Heteronormative Society Research Articles

Komunitas Fujoshi di Pontianak dan Stigma Identitas Gender yang Melekat dalam Lingkungan Masyarakat

The study examined The Fujoshi Community in Pontianak and the attached stigma of gender identity within the society. This fujoshi community is active on Whatsapp social media. They are a community of homoerotic lovers or boys love formed by people who also like boys love from various circles, both otaku, k-popers, and who just like boys love. There are some stigmas that are received to fujoshi because they enjoyed reading and watching homoerotic themed. The research implemented ethnographic research method with participants observation and online interviews to collect the data. The Social Construction Theory of Reality by Peter L. Berger is used in this research. The aim of the study was to describe fujoshi in Whatsapp groups to provide interpretations of homosexuals in reading and series boys love among heteronormative values and to describe fujoshi's means to maintain that identity and face the stigma as well as heteronormative values in society. The results showed that many factors drived fujoshi love boys love and the fans of boys love to form a community of fujoshi on Whatsapp to share information with fellow fans. The community was formed for fujoshi to express their passion for boys love in the midst of a heteronormative society.

Nothing Compares to You

Nothing Compares to You

Bodily Experience and Visual Metaphor in Two Swedish Trans Graphic Narratives

This article examines how transgender themes are conveyed in two Swedish graphic narratives. Olivia Skoglund’s debut graphic memoir, Nästan i mål! En komisk transition [Almost there: A comical transition] (2020) follows Olivia who navigates as a trans woman through a clueless cis society, while Elias Ericson’s graphic novel Diana & Charlie (2021) depicts the relationship between two transgender friends and their struggle to find emotional stability in a heteronormative society. Drawing on Elisabeth El Rafaie’s visual metaphor theory of pictorial, spatial and stylistic metaphors, it is argued that both Skoglund and Ericson place bodily experience, appearance, and perception at the centre of their concerns of being transgender, conveying the struggle for gender recognition as well as showing the misgendering of trans people by society.

Concerns of emerging adults who were born and raised in planned lesbian-parent families

In the sixth wave of the U.S. National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study, the concerns of 76 (37 female and 39 male, all cisgender) 25-year-old donor-conceived offspring of lesbian parents were investigated through an open-ended question in an online survey and analyzed using thematic and content analysis. The number of concerns reported varied between 0 and 5 per respondent, with a mean of 1.78 (SD = 1.24). Nine participants reported no concerns at all. Among the remaining 67 participants, concerns focused on their family, work, education, personal health, and partner relationship. None expressed distress about the heteronormative society or growing up in a planned lesbian-parent family. Those who listed more concerns reported more internalizing problems. When the number of concerns was included in the analysis, homophobic stigmatization experienced at the ages of 17 and 25 was no longer significantly associated with problem behaviors.

Translating Theory into Practice: Evaluating a Prevention Program for LGBTQ+ Youth and Young Adults

Currently, sexual and gender minority youth live in a heteronormative society that does not provide consistent access to preventative social support services or safe spaces essential for healthy adolescent developmental experiences. This contextual circumstance is a catalyst for having unrecognized preventative risks and needs that are comprehensive to sexual and gender minority youth which further increases the likelihood for this distinct population to become justice involved. This study took place with the Lambert House: LGBTQ+ Youth Community Center, the only social service agency in Seattle, WA dedicated exclusively to LGBTQ+ youth and young adults. Data analyzed for this qualitative study includes: review of program documents, field observation notes, and semi-structured interviews. The aim of the study was to: 1) develop an innovative theoretical and methodological strategy to assess fluid programs and their potential to be effective, 2) determine what program theory is driving the program structure and content based on the program stakeholders and participants points of view, and 3) assess how well the final blueprint of the local program theory model aligns with principles of evidence-based practice.

The identity development and internalization of asexual orientation in women: an interpretative phenomenological analysis

This study aimed to investigate the identity development and internalization of an asexual orientation and how asexual individuals attempt to reject and resist societal attitudes held towards their orientation. Participants were recruited through the online community the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) and included five women between the ages of 18 and 40. Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Five themes emerged from the data: The Asexual Self, Discovering Asexuality, Disclosure, Navigating Relationships and Barriers to Accepting Asexuality. The development of an asexual identity was initiated through an awareness of the self as different within society and supported by external resources such as the online asexual community. Although all participants described a sense of pride surrounding their asexual identity, some participants at times attempted to minimize the importance of asexuality to their self-concepts. Social norms and the values of a heteronormative society influenced participants’ abilities to accept their orientation, as well as their coming-out processes. There were notable discrepancies between participants’ accounts that were specific to their romantic orientation and age. The theoretical implications of each theme within the development of an asexual identity and internalization of an asexual orientation are discussed.

Understanding Chinese Gay Men's and Lesbians' Experiences of Coping with the Pressure to Marry from the Lens of Suzhi Discourse.

Chinese gay men and lesbians are faced with multiple challenges by living in a heteronormative society, and marriage is considered to be a major concern among this group of people. Anchoring from the lens of suzhi discourse, this research carried out a qualitative study by interviewing 21 gay men and lesbians to explore how they refer to the suzhi discourse to justify their choices when faced with the pressure to marry, so as to align themselves more with the mainstream social values. Results indicate that when faced with the pressure to marry, gay men and lesbians refer to the suzhi discourse to construct a positive same-sex identity and civilized community, pursue civilized same-sex relationships, or construct a flexible life.

Repressive Moralism: World Making and Petty Fascism in Transgender Politics

The past decade has seen a shift in the way that minorities exert their influence in society. Where in previous decades the emphasis was on winning the hearts and minds of the population at large, a recent strategy has been to ignore general public discourse and only to target specific influential bodies. In this paper we use the example of transgender issues to analyse the socio-psychological dimensions of this approach. We show how some groups promoting these issues eschew a wider social discourse and debate in the mass media, and how their strategy rests on a self-construction as victims of the hetero-normative society, with a concomitant appeal to moral rather than factual argumentation. This is combined with a programme of aggressive challenge to opponents through social media, and sometimes direct action, which effectively closes discussion on the topic. We conclude that these methods have much in common with the oppressive politics of fascist rule.

Representation of queerness in Ismat Chughtai’s Lihaaf

The term queer carries an uncanny feeling with itself as it attributes to those people whose sexual orientations come outside of the mainstream heterosexual society. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people fall under the umbrella of queer whose existence is neglected since time immemorial in a heteronormative society. The aim of this article is to evaluate the queer identity, its growth, the struggle queer people have gone through over the ages till the emergence of queer movement in late twenties in the context of gays in United States . Besides it also prioritizes the portrayal of queer people in Indian Literature and its acceptance by giving prime importance to Ismat Chughtai’s infamous short story Lihaaf. The homoerotic nature of its female protagonist Begum Jan and her husband Nawab Saheb is clearly seen throughout the story which makes the story controversial.

Contesting Homogeneity: Stereotypes and Heteronormativity in Aruni Kashyap’s His Father’s Disease

Abstract This article analyses Aruni Kashyap’s short story collection His Father’s Disease. Kashyap challenges hegemonic structures through an emerging writing area tentatively classified as ‘Anglophone fiction from Northeast India’. By engaging with Foucault’s reading of Power/Knowledge this article examines the disciplining of literary regionalism (Anglophone literature from Northeast India), territory and sexuality encapsulated in Kashyap’s exposition of heteronormative societies across cultures. Through the stories Kashyap weaves a dialogic space within the narrative world that challenges various forms of stereotypes relating to regional representation in literary works as well as regional identity and sexuality prevailing in the contemporary world’s existing social and literaryscape. Therefore, it becomes pertinent to observe how Kashyap’s text becomes a site of contention where on one hand the stereotype is accommodated within the power structure, hence controlled and regulated by various agencies, and on the other hand the same knowledge is appropriated by the author as a counter-narrative/reverse-discourse.

Transgender Kathoey and gay men using tourist-zone scenes as ‘social opportunities’ for nonheteronormative living in Thailand

This article studies life-trajectories of a specific generation of Kathoey and gay men, born into rural poverty in Northeastern Isaan 30–50 years ago, based on biographical accounts. Subjects are male-to-female transgender Kathoey and cisgendered (masculine-identified or gender-normative) gay men. A ‘sustainable nonheteronormative life’ is one providing sufficient resources of recognition for validating gender identity (Kathoey) or sexuality (gay men), and wealth to be economically viable. How did they strive to make spaces for nonheteronormative living when confronted by ‘blocked’ social opportunities of double discrimination based on transphobia (Kathoey) and homophobia (gay men), and class/status? The research unpacks which strong barriers of discrimination confronted them at distinct life-stages, and their agency and strategies to challenge these. Family, work and place are investigated as core social factors influentially defining a person’s positioning and life-chances, while shaping their pathway through social space over time. The empirical study reconstructs subjects’ lived experiences in distinct life-stages: village childhood; early postmigration city experiences; building lives in tourist-zone scenes; and reaching back ‘home’. The main finding is that tourist-zone scenes present new social opportunities that enable a few to transform their social and geographical displacement away from mainstream heteronormative society into an asset and achieve ‘success’. Tourist-zones transgress dominant (hetero)norms and values, but provide social infrastructures, communities and countercultural norms that support specific forms of nonheteronormative living, albeit dependent on foreign men. By migrating to tourist-zones, subjects stepped out of mainstream society, but over time drew on resources to build new social pathways towards living nonheteronormatively.

Compulsory Heterosexuality and Homophobia: Reading of Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta and The World Unseen by Shamim Sarif

Traditionally, sexuality has often been determined by one’s gender and has further been complicated by heterosexism and homophobic ideas. This paper examines the topic of sexuality as portrayed in fiction from selected literary texts. It constitutes the discussion of various factors that affect people at different levels in association with same-sex relationships, as reflected in the literary texts. The main objective of the paper is to analyse how heteronormative societies respond to lesbian homosexuality. To establish this argument, this paper explores Sarif’s The World Unseen (2007) and Okparanta’s Under the Udala Trees (2015). It seeks to answer the question: what is (are) the response(s) of heteronormative society to lesbianism in the selected texts. Ultimately it hopes to contribute to the existing but limited research on understanding experiences of lesbian homosexuals by shedding light on cultural practices that are put in place in an attempt to normalise heterosexuality. The paper utilises Judith Butler’s Queer theory to achieve its objective. The significant concern in this theory is the correlation between gender and sex. The major tenets being gender performativity, the fluid nature of sexuality, and the deconstruction of characterisation structures.

Capsizing the gaze: gender non-conforming communities as monitorial citizens

ABSTRACT During the current pandemic, gender non-conforming communities (GNCs) in India have been engaging themselves as critical citizens through a demonstration of civic engagement and social responsibility. This paper, based on narratives, documentary evidence and media reports, demonstrates how GNC volunteers are playing a decisive role in accentuating the virtues of representative democracy by serving as ‘monitorial citizens’ in India. It also considers the social dynamics involved in GNC people becoming ‘monitorial’ in a heteronormative society. This means consolidation of their community network and its strategic and instrumental use not just to serve their community, but also a diverse cis-gendered population consisting of migrants, homeless, marginalized, and the poor. In this process, they are creating a shared sense of belonging, based on mutual experiences of discrimination, with other communities that are not categorized as gender non-conforming. Their actions also challenge the normative standards set by mainstream society and create an alternative to existing power hierarchies by capsizing the heteronormative ‘gaze’.

When Technology Protects: Dating-Safety Apps for LGBTQ+ Youth

While all adolescents are at risk for interpersonal, dating violence, LGBTQ+ teens are even more vulnerable due to real and perceived differences in their gender expression. When the differences are misunderstood, ignored, or interpreted as a threat by those in a heteronormative society who are slow to recognize and incorporate sexual diversity, the teen can feel emotionally traumatized and isolated. Even more concerning, LGBTQ+ adolescents are more frequently targeted for their differences and harmed through bullying and physical and sexual assaults.

Fiction as prosthesis: Reading the contemporary African queer short story

In this article, I read contemporary African queer fiction as a tool employed by writers to represent and rehumanise queer identities in Sub-Saharan African societies. In these societies, heteropatriarchal authorities strive to disable queer agency by dehumanising queer subjects. I argue that African queer identities, desires, and experiences are controlled and restricted under the heterosexual gaze, which strives to ensure that human sexuality benefits patriarchy, promoting heterosexual desire as ‘natural’ and authentically African and pathologising homosexuality. African writers then employ fiction as a means of rehumanising queer subjects in these disabling heteronormative societies to grant voice and agency to identities that have been multifariously subjugated and/or deliberately erased, and fiction acts as a type of prosthesis, a term I borrow from disability studies. Rewriting such lives in fiction does not only afford discursive spaces to queer identities, but also reconstructs the queer person as a human subject worth the dignity that they are often denied. In the article, I analyse a selection of six short stories from the collections Queer Africa 2: New Stories and Fairytales for Lost Children to demonstrate how these stories function as prosthesis for queer people in disabling societies.

“I Cannot Wait to Build that One Day”: Lesbian and Bisexual College-Age Women’s Views on Marriage and Family

After the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality in 2015, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community has gained visibility. One cohort that is affected by this decision is lesbian and bisexual college-age women. The present study, through six face-to-face semi-structured interviews with self-identifying lesbian and bisexual college-age women, sought to understand how these women view marriage and family. Three themes emerged are: (a) Heteronormative socialization, (b) Personal endorsement of marriage, and (c) LGBT Parenting. The results of this study suggest that college-age women still carry the effects of growing up and entering adulthood in a largely heteronormative society, endorse marriage as an institution, and find profound personal meaning in the prospect of forming a family. Even in the face of protracted legal battles that are eventually won, the humanity of individual and personal motivation remains the most salient factor in forming bonds and building families.

Queer Struggle, Defiance and Victory of Hijra in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

This paper examines the struggle of queer people through the perspective of the term Queer in Arundhati Roy's The Ministry of Utmost Happiness (2017). This paper aims to explore the persistent struggle of queer minorities in Indian society, their challenges to the cultural traditions of heteronormative society and their modes of resistance. The paper mainly focuses on the protagonist of the early part of the novel, Anjum, formerly Aftab, who is one of the socially abandoned transgender characters of modern India. The purpose of this research is to explore the queer subversion against the heteronormative ideals in Roy's novel and to show through Anjum’s vision of queer resistance and utopia. In the novel, Anjum's choice of leaving her house and living in a queer utopia, fighting individually with the society throughout her life, establishing a small, but self-dependent community in the graveyard, and sheltering the minorities like “queers, addicts, orphans, Muslims and other dropouts from the society” (Zubair, 2018, p. 35), does not exhibit her defeat or helplessness, but her defiance and rebellion against the status quo. This act has also empowered her to redefine her life in the best possible way by creating an alternative Duniya where she could shelter “all people from different shades and shapes of life” (Raina, 2017, p. 837).

How coming out and community involvement affects body image: An in-depth examination of lesbian women’s personal experiences

Research on body image commonly focuses on the negative aspects of the construct, and the majority of findings related to body image in general arise from quantitative methods of investigation. Furthermore, little is known about the experiences lesbian women go through as they come out, and what consequence this has on their body image. In this study we examined the experiences of 12 lesbian women and explored how coming out affected their body image. Data were collected via face-to-face interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. Participants’ ages ranged from 20 to 33 (M = 25). The analysis revealed that all participants reported experiencing improved body image after coming out. Other changes related to the presentation of sexual identity in terms of how they dressed, i.e., presenting as either more masculine or feminine. Most participants reported feeling that the sexual and gender minority community was more accepting of different body shapes and sizes compared to the heteronormative society in which they resided. Negative feelings and experiences related to family situations, and occasionally from within themselves. The results are important in understanding how gender and sexual orientation are intertwined to create a distinct experience of body image in lesbian women, and also to illustrate the heterogeneity of body image within subgroups of women.

Rethinking the dichotomy of sexual identity and relational intimacies: Chinese gay men’s mental health in mixed-orientation marriages

ABSTRACT Very little research has examined the psychological adjustment of gay men in mixed-orientation marriages (MOMs) – a marital union wherein one spouse is a sexual minority person (e.g. gay/lesbian, bisexual) while the other is heterosexual. Examining gay men’s psychological adjustment in MOMs provides insights into how sexual identity intersects with relationship dynamics to shape mental health in heteronormative societies. Based on survey responses from 54 Chinese gay men in MOMs who simultaneously engage in a same-sex relationship occurring outside of marriages, the current exploratory study examined the relative contributions of marital relationship quality, same-sex relationship quality, and sexual identity to their psychological adjustment (i.e. depression, life satisfaction, and loneliness). Multiple regression analyses revealed that positive sexual identity was a significantly negative predictor of depression and loneliness and a significantly positive predictor of life satisfaction. Whereas marital relationship quality was significantly and positively associated with life satisfaction and negatively associated with loneliness, same-sex relationship quality was not a significant predictor of psychological adjustment. Results indicate that both sexual identity and marital relationship quality play important roles in the mental health of gay men in MOMs. Discussion focuses on the sociocultural contexts in China that in part shape gay men’s situations in MOMs.

Lives in Motion: Theorising Mobility in Contemporary Queer African Cinema

ABSTRACT This paper discusses two fictional films — Inxeba (The Wound) (2017) and Rafiki (2018) — as forms of queer representation within the nascent field of queer African cinema. My analysis situates the films within discourses of globalisation with a specific interest on how theories of mobility in the contemporary global imaginary manifest themselves in African queer cinema. I argue that the two productions demonstrate possibilities of queer mobility in efforts to create space for the queer in African heteronormative societies. Through the metaphorical implications of various forms of mobility represented in the two films, the producers manifest means of attaining queer agency by interrogating notions of static and monolithic traditional African cultures, which have been multiply disrupted by modernity and cultural exchanges. These two films carry positive queer themes through either celebrating queerness or exposing the vulnerability of African queer lives in order to solicit empathy and highlight the impact of marginalisation, while exploring prospects for queer futurity.