Homophobic Bullying as Gender Policing: Population-Based Evidence

Abstract

Although the policing of gendered embodiment is central to ethnographic accounts of sexual minority bullying, data limitations have prevented population-level analyses of how gender expression shapes bullying victimization. Using novel data on gender expression, I document the dynamics of gender policing in contemporary American high schools. Analyzing population-representative surveys from eight states and 10 school districts, I examine how students’ assigned sex, sexual identity, and gender expression intersectionally shape their risk for bullying. Consistent with patterns of cultural sexism that stigmatize male “femininity” more harshly than female “masculinity,” I find that gender expression powerfully stratifies bullying among boys but is seemingly unrelated to bullying for girls. Boys who report feeling seen as “very feminine” are 3.5 times more likely to be bullied than their “very masculine” peers. By contrast, girls’ bullying rates are roughly constant across the gender expression spectrum. Stratifying by sexuality, I find that highly conforming gender expression offers some protection against bullying for sexual minority boys but no protection for sexual minority girls. This study illustrates the value of gradational measures of gendered embodiment and makes newly visible the powerful sanctions pressuring boys into narrow, heteronormative enactments of masculinity.