Transmuting Gender Binaries: the Theoretical Challenge

This paper provides a cross-cultural account of gender diversity which explores the territory that is opened up when sex, gender, and sexual orientation, binaries are disrupted or displaced. Whilst many people who identify as trans or intersex see themselves as male or female, others identify in ways which destabilize sex/gender and sexual orientation binaries. The paper provides a typology of ways in which sex/gender diversity can be conceptualized, and draws out the implications for theorizing gender. It discusses the contributions made by the new wave of authors working in the field of transgender studies; authors who draw on and inform the sociology of sex and gender, feminisms, and poststructuralist theory. It based on empirical material from research carried out in India and the UK.Transgender, Intersex, Gender, Diversity, Theory, Poststructuralism, Transsexuality, Sexual Orientation, Sexuality

Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Populations: The Role of English Local Government

The role of local government has recently come under debate, in the context of state retrenchment, public sector cuts and the marketisation of welfare. Recent discussions have centred on local authorities as leaders, on enterprise and on democracy, but there has been little discussion of local authorities in relation to equalities issues and minority groups. This article examines the role of local government in relation to one minority grouping, Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) people, drawing on empirical material gathered from 2007 to 2010 as part of a large Economic and Social Research Council research project. It describes the importance of equalities legislation and related implementation mechanisms in driving forward the LGB equalities agenda, explores aspects of welfare delivery to LGB people and addresses democratic processes. The article suggests that a collision of different forces is currently taking place: the legislation supports the protection of the LGB communities, but this support is undermined by the recession-related and ideologically driven public sector cuts. In addition, aggregate approaches to local democracy may override the interests of minority groups such as LGB people

Bisexuality: Identities, Politics, and Theories

Bisexuality has been largely erased from studies of sexuality and gender, and people who desire others of more than one gender often remain invisible. This book sets a new agenda for considering sexualities and genders, by focusing on the lives of people who are bisexual or who have other identities that are not heterosexual, lesbian or gay, in an international context. What are bisexual people's lived experiences? How can these be understood using social and political theories? What are the implications of bisexuality for future theorising and research? In addressing these and other questions, this book maps out under-explored territory. It does so by looking at topical themes, including sex and relationships, community, the commodification of bisexuality, and activism. The book also shows how understandings of bisexuality can usefully inform the social sciences in areas such as identity construction, social inequalities, postcolonial relations, and citizenship

Bisexuality: Issues of Identity, Inequality, and Citizenship

Bisexuality has been largely ignored by sociologists in recent years. The sociological elision of bisexuality is problematic, as it contributes to the social erasure of bisexuals. A sociological reclamation of bisexual ontologies supports a broader movement within the discipline towards critical and nuanced analysis of multifaceted, fragmented, hybridised, and changing sexed and gendered identities. This reclamation is aligned with broader movements aiming to shift sociological thought beyond a Eurocentric and USA-centric sexuality/gender studies that relies on unitary and binary notions of 'male/female', and 'lesbian, gay, heterosexual' (LGH). This paper showcases innovative analysis of bisexuality along the key trajectories of identities, commodification, inequalities, activism, and citizenship. It provides a snapshot of some of the arguments developed in Monros' monograph Bisexuality: Identities, Politics, and Theories (Palgrave MacMillan 2015). The book takes an international approach, using the UK, India, Colombia, and the USA as case study countries, and it utilises original empirical research with bisexual people and others who do not identify as LGH (based in Colombia and the UK). The book draws on, and contributes to, critical intersectional and materialist sexuality/gender studies, and queer studies. The paper will include material provided by research contributors regarding their experiences of identities, sexualities and relationships, and biphobia. It will outline their citizenship claims, and some of the divergences amongst bisexual people regarding these. Bisexual people, and others who do not identify as LGH, are highly diverse in terms ofidentities, and experiences of equalities/inequalities

Bisexuality: Theoretical and political challenges

Bisexuality has for many years been a marginalised topic within academia. Bisexual people have also historically been marginalised by both the lesbian and gay, and the heterosexual, communities. This lecture examines the erasure of bisexuality, and the academic and political implications of this. Drawing on empirical material from the UK and Columbia, it also discusses bisexual activisms, and the ways in which bisexual people exercise agency in democratic societies

Gender Variance: From individual pluralities to institutionalised equalities?

In Europe and the USA, the last few years have seen a shift from a uniformly binary sex/gender system to one in which there is some space for trans* identities that are gender queer, or neither male nor female, or gender fluid, or androgynous, or multiply-sexed and gendered. This can be theorised using the gender pluralist model that I developed in the early 2000s. It is now possible to talk more easily of both gender and sex in terms of spectra, with a range of subject positions. Within certain subcultures, gender-diverse identities have proliferated. Within mainstream culture, gender queer is visible. These developments mark a major cultural and discursive shift, and a shift in personal possibilities. However, at present there is a major dysjunction between individualised expressions of gender queerness or non-binarism, and the social and political structures that underpin central social instiutions including those of employment, education, and healthcare. The challenges that trans* raises in terms of law, language and bureaucracy have not been fully addressed. This paper explores one element of the challenges concerning the inclusion of gender-diverse people: the discursive, normative elements of this. Drawing on institutional theory, it looks at the ways in which the institutional and cultural fields associated with queer and bisexual subcultures are constructed in opposition to mainsteam, binaried cultures. It addresses the sedimentation of gender binaries and heterosexism within dominant cultures. The paper develops some indications concerning the types of attitudinal changes, cultural shifts and discursive developments that may be required before gender-diverse people can be socially included. It draws on empirical material from a number of research projects