Gender Policing Research Articles

성별화된 조직의 결과물로서 법 집행: ‘피해자로서의 여성’과 경찰 성별직무분리의 효과

성별화된 조직의 결과물로서 법 집행: ‘피해자로서의 여성’과 경찰 성별직무분리의 효과

Gender x Culture: A pilot project exploring the study abroad experiences of trans and gender expansive students

As gender is socially constructed, gender a ttitudes, expressions, expectations and identities may differ based on their sociocultural contexts. This project sought to understand interactions between gender and culture through the experiences of three undergraduate study abroad students who are tra ns and/or gender expansive. Utilizing the thematic analysis method, data from a focus group and individual follow up interviews were analyzed ; seven themes emerged from the data collected. As study abroad has become an increasingly normalized aspect of the American undergraduate experience, institutions must consider the ways study abroad may uniquely affect certain student populations. This project explored some of the unique joys (community building, self exploration, cultural insights) and hardships (ge nder policing, isolation, sexual violence) of study abroad for trans and gender expansive students, identified areas for further research and suggested specific methods through which institutions can provide support to these students.

“I’m Not Your ‘Typical’ Military Wife”: The Construction of Gender and Agency Through Stereotypes

Within the institution and military community, civilian wives of service members occupy complicated roles. On the one hand, wives are undisputedly crucial to the functioning of their service member husbands. However, wives are simultaneously considered subordinate to their husbands within the military and extended community. Indicative of this attitude are the divisive stereotypes of military wives that range from lazy and irresponsible, to overly rank-conscious and entitled. Based on combined in-depth interviews from two samples of military wives, this article investigates how the women navigate the military spouse role within the institutional, community-oriented context of the military. Specifically, we ask, how do these women construct gender and exercise agency when drawing on the stereotypes of wives within the community? By utilizing such mechanisms as symbolic boundary work, gender policing, and stereotyping, women both reify stereotypes of the military spouse and exert agency in creating the military spouse identity for themselves.

Challenges Facing Police Gender and Children’s Desks in Reduction of Gender-Based Violence and Violence against Children: A Case of Kinondoni District, Dar Es Salaam Region, Tanzania

The study was meant to investigate challenges facing police gender and children's desks in reduction of gender-based violence and violence against children in Kinondoni district, Dar es Salaam region in Tanzania. Specifically, this study sought to identify challenges facing gender desks in Kinondoni District and sought to examine the manner such challenges have affected practice or operations of gender desks in the area. The study took place in Kinondoni district as a case study strategy because the area had experienced many forms of violence incidences compared to other districts around Mainland Tanzania and Tanzania Zanzibar. The study design used descriptive mixed research design where both qualitative and quantitative data were used. Simple random sampling procedure was used to get respondents. Data were collected by using questionnaires, interviews and documentary review. The study results showed that insufficient number of police officers, poor selection of gender desk officers, gender and children desk officers performed other police duties and lack of budget to operate gender desk programs for building offices were among the challenging of gender desk. It is recommended that police force should have special funds for gender and children’s desks that will go towards building new offices, undertake training of officers and provide means of transport as well as required modern equipment.

Sexual violence and safety: the narratives of transwomen in online forums

An online forum analysis was conducted to explore experiences of sexual violence and safety among transwomen, with a particular focus on transwomen of colour. Four online forums were chosen for the analysis. Three key themes were identified: dating and violence in intimate relationships; fear of violence and safety strategies; and coping after sexual assault. Forum posters faced heightened gender policing and scrutiny, due to not conforming to normative ideals of femininity. Femininity was also predicated on white, middle-class status, and associated with domesticity and romance. As a result, expressions of femininity from non-white backgrounds could be read as deviant or excessive. The intersection of deviation from gender norms and femininity based on whiteness meant that transwomen of colour faced disproportionate levels of violence, both in public and private spaces. Transwomen of colour also faced disadvantage due to participation in higher-risk forms of sex work, low socioeconomic status and employment, and institutional discrimination. Coping mechanisms to deal with cumulative disadvantage included seeking support from health professionals and transgender community networks. However, it also included more harmful forms of self-medicating such as heavy alcohol and drug use, self-harm and suicide attempts.

‘You are a male teacher but you have a woman’s heart’: Foundation phase teachers negotiating identities in South Africa

ABSTRACT The paper seeks to demonstrate how societal constructions and gender policing inform male teachers’ identities in the schooling context of Foundation phase teaching in South Africa. This is a phase that has been historically dominated by women and is often regarded as a ‘women only’ space. The study was conducted using a case study methodology and a total of nine men from rural schools in the province of Mpumalanga participated. The data was generated using two sessions of semi-structured interview-conversations with the participants. This work was informed by Connell’s theory of masculinities. The findings suggest that men are offered positions on the basis of their sex. Male teacher’s age, dress and sexuality are policed, questioned and regulated. Such policing results from a paedophilic suspicion and carries homophobic undertones. The findings make a scholarly contribution, while also calling for deeper reflections and conversation on South African teacher recruitment strategies.

Free to be you and me, maybe: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender parents doing gender with their children

ABSTRACTThis article draws on participant observation with 33 members of families headed by LGBTQ-identified parents, and semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 14 parents from these families in the US. It explores how parents convey messages of gender conformity and non-conformity to their children, and how children respond to these messages. Using a feminist interactionist theoretical framework, this article considers how parents are doing gender with their children. Two interrelated themes are addressed: (1) the extent to which LGBTQ parents experienced gender policing growing up, and how these lessons carry over into their interactions with their own children; and (2) how LGBTQ parents at times challenge gender conformity through their parenting practices even as they express ambivalence about gender non-conformity and transgender identities. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.

LGBTQ+ Latino/a Young People’s Interpretations of Stigma and Mental Health: An Intersectional Minority Stress Perspective

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ+) young people of color encounter interlocking systems of social prejudice and discrimination. However, little is understood about how subjective meanings of perceived structural stigma associated with multiple marginalized social statuses influence mental health. We document how perceived stigma can shape mental health inequalities among multiply marginalized individuals if they also encounter stigmatizing societal frameworks. Data come from in-depth interviews with 41 LGBTQ+ Latino/a young adults in the Rio Grande Valley collected from 2016 to 2017. Utilizing an intersectional minority stress framework, we qualitatively examine how young people conceptualize structural stigma, their multiple social locations (e.g., sexuality, gender, race/ethnicity, age), and their mental health. Findings highlight how LGBTQ+ Latino/a young adults experience structural racism, gender policing, and anti-LGBTQ+ religious messages in relation to their mental health. This study showcases the importance of an intersectional minority stress framework for documenting processes that can shape mental health inequalities.

Protocol for the police gender violence risk assessment (VPR4.0): Review of its performance

IntroductionThe assessment and management of risk of intimate partner violence against women is a priority in police, legal and forensic contexts. This work analyzes the performance of the last update of the tool included in the VioGén System (VPR4.0). Material and methodA total of 7147 new intimate partner violence against women complaints were analysed, with a follow-up of 320 days. Recidivism between levels of risk was compared, estimating prediction parameters and the survival curve. ResultsThe police recidivism was 14.3% (56.5% of it in the first 3 months) and the VPR4.0 anticipated significantly recidivism, serious violence and multi-recidivism (sensitivity 79%; specificity 35%; AUC 0.62; PPV 17%; NPV 91%). The greater the risk, the less was the time until recidivism. ConclusionsThe VPR4.0 is useful to predict and manage risk, being more accurate in the detection of recidivists (sensitivity), but with more success in cases labelled as low risk (NPV).

Masculinities in the Middle: Policing of Masculinity, and the Central and Marginal Roles of Adolescent Boys in Adult Martial Art Groups

The present study explores recent changes in performances of masculinity in the West, through an exploration of the status of adolescent boys participating in mostly adult martial arts groups. Drawing on a qualitative methodology of ethnographic participation and in-depth interviews, I argue that adolescent boys simultaneously occupy positions of centrality and marginality. Hierarchies of age and seniority place the boys as inferior, to both men and women. But at the same time, adolescent boys occupy the center in at least three aspects: their status as “becoming men”; their potential to demonstrate the method’s effectiveness; and the social inclusiveness of the group. These findings demonstrate how supposedly progressive changes in performances of masculinity may lead to the fortification, rather than relaxation, of gender policing

Femmephobia: The Role of Anti-Femininity and Gender Policing in LGBTQ+ People’s Experiences of Discrimination

Since the 1970s social science researchers have documented the cultural devaluation of femininity and its impact on experiences of discrimination among sexual and gender minorities. Yet, despite the continued and accumulating evidence demonstrating the role of anti-femininity (or femmephobia) in these experiences, little research has specifically examined femininity as an intersecting component of discrimination. Using in-depth interviews with sexual and gender minorities (N = 38), the current study explores the intersecting role of femmephobia in experiences of discrimination. Under the global theme of “femininity as target,” 5 key subthemes were identified: femininity and passing, regulating sexualities, masculine right of access, biological determinism, and the feminine joke. Participants illuminated femmephobia as a regulatory power within LGBTQ+ communities and society at large, as well as how femininity itself operates as a target in their experiences of gender policing and discrimination. By turning attention toward femininity, the current paper provides a clearer understanding of what may possibly lay at the heart of many social issues surrounding discrimination and violence. These findings have implications for the study of social inequalities, as well as strategies for remedying the pervasive devaluation of femininity.

Translating Transgender "Erasure" in the Trump Era

Translating Transgender "Erasure" in the Trump Era Heath Fogg Davis (bio) The term "gender identity" is now lodged in mainstream politics for good—both in the sense of longevity and social benefit. But as this happens, who will translate gender theory into practical politics? Policies that invoke gender or sex are numerous, and reach nearly every aspect of social life, from bathrooms to consumer surveys and mortgage applications. These policies prompt and enable gender policing by administrative agents tasked with enforcing them. So far, restaurant employees, school officials, and other administrators have not been given the criteria for carrying out such gender policing. The recently reported Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) memo proposes such criteria by defining sex as binary and unchangeable (Green et al. 2018). But something was lost in translation. There is a very good reason why we have not written gender criteria into employee manuals and other administrative rulebooks. That reason is a paradox that has been explored for decades in gender, sexuality, and women's studies, but is just now emerging in mainstream politics thanks to transgender and intersex civil rights advocacy. On the one hand, our collective notions of maleness and femaleness are presumed so obvious that they need not be explained. On the other hand, the criteria for who is a woman and who is a man are so elusive that they cannot be explained without sinking into a morass of doublespeak and tautology. Anne Fausto-Sterling wrote in response to the reported HHS memo, "It has long been known that there is no single biological measure that unassailably places every human into one of two categories—male or female" (2018). [End Page 142] Fausto-Sterling's op-ed (the second of her career) focused on the "biological error," leaving it to others to explain the moral wrongness of the memo. We might add a third kind of error, if not wrongness, to the biological and moral wrongs: the fact that most gender policies are not rationally related to the goals they seek to achieve. Binary sex markers on personal identity documents do a bad job of keeping track of our personal identities because maleness and femaleness are classifications we share with many people. The legitimate goal of ensuring a modicum of physical privacy can be much more efficiently achieved architecturally by building all-gender bathrooms with ceiling to floor partitions. Sometimes the end goal of a gender policy is so important that the gender policing it triggers is worth it. Certain sex-based affirmative action policies aimed at remediating past and ongoing sexism, and some sex-segregated affinity groups, come to mind. In those instances, it's important for the decision makers within these organizations to state their working definition of gender and or sex, and to be transparent about how and why that definition is connected to a particular goal or set of goals. Philosophers and gender theorists have a lot of work to do. [End Page 143] Heath Fogg Davis Heath Fogg Davis directs the gender, sexuality, and women studies program at Temple University, where he is also an associate professor of political science. He teaches courses and conducts research on political theory as it applies to antidiscrimination law and policy. He is the author of Beyond Trans: Does Gender Matter? (2017) and Building Gender-Inclusive Organizations: The Workbook. Davis also consults with businesses, schools, and other organizations on how to develop and implement trans and non-binary inclusive policies. He can be reached at heath.davis@temple.edu. Works Cited Fausto-Sterling, A. 2018. "Why Sex is Not Binary: The Complexity is More than Cultural. It's Biological Too." New York Times op-ed, October 25, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/opinion/sex-biology-binary.html. Green, Erica L., Katie Benner, and Robert Pear. 2018. "'Transgender' Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration." New York Times, October 21, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/21/us/politics/transgendertrump-administration-sex-definition.html. Copyright © 2019 State University of New York

Whose Body Is This? On the Cultural Possibilities of a Radical Black Sexual Praxis

Whose Body Is This?On the Cultural Possibilities of a Radical Black Sexual Praxis Marlon M. Bailey (bio) "Whose body is this?" draws from a legacy of Black feminist and queer scholars posing this rhetorical question; I am thinking of bell hook's 1996 essay (on Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It), "'Whose Pussy Is This? A Feminist Comment."1 In 2007 Herukhuti wrote "Whose Booty Is This? Barebacking, Advocacy, and the Right to Fuck,"2 an essay in response to the targeted policing of bodies and the sex of Black gay men as we confront the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States. These rhetorical questions have for a long time been, and continue to be, critical questions confronting the Black studies intellectual and political project and the communities we study. These questions bring into focus the ways in which the US anti-Black state has always been invested in, as the feminist scholar Andrea Smith argues, the perpetual "slaveability" of Black people,3 and how gender and sexual oppression within our communities is not separate from but constitutive of anti-Black racism / white supremacy. For, as Alice Walker argues, one who is not free to express same-gender love in public is a slave, and anyone who requires that one should not express same-gender love has a slaveholder's mentality.4 This slaveholder's mentality exists both within Black communities and outside them. I take seriously the centrality of these rhetorical questions about Black sexuality raised by Black feminist and queer scholars. Therefore, this essay contemplates the role that respectability politics (intracultural policing of gender and sexuality) has played in Black studies. And, although there has been an influx of scholars producing cutting-edge scholarship in Black gender and sexuality studies, the field has yet to forge a cogent, intersectional analysis of the relationship between Black sexuality and HIV. Furthermore, Black studies needs to study and highlight the quotidian practices and knowledges of Black gender and sexually marginalized people and how these efforts contribute to fortifying a Black sexual praxis. [End Page 161] I make this argument in three points. First, I briefly review some of the challenges and debates around gender and sexuality within Black studies. I query how the politics of respectability limits and refracts the analytic relevance/potency and the socio/political currency of Black studies. Second, I move to the status of the struggle over gender and sexual knowledge in Black studies today. I highlight what some might call a watershed moment in 2012 at a Black studies conference at Northwestern University during which the training in gender and sexuality studies in Black studies, or the lack there of, was brought into focus and vociferously debated. This moment helped birth a very important article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, written by Stacy Patton, titled "Whose Afraid of Black Sexuality?"5 Finally, I discuss where Black studies is/needs to go from here with regard to gender and sexuality studies, particularly as it relates to the HIV epidemic in the US. With this point, I am in conversation with several scholars who are producing scholarship that advances a Black radical gender and sexual praxis, one that fearlessly confronts respectability. I enter this conversation by sharing some of my current work on Black gay sex and sexual subjectivity. My notion of a radical Black sexual praxis is indebted to the transformative scholarship of the Black lesbian feminist Cathy Cohen and her concept of deviance as resistance and M. Jacqui Alexander's erotic autonomy,6 which I reframe as sexual autonomy. I suggest that the critical sites of critique and resistance for Black studies in the academy and African American public discourse are the Black feminist and queer scholarship and on-the-ground practices that inform our work. I first entered Black studies through Black theatre studies at West Virginia University (WVU) in 1991. Throughout the 1990s, I was a board member of the National Council for Black Studies (those were my angry Black Nationalist days). Before I entered the PhD program in African Diaspora studies at UC Berkeley in 1999, I taught in Africana studies at the University of Michigan–Flint. I...

Gender attitudes of police officers: Selection and socialization mechanisms in the life course

Police officers may have attitudes that are more traditional than the general public, perhaps impacted by a unique “working personality”, but recent evidence suggests that more conservative individuals may be drawn to policing (LeCount, 2017). In this article I draw from the life course perspective to evaluate the degree to which two mechanisms explain police gender attitudes, selection into policing or socialization while on the job. I examine gender attitudes relating to division of labor in the home and women's disadvantage in the labor market, comparing police to non-police using the National Longitudinal Survey of the High School Class of 1972. Following employment patterns for respondents at the start of their policing career (age 18 to age 25), I find more support for occupational socialization than selection. A fixed effects model shows that men who became police officers shifted to become more traditional in their gender attitudes in comparison to other men while the average person in the cohort became less traditional. Women who entered policing in the mid-1970s were less traditional than other women and police status was not significantly related to their attitudes. While attitudes do not necessarily predict behavior, the results suggest that experiences in police work can enhance traditional gender attitudes. Policy recommendations are discussed.

Transphobia in the workplace: A qualitative study of employment stigma.

Transgender individuals report frequent encounters with transphobia in the workplace, although relatively few studies have investigated this phenomenon. The present grounded theory analysis was conducted with 45 transgender and gender diverse participants to delineate their different experiences with bias and discrimination in the workplace. Qualitative data analysis revealed the following themes pertaining to work transphobia: lack of social support, workplace gender policing, personal safety threats, acquisition and advancement barriers, intersectional discrimination, intuited stigma, and lack of inclusive policy. Results suggest the diverse challenges faced by transgender individuals in the workplace and the need for further interventions, supports, and policy to counteract work-related transphobia.

Lay (Mis)Perceptions of Sexual Harassment toward Transgender, Lesbian, and Gay Employees

LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer-identified) employees commonly experience sexual harassment at work. The perceptions of lay observers of this harassment, such as their coworkers and managers, likely influence beliefs about appropriate individual and organizational responses to harassment. Thus, we conducted an experiment (n = 279 U.S. college students) to examine (a) whether four motivations (power, prejudice, gender policing, and sexual attraction) were perceived to underlie harassment toward LGT individuals; (b) how these motivations were related to perceived acceptability of the harassment; and (c) and how acceptability was related to recommended responses to the harassment. We found that compared to lesbian, gay, or cisgender heterosexual targets, participants perceived harassment toward transgender targets as less acceptable when they viewed it as more motivated by power and prejudice and less by attraction. Compared to male targets, participants perceived sexual harassment toward female targets as less acceptable when they viewed it as more motivated by prejudice. Finally, perceiving the harassment as less acceptable was associated with recommending that the target report the harassment. These results suggest that harassment targeting men and gay and lesbian employees may be minimized, underlining the need for organizations to protect against employees’ mistreatment and challenge beliefs about sexual harassment motivations and acceptability.

“Incorrigible slag,” the case of Jennifer Murphy's HIV non-disclosure: Gender norm policing and the production of gender-class-race categories in Canadian news coverage

In Canada, HIV non-disclosure is a criminal offence captured under the rubric of aggravated sexual assault. How the crime is reported, however, supports dominant gender schema that are constituted in relation to class and race. This article uses the critical discourse paradigm to analyze the narrative discourses in news reports about Jennifer Murphy, charged with HIV non-disclosure, in relation to both gender policing and the broader case of her over-representation alongside the over-representation of racialized men. Doing a close reading of the narratives used by reporters, within their social, political, and ideological contexts reveals that, in the case of Murphy, as in the case of racialized men, unsafe sexual bodies are a trope for other power relations.

The (non)use of alcohol in topless establishments: Protection for women or gender policing?

This article considers current and proposed restrictions placed on the adult industry in Chicago in order to explore the attempts made through legislation to control legal forms of sex work, specifically exotic dancing and burlesque. I focus specifically on the recent debate within the city of Chicago as to whether or not alcohol should be allowed in places where women are topless. While exotic dance is often discussed as a type of exploitation and a cause of urban blight, burlesque is uniformly discussed as positive and empowering, which affects discussion around the introduction of alcohol into each respective club. I conclude by discussing the possibility that the differentiation between exotic dance and burlesque may be a false dichotomy, and that regulations need to be talked about in conjunction with individuals who work in these industries, instead of the assumption that politicians have the laborers’ best interests in mind.

Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women’s Sport

Sex Testing: Gender Policing in Women’s Sport

Public Discomfort with Gender Appearance-Inconsistent Bathroom Use: The Oppressive Bind of Bathroom Laws for Transgender Individuals

Previous research with transgender and gender non-conforming samples suggests one’s gender appearance is important in regards to safe access to public bathrooms, as expectations in public bathrooms are an example of gender role social construction and are maintained through gender policing. With the rise of gender related bathroom use legislation, such as North Carolina’s HB-2, it is speculated that transgender individuals face the difficult bind of either using the bathroom consistent with their gender identity to avoid harassment, which means breaking the law, or following the law and breaking societal expectations about gender appearance-congruent bathroom use. Using a 2 × 2 × 2 within-subjects, experimental design the current study investigated public reactions to gender appearance-congruent and gender appearance-incongruent public bathroom use, using a 400 person sample taken from Amazon’s MTurk. The conditions varied by type of bathroom (male or female) in the description, type of image shown (masculine or feminine) and whether the condition contained a gender identity description (no description or transgender description). A total discomfort score served as the dependent variable. Three main hypotheses were tested, (1) there will be a significant 2-way interaction between type of bathroom and type of image, with the condition of a masculine image using a female bathroom (gender appearance-incongruent) having the higher discomfort scores, (2) there will be a significant 3-way interaction, and (3) combined all gender appearance-incongruent conditions will have significantly higher discomfort scores as compared to appearance-congruent conditions. The results of a series of repeated measures ANOVAs supported all three hypotheses, demonstrating the importance of gender appearance in public bathrooms. The social justice implications are discussed along with suggestions for future research.