Contesting the production of safer leisure spaces for queer youth: Addressing oppositional sexism and experiencing psychic affirmation

Abstract

This manuscript unpacks some of the ways psychic affirmation (e.g. pleasure in one’s gender), heteronormativity, and oppositional sexism operated in recreation spaces that were intentionally designed to be exclusionary (i.e. safer) based on gender and sexual identities. After a genderplay workshop (e.g. using make-up and costuming), fifteen cisgender, non-binary, and transgender queer youth were interviewed and asked to speak about their experiences of gender in the everyday and at the workshop. Using Critical Thematic Analysis, findings show the workshop was a contested site of safety where norms of binary gender were upheld through mentor expectations of youth performance based on gender presentation while also allowing youth to experience a version of self (psychic affirmation). At home, transgender youth expressing oppositional gendered behavior was interpreted by guardians as an indication of a regretful transition rather than psychic affirmation which then influenced youth to question their own gender sincerity.