly lesbian, citing their policy that employees with "sexual preferences that fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values were inconsistent with traditional American values." Workers such as the fired employee and others, such as effeminate male waiters (allegedly described as the true targets), were legally fired by work policies "transgressing" against "normal" heteronormative culture.
Analysing the interconnectivity of heteronormativity and sexual employment discrimination, Mustafa Bilgehan Ozturk traces the impact of patriarchal practices and institutions on the workplace experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual employees in a variety of contexts in Turkey, demonstrating further the specific historicities and localised power/knowledge formations that give rise to physical, professional and psycho-emotive acts of prejudice against sexual minorities.
at the University of Chicago
, argues that heteronormativity does not equally distribute privilege and power among heterosexuals, but favors white, upper and middle-class heterosexuals. She links sexuality in broader structures of power, intersecting with and inseparable from race, gender, and "class oppression." She points to the examples of single mothers on welfare (particularly women of color) and sex workers, who may be heterosexual, but are not heteronormative, and thus not perceived as "normal, moral, or worthy of state support" or legitimation.
. The families of the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century in the United States were characterized by the death of one or both parents for many American children. In 1985, the United States is estimated to have been home to approximately 2.5 million post-divorce, stepfamily
households containing children. During the late 80s, almost 20% of families with children headed by a married couple were stepfamilies.
Over the past three decades rates of divorce, single parenting, and cohabitation have risen precipitously. Nontraditional families (which diverge from "a middle-class family with a bread-winning father and a stay-at-home mother, married to each other and raising their biological children") constitute the majority of families in the United States
today. Modern families may have single-parent headed families caused by divorce or separation, families who have two parents who are not married but have children, or families with same-sex parents. With artificial insemination
, surrogate mothers, and adoption
, families do not have to be formed by the heteronormative biological union of a male and a female. Heteronormative culture "privileges heterosexuality as normal and natural" and fosters a climate where LGBTQ are discriminated against in marriage, tax codes, and employment.
The consequences of these changes for the adults and children involved are heavily debated. In a 2009 Massachusetts
spousal benefits case, developmental psychologist Michael Lamb testified that parental sexual orientation does not negatively affect childhood development. "Since the end of the 1980’s... it has been well established that children and adolescents can adjust just as well in nontraditional settings as in traditional settings," he argued. However, conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher
argues that heteronormative social structures are beneficial to society because they are optimal for the raising of children. Australian-Canadian ethicist Margaret Somerville
argues that "giving same-sex couples the right to found a family unlinks parenthood from biology".
member of the assigned sex, which may or may not match their emergent gender identity
throughout life or some remaining sex characteristics
(for example, chromosomes, genes or internal sex organs).
In some cases homosexuals were forced to undergo sex change treatments to "fix" their sex or gender: in Europe
during the 20th century, and in South Africa
in the 1970s and 1980s.
people who seek sex reassignment therapy
fall under the transsexual demographic underneath transgender
umbrella term. They may not develop a gender identity
that corresponds to their body or a gender identity that is plainly male or female. Transgender people may not behave according to the gender role imposed by society. Some societies consider transgender behavior a crime worthy of capital punishment, including Saudi Arabia
and many other nations.
In some countries, including North American and European countries, certain forms of violence against transgender people may be tacitly endorsed when prosecutors and juries refuse to investigate, prosecute, or convict those who perform the murders and beatings (currently, in some parts of North America and Europe). Other societies have considered transgender behavior as a psychiatric illness serious enough to justify institutionalization.
In medical communities with these restrictions, patients have the option of either suppressing transsexual behavior and conforming to the norms of their birth sex (which may be necessary to avoid social stigma or even violence) or by adhering strictly to the norms of their "new" sex in order to qualify for sex reassignment surgery and hormonal treatments. Attempts to achieve an ambiguous or "alternative" gender identity would not be supported or allowed. Sometimes sex reassignment surgery is a requirement for an official gender change, and often "male" and "female" are the only choices available, even for intersex
and transgender people. For governments which allow only heterosexual marriages, official gender changes can have implications for related rights and privileges, such as child custody, inheritance, and medical decision-making.
, homonormativity upholds neoliberalism
rather than critiquing monogamy, procreation, and binary gender roles as heterosexist and racist. Duggan asserts that homonormativity fragments LGBTQ communities into hierarchies of worthiness. LGBTQ people that come the closest to mimicking heteronormative standards of gender identity are deemed most worthy of receiving rights. LGBTQ individuals at the bottom of the hierarchy (transsexuals, transvestites, intersex
, bisexuals, non-gender identified) are seen as an impediment to this elite class of homonormative individuals receiving their rights.
Norm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
s that hold that people fall into distinct and complementary gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
s (man
Man
The term man is used for an adult human male . However, man is sometimes used to refer to humanity as a whole...
and woman
Woman
A woman , pl: women is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent...
) with natural roles in life. It also holds that heterosexuality
Heterosexuality
Heterosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the opposite sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, heterosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, physical or romantic attractions to persons of the opposite sex";...
is the normal sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
, and states that sexual and marital relations are most (or only) fitting between a man and a woman. Consequently, a "heteronormative" view is one that involves alignment of biological sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
, sexuality
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
, gender identity
Gender identity
A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...
, and gender role
Gender role
Gender roles refer to the set of social and behavioral norms that are considered to be socially appropriate for individuals of a specific sex in the context of a specific culture, which differ widely between cultures and over time...
s.
Origin of the term
Michael WarnerMichael Warner
Michael Warner is a literary critic, social theorist, and Seymour H. Knox Professor of English Literature and American Studies at Yale University. He also writes for Art Forum, The Nation, The Advocate, and The Village Voice...
coined the term in 1991, in one of the first major works of queer theory
Queer theory
Queer theory is a field of critical theory that emerged in the early 1990s out of the fields of LGBT studies and feminist studies. Queer theory includes both queer readings of texts and the theorisation of 'queerness' itself...
. The concept's roots are in Gayle Rubin
Gayle Rubin
Gayle S. Rubin is a cultural anthropologist best known as an activist and influential theorist of sex and gender politics. She has written on a range of subjects including feminism, sadomasochism, prostitution, pedophilia, pornography and lesbian literature, as well as anthropological studies and...
's notion of the "sex/gender system" and Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Cecile Rich is an American poet, essayist and feminist. She has been called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century."-Early life:...
's notion of compulsory heterosexuality
Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence
"Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" is a 1980 essay by Adrienne Rich, published in her 1986 book Blood, Bread, and Poetry.-Summary:...
.
In a series of articles, Samuel A. Chambers calls for an understanding of heteronormativity as a concept that reveals the expectations, demands, and constraints produced when heterosexuality is taken as normative within a society. Originally conceived to describe the norms against which non-heterosexuals
Non-heterosexuals
Non-heterosexual is an umbrella term, describing homosexual, bisexual, asexual, and other people who do not identify as heterosexual. The term helps define the "concept of what is the norm and how a particular group is different from that norm"...
struggle, "heteronormativity" quickly became incorporated into both the gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
and the transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
debate.
Discrimination
Critics of heteronormative attitudes, such as Cathy J. CohenCathy J. Cohen
Cathy J. Cohen is an American author, feminist and social activist whose work has focused onthe African American experience in politics from a perspective which is underlined by intersectionality....
, Michael Warner
Michael Warner
Michael Warner is a literary critic, social theorist, and Seymour H. Knox Professor of English Literature and American Studies at Yale University. He also writes for Art Forum, The Nation, The Advocate, and The Village Voice...
, and Lauren Berlant
Lauren Berlant
Lauren Berlant is the George M. Pullman Professor of English at the University of Chicago, where she has been teaching since 1984. Berlant received her Ph.D. from Cornell University...
argue that they are oppressive, stigmatizing, marginalizing of perceived deviant forms of sexuality and gender, and make self-expression more difficult when that expression does not conform to the norm. This includes lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, bisexual, intersex
Intersex
Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...
, transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
(LGBTQ) people, as well as others such as racial minorities. Heteronormative culture "privileges heterosexuality as normal and natural" and fosters a climate where LGBTQ are discriminated against in marriage, tax codes, and employment.
Against gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals
According to cultural anthropologist Gayle RubinGayle Rubin
Gayle S. Rubin is a cultural anthropologist best known as an activist and influential theorist of sex and gender politics. She has written on a range of subjects including feminism, sadomasochism, prostitution, pedophilia, pornography and lesbian literature, as well as anthropological studies and...
, heternormativity in mainstream society creates a "sex hierarchy" that gradates sexual practices from morally "good sex" to "bad sex." The hierarchy places reproductive, monogamous sex between committed heterosexuals as "good" and places any sexual acts and individuals who fall short of this standard lower until they fall into "bad sex." Specifically, this places long-term committed gay couples and promiscuous gays in between the two poles. Patrick McCreery, lecturer at New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, views this hierarchy as partially explanatory for the stigmatization of gay people for socially "deviant" sexual practices that are often practiced by straight people as well, such as consumption of pornography or sex in public places.
McCreery states that this heteronormative hierarchy carries over to the workplace, where gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals face discrimination such as anti-homosexual hiring policies or workplace discrimination that often leaves "lowest hierarchy" individuals such as transsexuals vulnerable to the most overt discrimination and unable to find work.
Applicants and current employees can be legally passed over or fired for being non-heterosexual or perceived as non-heterosexual in many countries, such as the case with chain restaurant Cracker Barrel
Cracker Barrel
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. is an American chain of combined restaurant and gift stores with a Southern country theme. The company was founded by Dan Evins in 1969 and its first store was located in Lebanon, Tennessee, where the company is now headquartered...
, which garnered national attention in 1991 after they fired an employee for being openly lesbian, citing their policy that employees with "sexual preferences that fail to demonstrate normal heterosexual values were inconsistent with traditional American values." Workers such as the fired employee and others, such as effeminate male waiters (allegedly described as the true targets), were legally fired by work policies "transgressing" against "normal" heteronormative culture.
Analysing the interconnectivity of heteronormativity and sexual employment discrimination, Mustafa Bilgehan Ozturk traces the impact of patriarchal practices and institutions on the workplace experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual employees in a variety of contexts in Turkey, demonstrating further the specific historicities and localised power/knowledge formations that give rise to physical, professional and psycho-emotive acts of prejudice against sexual minorities.
Against racial and other minorities
Cathy J. Cohen has linked heteronormativity to issues of race. In a chapter published in the book Black Queer Studies, the professor of political sciencePolitical science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, argues that heteronormativity does not equally distribute privilege and power among heterosexuals, but favors white, upper and middle-class heterosexuals. She links sexuality in broader structures of power, intersecting with and inseparable from race, gender, and "class oppression." She points to the examples of single mothers on welfare (particularly women of color) and sex workers, who may be heterosexual, but are not heteronormative, and thus not perceived as "normal, moral, or worthy of state support" or legitimation.
Relation to marriage and the nuclear family
Modern family structures in the past and present vary from what was typical of the 1950s nuclear familyNuclear family
Nuclear family is a term used to define a family group consisting of a father and mother and their children. This is in contrast to the smaller single-parent family, and to the larger extended family. Nuclear families typically center on a married couple, but not always; the nuclear family may have...
. The families of the second half of the 19th century and early 20th century in the United States were characterized by the death of one or both parents for many American children. In 1985, the United States is estimated to have been home to approximately 2.5 million post-divorce, stepfamily
Stepfamily
A stepfamily, also known as a blended family or reconstituted family, is a family in which one or both members of the couple have children from a previous relationship...
households containing children. During the late 80s, almost 20% of families with children headed by a married couple were stepfamilies.
Over the past three decades rates of divorce, single parenting, and cohabitation have risen precipitously. Nontraditional families (which diverge from "a middle-class family with a bread-winning father and a stay-at-home mother, married to each other and raising their biological children") constitute the majority of families in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
today. Modern families may have single-parent headed families caused by divorce or separation, families who have two parents who are not married but have children, or families with same-sex parents. With artificial insemination
Artificial insemination
Artificial insemination, or AI, is the process by which sperm is placed into the reproductive tract of a female for the purpose of impregnating the female by using means other than sexual intercourse or natural insemination...
, surrogate mothers, and adoption
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
, families do not have to be formed by the heteronormative biological union of a male and a female. Heteronormative culture "privileges heterosexuality as normal and natural" and fosters a climate where LGBTQ are discriminated against in marriage, tax codes, and employment.
The consequences of these changes for the adults and children involved are heavily debated. In a 2009 Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
spousal benefits case, developmental psychologist Michael Lamb testified that parental sexual orientation does not negatively affect childhood development. "Since the end of the 1980’s... it has been well established that children and adolescents can adjust just as well in nontraditional settings as in traditional settings," he argued. However, conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher
Maggie Gallagher
Margaret Gallagher Srivastav , better known by her working name Maggie Gallagher, is an American writer, commentator, and opponent of same-sex marriage. She has written a syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate since 1995, and has published five books...
argues that heteronormative social structures are beneficial to society because they are optimal for the raising of children. Australian-Canadian ethicist Margaret Somerville
Margaret Somerville
Margaret Anne Ganley Somerville, AM, FRSC is a conservative Australian/Canadian ethicist and academic. She is the Samuel Gale Professor of Law, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine and the Founding Director of the Faculty of Law's Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law at McGill...
argues that "giving same-sex couples the right to found a family unlinks parenthood from biology".
Transgressions
Intersex people
Intersex people have biological characteristics that are ambiguously either male or female. If such a condition is detected, intersex people in most present-day societies are almost always assigned a normative sex shortly after birth. Surgery (usually involving modification to the genitalia) is often performed in an attempt to produce an unambiguously male or female body, with the parents'—rather than the individual's—consent. The child is then usually raised and enculturated as a cisgenderCisgender
Cisgender is an adjective used in the context of gender issues and counselling to refer to a class of gender identities formed by a match between an individual's gender identity and the behavior or role considered appropriate for one's sex.Kristen Schilt and Laurel Westbrook defined "cisgender"...
member of the assigned sex, which may or may not match their emergent gender identity
Gender identity
A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...
throughout life or some remaining sex characteristics
Sex-determination system
A sex-determination system is a biological system that determines the development of sexual characteristics in an organism. Most sexual organisms have two sexes. In many cases, sex determination is genetic: males and females have different alleles or even different genes that specify their sexual...
(for example, chromosomes, genes or internal sex organs).
In some cases homosexuals were forced to undergo sex change treatments to "fix" their sex or gender: in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
during the 20th century, and in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
in the 1970s and 1980s.
Transgender people
The transgenderTransgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
people who seek sex reassignment therapy
Sex reassignment therapy
Sex reassignment therapy is an umbrella term for all medical procedures regarding sex reassignment of both transgender and intersexual people...
fall under the transsexual demographic underneath transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
umbrella term. They may not develop a gender identity
Gender identity
A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...
that corresponds to their body or a gender identity that is plainly male or female. Transgender people may not behave according to the gender role imposed by society. Some societies consider transgender behavior a crime worthy of capital punishment, including Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
and many other nations.
In some countries, including North American and European countries, certain forms of violence against transgender people may be tacitly endorsed when prosecutors and juries refuse to investigate, prosecute, or convict those who perform the murders and beatings (currently, in some parts of North America and Europe). Other societies have considered transgender behavior as a psychiatric illness serious enough to justify institutionalization.
In medical communities with these restrictions, patients have the option of either suppressing transsexual behavior and conforming to the norms of their birth sex (which may be necessary to avoid social stigma or even violence) or by adhering strictly to the norms of their "new" sex in order to qualify for sex reassignment surgery and hormonal treatments. Attempts to achieve an ambiguous or "alternative" gender identity would not be supported or allowed. Sometimes sex reassignment surgery is a requirement for an official gender change, and often "male" and "female" are the only choices available, even for intersex
Intersex
Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...
and transgender people. For governments which allow only heterosexual marriages, official gender changes can have implications for related rights and privileges, such as child custody, inheritance, and medical decision-making.
Homonormativity
Homonormativity is the assimilation of heteronormative ideals and constructs into LGBTQ culture and individual identity. The term was used prominently by Lisa Duggan in 2003, although transgender studies scholar Susan Stryker has noted that it was also used by transgender activists in the 1990s. According to Penny Griffin, Politics and International Relations lecturer at the University of New South WalesUniversity of New South Wales
The University of New South Wales , is a research-focused university based in Kensington, a suburb in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...
, homonormativity upholds neoliberalism
Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism is a market-driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that emphasizes the efficiency of private enterprise, liberalized trade and relatively open markets, and therefore seeks to maximize the role of the private sector in determining the...
rather than critiquing monogamy, procreation, and binary gender roles as heterosexist and racist. Duggan asserts that homonormativity fragments LGBTQ communities into hierarchies of worthiness. LGBTQ people that come the closest to mimicking heteronormative standards of gender identity are deemed most worthy of receiving rights. LGBTQ individuals at the bottom of the hierarchy (transsexuals, transvestites, intersex
Intersex
Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...
, bisexuals, non-gender identified) are seen as an impediment to this elite class of homonormative individuals receiving their rights.
Cishomonormativity
Based on the term "heteronormativity" and the general use of the word "homonormativity" amongst bisexual and transgendered activist, a group of activists in Denmark has coined in 2011 this new term, "cishomonormativity", trying to avoid the invisibilization of gender identities not conforming to the gender binary, while keeping in mind other sexual orientations than homosexuality and heterosexuality.See also
- Bisexual erasureBisexual erasureBisexual erasure is the tendency to ignore, remove, falsify, or reexplain evidence of bisexuality in history, academia, the news media, and other primary sources...
- CisgenderCisgenderCisgender is an adjective used in the context of gender issues and counselling to refer to a class of gender identities formed by a match between an individual's gender identity and the behavior or role considered appropriate for one's sex.Kristen Schilt and Laurel Westbrook defined "cisgender"...
- Functionalism (sociology)
- Gender binaryGender binaryThe gender binary is the classification of sex and gender into two distinct and disconnected forms of masculine and feminine. It is one general type of a gender system. It can describe a social boundary that discourages people from crossing or mixing gender roles, or from creating other third ...
- Gender studiesGender studiesGender studies is a field of interdisciplinary study which analyses race, ethnicity, sexuality and location.Gender study has many different forms. One view exposed by the philosopher Simone de Beauvoir said: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one"...
- Gender TroubleGender TroubleGender Trouble by Judith Butler is a highly influential book in academic feminism and queer theory. It is also the book credited with creating the seminal notion of gender performativity. It is considered to be one of the canonical texts of queer theory and postmodern/poststructural feminism.-...
by Judith ButlerJudith ButlerJudith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D... - Undoing GenderUndoing GenderUndoing Gender is a book written by Judith Butler. It was published in 2004 by Routledge. Undoing Gender examines gender, sex, psychoanalysis and the medical treatment of intersex people...
by Judith ButlerJudith ButlerJudith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D... - HeterosexismHeterosexismHeterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and relationships. It can include the presumption that everyone is heterosexual or that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the only norm and therefore superior...
- HomophobiaHomophobiaHomophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
- History of Sexuality by Michel FoucaultMichel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
- List of transgender-related topics
- Monique WittigMonique WittigMonique Wittig was a French author and feminist theorist who wrote about overcoming socially enforced gender roles and who coined the phrase "heterosexual contract". She published her first novel, L'Opoponax, in 1964...
- Normality (behavior)Normality (behavior)In behavior, normal refers to a lack of significant deviation from the average. The phrase "not normal" is often applied in a negative sense Abnormality varies greatly in how pleasant or unpleasant this is for other people.The Oxford English Dictionary defines "normal" as "conforming to a standard"...
- Norm (sociology)Norm (sociology)Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
- Sexual deviancy
- Complementarianism
- EgalitarianismEgalitarianismEgalitarianism is a trend of thought that favors equality of some sort among moral agents, whether persons or animals. Emphasis is placed upon the fact that equality contains the idea of equity of quality...
- TransphobiaTransphobiaTransphobia is a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards transsexualism and transsexual or transgender people, based on the expression of their internal gender...
Further reading
- Michael WarnerMichael WarnerMichael Warner is a literary critic, social theorist, and Seymour H. Knox Professor of English Literature and American Studies at Yale University. He also writes for Art Forum, The Nation, The Advocate, and The Village Voice...
, ed. Fear of a Queer Planet. Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1993. - Chrys Ingraham: The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender: Sociological Theory: July 1994
- Jillian Todd Weiss: The Gender Caste System – Identity, Privacy, and Heteronormativity
- Judith ButlerJudith ButlerJudith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
, Bodies That Matter - Michel FoucaultMichel FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
, History of Sexuality - Recent academic article on legal challenges that have been made to the heteronormativity of marriage