Series Foreword

Abstract

Extract The Oxford Series on Sexuality, Identity, and Society provides a space for scholarly inquiry that situates sexuality in historical time and place. Since 2009, entries in the series have documented the distinctiveness of sexuality in the 21st century. As we enter the third decade of the century, the story of sexual identity becomes clearer: It is a story about the rise of cultural and scientific understanding of sexual diversity, a story about the reclamation of stigma through new narratives that situate diverse practices and identities as legitimate, meaningful, and healthy. It is a story about the gradual erosion of (or at least formidable challenge to) normative thinking about sexuality. Resistance to normative thinking has come from everyday acts of visibility and social movements working for justice for those who hold minoritized sexual identities or engage in practices once denigrated. Resistance has also come from the scientific activism of sophisticated interdisciplinary and cross-national scholarship. This volume represents one example of such scholarship.