
Heteronormativity is a term used in the discussion of gender and society, mostly but not exclusively within the field of critical theory. It is used to describe and frequently to criticize how many social institutions and social policies are seen to reinforce certain beliefs. These include the belief that human beings fall into two distinct and complementary categories, male and female; that sexual and marital relations are normal only when between two people of different genders; and that each gender has certain natural roles in life. Thus, physical sex, gender identity, and gender roles should in any given person all align to either male or female norms, and heterosexuality is considered to be the only normal sexual orientation. The norm this term describes or criticizes might be overt, covert, or implied. Those who identify and criticize heteronormativity say that it distorts discourse by stigmatizing alternative concepts of both sexuality and gender and makes certain types of self-expression more difficult. == Concept == This concept was formulated for use in the exploration and critique of the traditional normative of sex, gender identity, gender roles and sexuality, and of the social implications of those institutions. It is descriptive of a binary system of categorization that directly links social behavior and self identity with one's genitalia. That is to say (among other things) that, because there are strictly defined concepts of maleness and femaleness, there are similarly expected behaviors for both males and females. Originally conceived to describe the norms against which non-heterosexuals struggle, it quickly became incorporated into both the gender and the transgender debate. It is also often used in postmodernist and feminist debates. Those who use this concept frequently point to the difficulty posed to those who hold a dichotomous view of sexuality by the presence of clear exceptions -- from freemartins in the bovine world to intersexual human beings with the sexual characteristics of both sexes. These exceptions are taken as direct evidence that neither sex nor gender are concepts that can be reduced to an either/or proposition. In a heteronormative society, the binary choice of male and female for one's gender identity is viewed as leading to a lack of possible choice about one's gender role and sexual identity. Also, as part of the norms established by society for both genders, is the requirement that the individuals should feel and/or express desire only for partners of ''the opposite'' sex. In other critiques, such as the work of Eve Sedgwick, this heteronormative pairing is viewed as defining sexual orientation exclusively in terms of the sex/gender of the person one chooses to have sex with, ignoring other preferences one might have about sex. In a heteronormative society, men and women are interpreted to be natural complements, socially as well as biologically, and especially when it comes to reproduction. Woman and men are necessary for procreation, therefore male/female coupling is assumed to be the norm. ===Heteronormativity, the Is-Ought Problem, and the Naturalistic Fallacy=== The concept of heteronormativity seeks to make visible the underlying norms or "normal" society. It questions the common and often tightly held notion that only what is statistically typical is normal and good by embracing the notion (in meta-ethics) that "''is'' does not imply ''ought''." By questioning the equivocation of 'normal' on one hand, and 'good' or 'right' on the other, social critiques involving the concept of heteronormativity invoke the naturalistic fallacy. In his work Principia Ethica, G.E. Moore claimed that any proposition asserting that a moral claim can be analyzed in terms of some property in the world (or some supernatural property) is fallacious since a property in the world is natural, while moral properties are unnatural human inventions imposed on the world. The naturalistic fallacy is related to the is-ought problem outlined by David Hume and others. == Heteronormativity and patriarchy == ''Heteronormativity'' is often strongly associated with, and sometimes even confused with patriarchy. However, a patriarchal system does not necessarily have a binary gender system, and vice versa — it merely privileges the masculine gender over all others — regardless of the number of others. Still, heteronormativity is often seen as one of the pillars of a patriarchy: the traditional role of men is reinforced and perpetuated through heteronormative mores, rules, and even laws that distinguish between individuals based upon their apparent sex, or based on their refusal to conform to the gender roles that are normal to their society. Consequently, feminism can be seen as concerned with fighting "heteronormativity" and the prescriptions it is seen to have for women. ==Groups that challenge traditional gender structure== Critics of heteronormativity say that the existence of intersex, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people undermines any fundamental assumption that gender is naturally dichotomous. They believe it problematizes justifications such as the appeal to natural law, or certain Christian notions of faith in God's plan or belief in the goodness of Creation. Many supporters of heteronormativity are aware that these groups exist, and reconcile that with their beliefs by making the "is" vs. "ought" distinction. On the other hand, if what is typical is somehow related to what is good, then the fact that these groups are all numerical minorities may be significant. The issue of choice vs. biological pre-determination is also an important consideration, and supporters and critics often disagree about those facts. Supporters of heteronormativity may thus consider members of LGBTI people abnormal, diseased, or immoral. The range of possible social responses has and does include tolerance, pity, shunning, violence, and attempts to help members of these groups become more "normal" through compassionate or even forceful means. === Intersexuals === intersexuality people have biological characteristics which are not unambigously either male or female. If such a condition is detected, intersexual people are almost always assigned a gender at birth. Surgery (usually involving modification to the genitalia) is often performed to produce an unambiguously male or female body, without the individual's consent. The child is then usually raised and enculturated as a member of the assigned gender, which may or may not match gender identity throughout life or some remaining Sex-determination system (for example, genes). Some individuals who have been subjected to these interventions have objected that had they been consulted at an age when they were able to give informed consent then they would have declined these surgical and social interventions. Gender theorists argue that gender assignment to intersex individuals is a clear case of heteronormativity, in which a biological reality is actually denied in order to maintain a binary set of sexes and genders. === Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals === Lesbian, gay, and bisexual behaviour is strongly disapproved of in many societies, both socially and legally. Many argue that this is because it challenges the heteronormative position that sexual relations exist purely for reproductive means. If it cannot be suppressed so far as to at least disappear from the public view, then the notion is said to be encouraged that gay men are not really "men", but have a strong female component (and vice versa) and/or that in a lesbian or gay partnership there is always a "male" (active) and a "female" (passive) partner. This has in some cases gone so far that homosexuals were encouraged (in Europe and North America in the 1960s and 1970s) or even forced (in South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s) to undergo sexual reassignment procedures to "fix" their sex or gender. === Transgendered people === Transgender people: * often seek gender reassignment therapy, thereby violating the assumption that only ''unambiguous female or male bodies'' exist. * do not develop a ''gender identity'' that corresponds to their body; in fact, several never develop a gender identity that is plainly ''male'' or ''female''. * often do not behave according to the ''gender role'' assigned to them, even before transitioning. This is especially true for transmen, but also many transwomen. * often identify as ''gay or lesbian'' after transitioning, and are often lumped together with homosexuals relative to their birth sex, although that is almost never correct. While some transmen did identify as lesbians for a time (although this is still a minority), transwomen who identify as gay men are very rare. Some societies consider transgendered behavior a crime worthy of capital punishment, including Saudi Arabia, and many other non-western nations. In other countries, certain forms of violence against transgendered people may be tacitly endorsed when prosecutors and juries refuse to investigate, prosecute, or convict those who perform the murders and beatings. (Currently, in parts of North America and Europe. [http://www.gender.org/remember/index.html#] [http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=276]) Other societies have considered transgendered behavior as a psychiatric illness serious enough to justify institutionalization. Certain restrictions on the ability of transgendered people to obtain gender-related medical treatment has been blamed on heteronormativity. (See the article on transsexualism.) In medical communities with these restrictions, patients have the option of either suppressing transsexual behavior and conforming to the norms of their birth sex (which may be necessary to avoid social stigma or even violence), or adhering strictly to norms for their "new" sex in order to qualify for gender reassignment surgery and hormonal treatments (if any treatment is offered at all). These norms might include: dress and mannerisms, choice of occupation, choice of hobbies, and the gender of one's mate (heterosexuality required). (For example, transwomen might be expected to trade a "masculine" job for a more "feminine" one - e.g. become a secretary instead of a lawyer.) Attempts to achieve an ambiguous or "alternative" gender identity would not be supported or allowed. Some medical communities, especially since the 1990s, have adopted more accommodating practices, but many have not. Many governments and official agencies have also been criticized as having heteronormative systems that classify people into "male" and "female" genders in problematic ways. Different jurisdictions use different definitions of gender, including by genitalia, DNA, hormone levels (including some official sports bodies), or birth sex (which means one's gender cannot ever be officially changed). Sometimes gender reassignment surgery is a requirement for an official gender change, and often "male" and "female" are the only choices available, even for intersexed or transgendered people. Because most governments only allow heterosexual marriages, official gender changes can have implications for related rights and privileges, such as child custody, inheritance, and medical decision-making. ==Literature== * Chrys Ingraham: ''The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender'': Sociological Theory: July 1994 * Jillian Todd Weiss: ''The Gender Caste System - Identity, Privacy, and Heteronormativity'' The article can be found online: [http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~jweiss/tulane.htm] == See also == * List of transgender-related topics * Queer studies * Gender studies * Heterosexism * Heterosexuality * Judith Butler * Michel Foucault Queer theory Sexual orientation and society Transgender-related topics
Removed old debates to archive pages: * Debates in 2003 are in Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 2003 * Debate with Mr. Johnson, April 2004, in Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive The Justin Johnson Debate April 2004 * Various Debates from April 2004, mostly Sam Spade Debates Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 2004_2 * More Debates from April 2004 Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 2004_3 * Yet more debates from April 2004 Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 2004_4 * Debates from April to 2. June 2004 Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 2004_4-5 * Debates from 30.April to October 2004 /Archive 2004_4-10 ---- ==Verifiability== I've spent some time looking through gender and queer theory essays that I have, and I confess, I'm not finding the analysis this page gives to be held by any of them. I am not denying that the treatment of intersexuals, etc is as described in this page. What I am questioning, however, is whether the exact analyses of heteronormativity this page offers are actually coming from a source, or whether they are original research. Would someone please provide the following if they exist, so as to give some guidance on what work needs to be done to make this article something other than a piece of original research. *Where has the word heteronormativity been used outside of academic texts? *Where does the claim of a connection between heteronormativity and patriarchal society come from? Currently it says "is often seen," but by who? *Where do the critics of heteronormativity come from? What critics have actually addressed the topic of heteronormativity in so many words? *What gender theorists comment on the connection between intersexuals and heteronormativity? *Who has blamed restrictions on gender reassignment on heteronormativity? *Who has criticized governments for being heteronormative? For an article about a concept or theory like this one, it is exceedingly odd that it only actually cites a specific person once (The Eve Sedgwick line). Compare to Deconstruction, which is constantly ascribing ideas to specific thinkers. Let's refocus this article so that it actually talks about real and verifiable things. User:Snowspinner 17:16, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC) :Just what are you going to do if the answers to your questions don't come up, or if you don't like them? Try to delete transgender and intersex people again from the article? And what a coincidence that we just met on Wikipedia:Requests for page protection! How strage! Say, could you not simply leave both me and this article alone? Your behaviour is really starting to worry me. Not to mention that I am worried about your "academical carrer" if you are really not capable of finding those references you are asking for. : And just for the record, trying to remove trans and intersex people with a fake argument of "original research" is not going to work any better then your previous attempts to get rid of me via this article (or whatever you want to get rid of). I recomment a Google search like [http://www.google.com/search?q=heteronormative+transgender+intersex&sourceid=opera&num=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8], that sould show you how phony this attempt is. I don't know what thought worries me more - the thought that you know what you are doing or the thought that you don't. Either way, I recomment stopping it. -- User:AlexR 19:03, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC) ::Yes. If they are unverifiable original research, they need to be removed from the article. If there are sources, those sources should be cited. That's basic compliance with Wikipedia policies, and I would hope you have enough respect for the project you're working on to do that. Who says these things? And, more to the point, does anyone but you say these things? Move the assertions from blanket statements and nebulous "some say" to useful information that points to a debate and a real conversation on it. ::Past that, I'm uniterested in your personal attacks. I am interested in making this article encyclopedic and valid. Right now, it is not. Hopefully you will help in fixing it, since I suspect you have a good knowledge of the source material it requires. User:Snowspinner 19:24, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC) Listen, Snowspinner. The article right now is valid, and it is more than odd that you come up with this argument after months of silence and before that, months of working on that article. You can not complain if I wonder about that. Besides that, even if there were no sources, this would not constiture ''original research'', since no research is necessary to make that connection, it is absolutely obvious. But, since otherwise you will keep getting on my nerves: * Check this article from the International Journal of Transgenderism, which happens to be the official journal from the HBIGDA: [http://www.symposion.com/ijt/hbigda/2001/29_weiss.htm]. It is from 2001 and titeled ''The Gender Caste System: Identity, Privacy and Heteronormativity''. The full article can be found here: [http://geocities.com/jtweissny/tulane.rtf] (RTF file). * Or this abstract about a workshop with Judith Halberstam: „Queer Cultural Studies: heteronormativity, homonormativity and the politics of sexuality” [http://www.genderstudies.unibas.ch/pdf/QueerCulturalStudiesWorkshopAbstractsBios.pdf]. * Or how about [http://www.hicsocial.org/Social2003Proceedings/Jennifer%20L.%20Fortado%202.pdf]? Quote: ''Internal divisions within the Trans and Intersex population replicate the very social and medical divisions generated as a result of these gender identities being pathologized by larger society on the basis that they do not conform to the hetero-normative expectations of contiguous sex and gender categories as exclusively male and female.'' * Or maybe [http://www.smcm.edu/campus/clubspage/clubs/stars/definitions.html]? Quote: ''Heterosexism / Heteronormativity
The institutionalized assumption that everyone is heterosexual and that heterosexuality is inherently superior to, and preferable to any and all orientations outside of heterosexuality. (...) Homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia all stem from and are supported by heterosexism, which is then enforced by a binary gender system.'' * And then there is a book I have not read, but the summary is interesting:
Scheman, Naomi. 1996. Queering the Center by Centering the Queer. In Diane Tietjiens Meyers, ed., Feminists Rethink the Self. Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 124-162. Scheman compares and contrasts Jewish identities and the identities of transsexual women to displace the normalizing apparatuses of Christian-normativity and heteronormativity. * And [http://www.forge-forward.org/socialsupport/gq-july2004.html], [http://www.thegully.com/essays/gaymundo/020702_transgender_p_park.html] and [http://www.gaystudenterna.se/SFG/page.php?id=31&lang=en] also make your claim of "original research" go the way it ought to - straight through the john. I hope that ends that line of "debate". You know what the really funny part is? I found those with a single Google search in about 10 minutes. And almost all of them have an academic background. Therefore your claim that you could not find anything is so utterly ridiculous that I find it hard to explain. After all, when I am not involved, you seem to be able to do some constructive work. And I will tell you something else: If you keep trying to remove trans- and intersex people from the article, with increasingly phony arguments, I won't bother with long debates any more, since they are, at least between us, so utterly pointless. Instead I will request mediation, since I see no other way to resolve these perpetual and highly irritating debates. -- User:AlexR 01:15, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC) Great, you found them, Snowspinner didn't. Can you incorporate citations into the article, ascribing points of view to those who hold them, thereby making the article verifiable, accurate, and neutral? User:Hyacinth 01:46, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC) :Hmmm... Problem is, those articles are hardly the first one to mention the connection, and indeed I do not know who made that connection first. I also do not know which books are the most influential on that matter. I know this will disappoint snowspinner; but I life in Germany, and have access to English language articles almost exclusively through inter-library loan. (That is, if I can make it to the library at all; health reasons.) That makes keeping up with literature a bit tricky, especially English literature. I'd therefore prefer very much if somebody with easier access to that could do a literature section. Also, I do not think that not having a large one or not having tons of quotes in the article would make it less verifiable, accurate and neutral. Nor does it invalidate anything in the article, because contrary to Snowspinners claim, the connection is both well established and quite trivial. -- User:AlexR 02:46, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC) OK, I'm finally getting back to this after a semester that had me with no time for doing fact-checking, and I've looked at the links Alex provided. I'm still not seeing any evidence of the term gaining meanignful use outside of an academic context. Links 7, 8, and 9 above seem to be the closest thing to providing that, but they are, in order, a page that is quoting fact-index.com, which is a Wikipedia mirror, an interview with Pauline Park, who is described elsewhere as a political scientist, and thus not unacademic, and a site for a student association that is describing its goals in terms of the academy. So I'm still not seeing the penetration of the term outside academic circles. Is there still some verification on that?
(''Put bit about criticism part below, hope you don't mind. [AR]'')
I'll work on integrating some citations into the article to provide a context for some of the conclusions based on what Alex provided, but I'd like, long term, to see some more in terms of original sources. Anyone feel like crawling through a bunch of Butler and Irigaray for what quotes or citations we could use? I know I don't..User:Snowspinner 04:57, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC). :First of all, let me say something personal: Now that we both had some time to you know, move away emotionally from whatever is itching us about each other, or whatever, do you think that now we could actually start doing some constructive work together? Because I find your behaviour towards me and how you jump at everything I say, also in other debates, highly disturbing, and more, it makes us both spending far too much time with each other, instead of with improving articles. I would appreciate if things became a lot less personal between us. And, granted, by now your appearance alone is enough to prompt me for a sarcastic answer, but I am willing to make an effort to stop it. Can you make an effort too to stop what is going wrong between us? If, on the other hand, that continues, I am seriously considering requesting mediation, I checked, that is entirely possible when a matter is personal rather than about an article in particular. I would very much prefer, though, if we can solve that without the intervention of a third party. [AR] :Second, I do not know why "penetration outside academic circles" is so important to you, you are certainly not suggesting that because something might be mainly used in academic circles, it should not be in the Wikipedia. The term itself is, after all, a technical term, and probably in all contexts used rather in academic circles. However, a definitely non-academic use would be in Usenet, and it does turn up there occasionally. [http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en%7Clang_de&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=heteronormativity&btnG=Search], [http://groups.google.com/groups?num=50&hl=en&lr=lang_en%7Clang_de&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=heteronormative&btnG=Search]. Similar searches ought to produce other interesting and relevant results. -- User:AlexR 17:43, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC) ---- Feb 1, 2005 Fascinating argument. It seems that the discussants have different views on various roles of an encyclopedia: to record, to summarize, to consolidate and to create usage and/or scholarship. I do believe that Judith Butler used the term "heteronormative", but I don't have the exact cite. I will find it, by and by, and post it on the site. I have noted a number of net usages of the term, but some of them seem far afield. I understood it to refer to the "heterosexual norm," derived, if I recall correctly, from a discussion by Monique Wittig regarding the default assumption that people are heterosexual. However, I took a quick peek on the net, and saw this usage: “A genderqueer is part of a group of people who reject heteronormativity, the traditional two-gender system." (Fact-index.com) I have not used the term in this way, and I do not believe Butler did either. However, that does not mean it is "wrong," since I believe that meaning follows usage, and not vice versa. (Lest anyone think I follow Humpty-Dumpty's dictum that a word means whatever I want it to, let me say this: the coiner of a word does not have exclusive privileges on meaning after they loose it into the world, anymore than an author or a painting. The meaning can be expanded, though the expansion should be noted, if you're going to call yourself a scholar.) This usage at fact-index.com is an interesting one, because it refers back to the Greek root, and the original medical usage of the term "heterosexual" from 1892, at which point it connoted a “so-called male erotic attraction to females and so-called female erotic attraction to males” in one person. Jonathan Ned Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality 20 (1995). Thus, in addition to assumptions about sexual orientation, the new usage refers to assumptions about gender identity. In particular, it refers to the idea that there are only two genders, an assumption that genderqueers reject. This expansion of meaning may be repugnant to the original lesbian users of the term, because the two-gender system was (and is) embraced by many lesbians. These fight against sex roles constraining women, and they claim the right for people to express their gender in a non-traditional way, but they strongly resist the notion that they are not women. The same views are held by others in the LGBT community, including, surprisingly, some transsexuals. See my article in the Journal of Bisexuality: "GL vs. BT" available at http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~jweiss/glvsbt By contrast, genderqueers strongly resist the notion that they are women or men. The usage at fact-index.com uses "heteronormativity" to refer to the assumption of binary gender, in addition to the assuption of heterosexual orientation. Should it thus be expanded? If someone else has some guidance, all the better. I look forward to an interesting discussion.--User:Jillian Todd Weiss 10:57, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC) ==The "criticism" section== Seeing no verification at all for the alleged "criticisms' of heteronormativity, I've taken those out entirely. User:Snowspinner 04:57, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC) :Well, I certainly will not object to its removal, but you ''do'' remember the debates, especially with Sam Spade, about these bits? If you don't, since I think you came in after the worst of them, check archive 2004, 1 and 2. I think you and I very much agree that a repetition of these debate would be entirely undesireable. No disagreement here, just cautioning. -- User:AlexR 17:43, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC) ==LGBTI== Because it looks like a typo to an untrained reader, and the audience for an encyclopedia is an untrained reader. Perhaps if it were LGBTI instead, but having the unlinked I hanging at the end of it is just typographically unseemly. User:Snowspinner 04:43, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC) :Well, I made LGBTI a redir to LGBT, so it does not "look like a typo" any more. You know, both above and below we talk about Lesbians, Gays, Bi, Transgender ''and'' Intersex people, so using only LGBT here seems to be quite problematic. Once could expand the acronym, but I don't think that is necessary. It would be far preferable, though, to removing the I behind the LGBT. -- User:AlexR 17:43, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::It seems the link must be "neutral". ::Since only one link may be used, it can only have one form, and thus a representative form must be chosen. I argue LGBT is most representative of the acronyms. ::We could find POVs which insist on a more thourough discernment of terms than "LGBTI" (such as "LGBTIQQA"), but the longer the acronym the less representative because of the greater possibility of variance ("LGBTQQIA", for example) and the lesser frequency of its use. ::However, I changed the link to sexual minority to avoid the acronym debate. User:Hyacinth 02:35, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC) :::I'm affraid I most certainly have to revert that, since on the one hand neither transgender people nor intersex people are a "sexual minority" and on the other hand there are sexual minorities that are not fundamentaly affected by heteronormativity, like BDSM people and the like. So actually using "sexual minority" would introduce a fourth group, and that introduction would be inaccurate into the bargain. Also, I already explained that the acronym seems to be used here so that one has not to write "lesbian, gay, bi, transgender and intersex people" (because these are the groups explicitly mentioned in the article), and that happens to be abbreviated LGBTI. There is also nothing un-neutral about that, so I do not understand the change at all. -- User:AlexR 03:43, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::::Out of sincere interest... what are intersex people then? Surely not a majority... User:Snowspinner 03:45, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC) :::::Not a majority, no... the issue here was with the "sexual" of "sexual minority". Being intersexed has nothing to do with one's sexuality or sexual orientation, instead it is akin to a "third gender", a term which I have often heard intersexed individuals use to refer to themselves. The most accurate discription would probably be "Gender minority". User:Arcuras 21:05, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC) == Recent vandalism == Though the vandal who keeps insisting that the term 'heteronormativity' doesn't exist is wrong (I mean, really, its use proves it exists), it is kind of funny that the link s/he provided, to dictionary.com ([http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Heteronormativity]), thinks you're looking for "to run mad after". Then again, maybe its just late and I'm getting rummy. BTW, it seems odd that a term that "doesn't exist" would get over 13,000 google hits: [http://www.google.com/search?q=heteronormativity]. -User:Sethmahoney 08:53, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC) ==More on verifiability== I just came across this page. There's one reference. The stuff in the article really doesn't read like it comes from it. I would like to see references for most assertions. At least one per paragraph. 'Cos right now it reads like original research. There's a pile of supporting links on this talk page, but if they're references they should be on the article. - User:David Gerard 19:40, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC) :The article isn't original research, but I'm with you as far as more references go - for all pages, not just this one. -User:Sethmahoney 19:41, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC) :Come to think of it, I could add some references - anything in particular you'd like to see connected to a reference? -User:Sethmahoney 19:42, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC) == This is a great article. == I'm a heterosexual - not even a "metrosexual". Geez, take a look at my apartment and you'll see that I'm not. However, I just wanted to say that this article is extremely convincing and well-written. It has not changed my beliefs. I've rallied for gays in Cincinnati, Ohio (a very conservative place). I don't think that I am contributing much to the dialogue, but I want to let the community know that a "straight" man suppports this article 100%. The main thing I have to contribute to the debate is that I don't like loud people. At present, there is a gay person in my office space who is loud and demands attention at every possible opportunity. I don't care that he's gay. Whatever he does outside the office is his own business. However, he seems to put on an act that involves unnecessary drama. He yells and screams to his "audience", including my team (by physical position). I know lots of homosexuals that do not "flame". I know that maybe 30% (or less) of homosexuals find the need to be "flamers". This is not a deroratory term. It is merely an observattion. I know that some homosexuals employ the word "girlfriend" just to get a rise out of conservative heterosexual men. "Flamers" are hurting their own cause. It's perfect that everyone wants to be him/herself, but deliberatly engaging a "show" persona endangers the cause. Believe me, I love to get the "homo-haters" into the light. Just understand me correctly. I know there is a place for "Just Jack". That place is not in the office. Just as formerly repressed and disadvantaged African-Americans do not call each other "nigga" in the office, so should drama queens refrain from drama at the office. There is a place and time for drama queens to reignite the spark. That place is not at the office. Were I to engage my unrestrained self at work, I would be fired for hitting on too many girls and talking about sex too much. The same standard should be applied regardless of sexual orientation. --User:Axi0m 22:15, 23 May 2005 (UTC)Axi0m :One of the results of people trying to force other people to conform to their ideas of how individuals with male genitals and individuals with female genitals are supposed to behave is that they do lots of psychological damage -- even to unknown victims, maybe even including their own kids. People who have suffered attacks and have lived under the threat of attacks for long periods of time almost inevitably build defenses, and sometimes their defenses are not any more appropriate and effective than were the original attempts at controlling other people's business. It is very difficult for somebody to put down his/her defenses. It's like the true story of a gorilla in a zoo. I think it was a zoo in Chicago, but the location doesn't matter. This was back in the mid 20th century when most zoos kept animals in monotonos and cramped indoor cages. They had a large gorilla whom everybody liked. They decided that they would do the gorilla a big favor by building him an outdoor exercise on the other side of the wall to his cage. They built the outside fence and then they created a door in the wall of the cage, but to the end of his days the gorilla would never go out that door. The reason must have been that, having never been out there, he was afraid of the unknown. I had the same problem with a dog that I got from a Canine Rescue service. Somebody must have slammed her in a car door or some other door a number of times because you had to pull her through the door, and then when she decided she was going through she would make a mad dash -- often dragging me into the door frame and banging my head or shoulders. It took weeks or even months for her to learn that none of my doors were ever going to slam on her. :In the ''Dao De Jing'' (or ''Tao Te Ching'' if you prefer the old spelling) the Daoist sage says: "The good people I treat like good people. And the bad people I also treat like good people. In so doing, I acquire good." The same methodology was followed by Jesus in the story of the woman at the well. He didn't send her away and tell her to clean up her act, and then come back in five years to receive forgiveness. Instead, he forgave her on the spot, and in so doing he expressed his love and compassion. When you do that for a person you take away the need for them to be continually doing things either to defend themselves or prepare to defend themselves. Doing all that defending takes lots of one's time and energy, and when one no longer has to do it one finally has some resources left over with which one can start to grow. :I don't know enough about the people you're interacting with to be able to suggest how you might be able to create a security dome for them. That kind of thing pretty much depends on individual sensitivity to events as they unfold. But maybe it is worth repeating another bit of ancient wisdom. Characterizing somebody as X, Y, and even worse than that you're a rotten Z is in all cases except for the occasional saint likely to make the person more defensive and therefore more into doing whatever s/he was doing to "counterattack" in the first place. But sometimes it works to say, "When you say/do that kind of thing, this is how it makes me feel. If the other person's intent was not to make you feel that way, then you're already at least as far as first base. User:Kim 金 06:58, 23 May 2005 (UTC) ::Sorry for not signing. I'm new to posting on Wikipedia, and I'm trying to learn all of the markup. Sad thing is, I'm a web developer. ;) ::Anyway, I appreciate your reference to the ''Tao Te Ching''. That is one book, that were everyone to embrace, the world would be a much better place. Lao Tzu was a very wise man. ::I also appreciate your point about defense mechanisms. I'm certain that this man has encountered much hardship because of his homosexuality. Were I to witness anyone bothering him, I'd take his side on principle, defending him with fists were it necessary. But I don't have to like him, and his behavior is unacceptable in a business setting. ::At work, be yourself to the extent that it is not disruptive. He is not programming computers as my team is. His work, while very important, probably does not require the concentration level that does programming. ::In a casual setting, I appreciate ''flamers'' very much. I do volunteer work for a local theatre that espouses gay rights more than any other in the city. Feminine gay men are a blast to be around at a bar, in the theatre, etc. However, there is a certain level of decorum that must be observed while at work. As I've mentioned above, were I let it to ''all hang out'', I would be fired. Yet effiminate men are apparently permitted to engage their full gay persona, while our heterosexual / bisexual friends must limit themselves to business-appropriate diction. ::Hell, I've kissed a man and enjoyed it. I'll kiss more men if I feel like it. I'd rather be with women, but I'm not disruptive. I know that the business world does not take kindly to improper etiquette. I'd have no less of a problem with this man were he a woman. ::I'm not about to confront the poor guy. He's in a different division of the company, and I don't know what political fallout would ensue. I don't even know which guy he is. The point is that loud people suck. I would never infringe upon the sonic space of others without due cause - like ''My computer is on fire!'' ::He plays his boombox throughout the day, and I don't honestly care if he is having sex with goats. I believe that herein lies the disconnect between ''mainstream'' America and the GLBT community. ::Call me an accomodationist if you like, but there is an informal manner and there is business-speak. I engage in the latter, and expect nothing less from our gay brothers and sisters. --User:Axi0m 22:47, 23 May 2005 (UTC)Axi0m
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Words begining with Heteronormativity:
Heteronormativity
Heteronormativity
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Heteronormativity
Heteronormativity is a term used in the discussion of gender and society, mostly but not exclusively within the field of critical theory. It is used to describe and frequently to criticize how many social institutions and social policies are seen to reinforce certain beliefs. These include the belief that human beings fall into two distinct and complementary categories, male and female; that sexual and marital relations are normal only when between two people of different genders; and that each gender has certain natural roles in life. Thus, physical sex, gender identity, and gender roles should in any given person all align to either male or female norms, and heterosexuality is considered to be the only normal sexual orientation. The norm this term describes or criticizes might be overt, covert, or implied. Those who identify and criticize heteronormativity say that it distorts discourse by stigmatizing alternative concepts of both sexuality and gender and makes certain types of self-expression more difficult. == Concept == This concept was formulated for use in the exploration and critique of the traditional normative of sex, gender identity, gender roles and sexuality, and of the social implications of those institutions. It is descriptive of a binary system of categorization that directly links social behavior and self identity with one's genitalia. That is to say (among other things) that, because there are strictly defined concepts of maleness and femaleness, there are similarly expected behaviors for both males and females. Originally conceived to describe the norms against which non-heterosexuals struggle, it quickly became incorporated into both the gender and the transgender debate. It is also often used in postmodernist and feminist debates. Those who use this concept frequently point to the difficulty posed to those who hold a dichotomous view of sexuality by the presence of clear exceptions -- from freemartins in the bovine world to intersexual human beings with the sexual characteristics of both sexes. These exceptions are taken as direct evidence that neither sex nor gender are concepts that can be reduced to an either/or proposition. In a heteronormative society, the binary choice of male and female for one's gender identity is viewed as leading to a lack of possible choice about one's gender role and sexual identity. Also, as part of the norms established by society for both genders, is the requirement that the individuals should feel and/or express desire only for partners of ''the opposite'' sex. In other critiques, such as the work of Eve Sedgwick, this heteronormative pairing is viewed as defining sexual orientation exclusively in terms of the sex/gender of the person one chooses to have sex with, ignoring other preferences one might have about sex. In a heteronormative society, men and women are interpreted to be natural complements, socially as well as biologically, and especially when it comes to reproduction. Woman and men are necessary for procreation, therefore male/female coupling is assumed to be the norm. ===Heteronormativity, the Is-Ought Problem, and the Naturalistic Fallacy=== The concept of heteronormativity seeks to make visible the underlying norms or "normal" society. It questions the common and often tightly held notion that only what is statistically typical is normal and good by embracing the notion (in meta-ethics) that "''is'' does not imply ''ought''." By questioning the equivocation of 'normal' on one hand, and 'good' or 'right' on the other, social critiques involving the concept of heteronormativity invoke the naturalistic fallacy. In his work Principia Ethica, G.E. Moore claimed that any proposition asserting that a moral claim can be analyzed in terms of some property in the world (or some supernatural property) is fallacious since a property in the world is natural, while moral properties are unnatural human inventions imposed on the world. The naturalistic fallacy is related to the is-ought problem outlined by David Hume and others. == Heteronormativity and patriarchy == ''Heteronormativity'' is often strongly associated with, and sometimes even confused with patriarchy. However, a patriarchal system does not necessarily have a binary gender system, and vice versa — it merely privileges the masculine gender over all others — regardless of the number of others. Still, heteronormativity is often seen as one of the pillars of a patriarchy: the traditional role of men is reinforced and perpetuated through heteronormative mores, rules, and even laws that distinguish between individuals based upon their apparent sex, or based on their refusal to conform to the gender roles that are normal to their society. Consequently, feminism can be seen as concerned with fighting "heteronormativity" and the prescriptions it is seen to have for women. ==Groups that challenge traditional gender structure== Critics of heteronormativity say that the existence of intersex, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people undermines any fundamental assumption that gender is naturally dichotomous. They believe it problematizes justifications such as the appeal to natural law, or certain Christian notions of faith in God's plan or belief in the goodness of Creation. Many supporters of heteronormativity are aware that these groups exist, and reconcile that with their beliefs by making the "is" vs. "ought" distinction. On the other hand, if what is typical is somehow related to what is good, then the fact that these groups are all numerical minorities may be significant. The issue of choice vs. biological pre-determination is also an important consideration, and supporters and critics often disagree about those facts. Supporters of heteronormativity may thus consider members of LGBTI people abnormal, diseased, or immoral. The range of possible social responses has and does include tolerance, pity, shunning, violence, and attempts to help members of these groups become more "normal" through compassionate or even forceful means. === Intersexuals === intersexuality people have biological characteristics which are not unambigously either male or female. If such a condition is detected, intersexual people are almost always assigned a gender at birth. Surgery (usually involving modification to the genitalia) is often performed to produce an unambiguously male or female body, without the individual's consent. The child is then usually raised and enculturated as a member of the assigned gender, which may or may not match gender identity throughout life or some remaining Sex-determination system (for example, genes). Some individuals who have been subjected to these interventions have objected that had they been consulted at an age when they were able to give informed consent then they would have declined these surgical and social interventions. Gender theorists argue that gender assignment to intersex individuals is a clear case of heteronormativity, in which a biological reality is actually denied in order to maintain a binary set of sexes and genders. === Gays, lesbians, and bisexuals === Lesbian, gay, and bisexual behaviour is strongly disapproved of in many societies, both socially and legally. Many argue that this is because it challenges the heteronormative position that sexual relations exist purely for reproductive means. If it cannot be suppressed so far as to at least disappear from the public view, then the notion is said to be encouraged that gay men are not really "men", but have a strong female component (and vice versa) and/or that in a lesbian or gay partnership there is always a "male" (active) and a "female" (passive) partner. This has in some cases gone so far that homosexuals were encouraged (in Europe and North America in the 1960s and 1970s) or even forced (in South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s) to undergo sexual reassignment procedures to "fix" their sex or gender. === Transgendered people === Transgender people: * often seek gender reassignment therapy, thereby violating the assumption that only ''unambiguous female or male bodies'' exist. * do not develop a ''gender identity'' that corresponds to their body; in fact, several never develop a gender identity that is plainly ''male'' or ''female''. * often do not behave according to the ''gender role'' assigned to them, even before transitioning. This is especially true for transmen, but also many transwomen. * often identify as ''gay or lesbian'' after transitioning, and are often lumped together with homosexuals relative to their birth sex, although that is almost never correct. While some transmen did identify as lesbians for a time (although this is still a minority), transwomen who identify as gay men are very rare. Some societies consider transgendered behavior a crime worthy of capital punishment, including Saudi Arabia, and many other non-western nations. In other countries, certain forms of violence against transgendered people may be tacitly endorsed when prosecutors and juries refuse to investigate, prosecute, or convict those who perform the murders and beatings. (Currently, in parts of North America and Europe. [http://www.gender.org/remember/index.html#] [http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=276]) Other societies have considered transgendered behavior as a psychiatric illness serious enough to justify institutionalization. Certain restrictions on the ability of transgendered people to obtain gender-related medical treatment has been blamed on heteronormativity. (See the article on transsexualism.) In medical communities with these restrictions, patients have the option of either suppressing transsexual behavior and conforming to the norms of their birth sex (which may be necessary to avoid social stigma or even violence), or adhering strictly to norms for their "new" sex in order to qualify for gender reassignment surgery and hormonal treatments (if any treatment is offered at all). These norms might include: dress and mannerisms, choice of occupation, choice of hobbies, and the gender of one's mate (heterosexuality required). (For example, transwomen might be expected to trade a "masculine" job for a more "feminine" one - e.g. become a secretary instead of a lawyer.) Attempts to achieve an ambiguous or "alternative" gender identity would not be supported or allowed. Some medical communities, especially since the 1990s, have adopted more accommodating practices, but many have not. Many governments and official agencies have also been criticized as having heteronormative systems that classify people into "male" and "female" genders in problematic ways. Different jurisdictions use different definitions of gender, including by genitalia, DNA, hormone levels (including some official sports bodies), or birth sex (which means one's gender cannot ever be officially changed). Sometimes gender reassignment surgery is a requirement for an official gender change, and often "male" and "female" are the only choices available, even for intersexed or transgendered people. Because most governments only allow heterosexual marriages, official gender changes can have implications for related rights and privileges, such as child custody, inheritance, and medical decision-making. ==Literature== * Chrys Ingraham: ''The Heterosexual Imaginary: Feminist Sociology and Theories of Gender'': Sociological Theory: July 1994 * Jillian Todd Weiss: ''The Gender Caste System - Identity, Privacy, and Heteronormativity'' The article can be found online: [http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~jweiss/tulane.htm] == See also == * List of transgender-related topics * Queer studies * Gender studies * Heterosexism * Heterosexuality * Judith Butler * Michel Foucault Queer theory Sexual orientation and society Transgender-related topics
Heteronormativity
Removed old debates to archive pages: * Debates in 2003 are in Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 2003 * Debate with Mr. Johnson, April 2004, in Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive The Justin Johnson Debate April 2004 * Various Debates from April 2004, mostly Sam Spade Debates Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 2004_2 * More Debates from April 2004 Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 2004_3 * Yet more debates from April 2004 Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 2004_4 * Debates from April to 2. June 2004 Talk:Heteronormativity/Archive 2004_4-5 * Debates from 30.April to October 2004 /Archive 2004_4-10 ---- ==Verifiability== I've spent some time looking through gender and queer theory essays that I have, and I confess, I'm not finding the analysis this page gives to be held by any of them. I am not denying that the treatment of intersexuals, etc is as described in this page. What I am questioning, however, is whether the exact analyses of heteronormativity this page offers are actually coming from a source, or whether they are original research. Would someone please provide the following if they exist, so as to give some guidance on what work needs to be done to make this article something other than a piece of original research. *Where has the word heteronormativity been used outside of academic texts? *Where does the claim of a connection between heteronormativity and patriarchal society come from? Currently it says "is often seen," but by who? *Where do the critics of heteronormativity come from? What critics have actually addressed the topic of heteronormativity in so many words? *What gender theorists comment on the connection between intersexuals and heteronormativity? *Who has blamed restrictions on gender reassignment on heteronormativity? *Who has criticized governments for being heteronormative? For an article about a concept or theory like this one, it is exceedingly odd that it only actually cites a specific person once (The Eve Sedgwick line). Compare to Deconstruction, which is constantly ascribing ideas to specific thinkers. Let's refocus this article so that it actually talks about real and verifiable things. User:Snowspinner 17:16, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC) :Just what are you going to do if the answers to your questions don't come up, or if you don't like them? Try to delete transgender and intersex people again from the article? And what a coincidence that we just met on Wikipedia:Requests for page protection! How strage! Say, could you not simply leave both me and this article alone? Your behaviour is really starting to worry me. Not to mention that I am worried about your "academical carrer" if you are really not capable of finding those references you are asking for. : And just for the record, trying to remove trans and intersex people with a fake argument of "original research" is not going to work any better then your previous attempts to get rid of me via this article (or whatever you want to get rid of). I recomment a Google search like [http://www.google.com/search?q=heteronormative+transgender+intersex&sourceid=opera&num=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8], that sould show you how phony this attempt is. I don't know what thought worries me more - the thought that you know what you are doing or the thought that you don't. Either way, I recomment stopping it. -- User:AlexR 19:03, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC) ::Yes. If they are unverifiable original research, they need to be removed from the article. If there are sources, those sources should be cited. That's basic compliance with Wikipedia policies, and I would hope you have enough respect for the project you're working on to do that. Who says these things? And, more to the point, does anyone but you say these things? Move the assertions from blanket statements and nebulous "some say" to useful information that points to a debate and a real conversation on it. ::Past that, I'm uniterested in your personal attacks. I am interested in making this article encyclopedic and valid. Right now, it is not. Hopefully you will help in fixing it, since I suspect you have a good knowledge of the source material it requires. User:Snowspinner 19:24, Oct 10, 2004 (UTC) Listen, Snowspinner. The article right now is valid, and it is more than odd that you come up with this argument after months of silence and before that, months of working on that article. You can not complain if I wonder about that. Besides that, even if there were no sources, this would not constiture ''original research'', since no research is necessary to make that connection, it is absolutely obvious. But, since otherwise you will keep getting on my nerves: * Check this article from the International Journal of Transgenderism, which happens to be the official journal from the HBIGDA: [http://www.symposion.com/ijt/hbigda/2001/29_weiss.htm]. It is from 2001 and titeled ''The Gender Caste System: Identity, Privacy and Heteronormativity''. The full article can be found here: [http://geocities.com/jtweissny/tulane.rtf] (RTF file). * Or this abstract about a workshop with Judith Halberstam: „Queer Cultural Studies: heteronormativity, homonormativity and the politics of sexuality” [http://www.genderstudies.unibas.ch/pdf/QueerCulturalStudiesWorkshopAbstractsBios.pdf]. * Or how about [http://www.hicsocial.org/Social2003Proceedings/Jennifer%20L.%20Fortado%202.pdf]? Quote: ''Internal divisions within the Trans and Intersex population replicate the very social and medical divisions generated as a result of these gender identities being pathologized by larger society on the basis that they do not conform to the hetero-normative expectations of contiguous sex and gender categories as exclusively male and female.'' * Or maybe [http://www.smcm.edu/campus/clubspage/clubs/stars/definitions.html]? Quote: ''Heterosexism / Heteronormativity
The institutionalized assumption that everyone is heterosexual and that heterosexuality is inherently superior to, and preferable to any and all orientations outside of heterosexuality. (...) Homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia all stem from and are supported by heterosexism, which is then enforced by a binary gender system.'' * And then there is a book I have not read, but the summary is interesting:
Scheman, Naomi. 1996. Queering the Center by Centering the Queer. In Diane Tietjiens Meyers, ed., Feminists Rethink the Self. Boulder: Westview Press, pp. 124-162. Scheman compares and contrasts Jewish identities and the identities of transsexual women to displace the normalizing apparatuses of Christian-normativity and heteronormativity. * And [http://www.forge-forward.org/socialsupport/gq-july2004.html], [http://www.thegully.com/essays/gaymundo/020702_transgender_p_park.html] and [http://www.gaystudenterna.se/SFG/page.php?id=31&lang=en] also make your claim of "original research" go the way it ought to - straight through the john. I hope that ends that line of "debate". You know what the really funny part is? I found those with a single Google search in about 10 minutes. And almost all of them have an academic background. Therefore your claim that you could not find anything is so utterly ridiculous that I find it hard to explain. After all, when I am not involved, you seem to be able to do some constructive work. And I will tell you something else: If you keep trying to remove trans- and intersex people from the article, with increasingly phony arguments, I won't bother with long debates any more, since they are, at least between us, so utterly pointless. Instead I will request mediation, since I see no other way to resolve these perpetual and highly irritating debates. -- User:AlexR 01:15, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC) Great, you found them, Snowspinner didn't. Can you incorporate citations into the article, ascribing points of view to those who hold them, thereby making the article verifiable, accurate, and neutral? User:Hyacinth 01:46, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC) :Hmmm... Problem is, those articles are hardly the first one to mention the connection, and indeed I do not know who made that connection first. I also do not know which books are the most influential on that matter. I know this will disappoint snowspinner; but I life in Germany, and have access to English language articles almost exclusively through inter-library loan. (That is, if I can make it to the library at all; health reasons.) That makes keeping up with literature a bit tricky, especially English literature. I'd therefore prefer very much if somebody with easier access to that could do a literature section. Also, I do not think that not having a large one or not having tons of quotes in the article would make it less verifiable, accurate and neutral. Nor does it invalidate anything in the article, because contrary to Snowspinners claim, the connection is both well established and quite trivial. -- User:AlexR 02:46, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC) OK, I'm finally getting back to this after a semester that had me with no time for doing fact-checking, and I've looked at the links Alex provided. I'm still not seeing any evidence of the term gaining meanignful use outside of an academic context. Links 7, 8, and 9 above seem to be the closest thing to providing that, but they are, in order, a page that is quoting fact-index.com, which is a Wikipedia mirror, an interview with Pauline Park, who is described elsewhere as a political scientist, and thus not unacademic, and a site for a student association that is describing its goals in terms of the academy. So I'm still not seeing the penetration of the term outside academic circles. Is there still some verification on that?
(''Put bit about criticism part below, hope you don't mind. [AR]'')
I'll work on integrating some citations into the article to provide a context for some of the conclusions based on what Alex provided, but I'd like, long term, to see some more in terms of original sources. Anyone feel like crawling through a bunch of Butler and Irigaray for what quotes or citations we could use? I know I don't..User:Snowspinner 04:57, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC). :First of all, let me say something personal: Now that we both had some time to you know, move away emotionally from whatever is itching us about each other, or whatever, do you think that now we could actually start doing some constructive work together? Because I find your behaviour towards me and how you jump at everything I say, also in other debates, highly disturbing, and more, it makes us both spending far too much time with each other, instead of with improving articles. I would appreciate if things became a lot less personal between us. And, granted, by now your appearance alone is enough to prompt me for a sarcastic answer, but I am willing to make an effort to stop it. Can you make an effort too to stop what is going wrong between us? If, on the other hand, that continues, I am seriously considering requesting mediation, I checked, that is entirely possible when a matter is personal rather than about an article in particular. I would very much prefer, though, if we can solve that without the intervention of a third party. [AR] :Second, I do not know why "penetration outside academic circles" is so important to you, you are certainly not suggesting that because something might be mainly used in academic circles, it should not be in the Wikipedia. The term itself is, after all, a technical term, and probably in all contexts used rather in academic circles. However, a definitely non-academic use would be in Usenet, and it does turn up there occasionally. [http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en%7Clang_de&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=heteronormativity&btnG=Search], [http://groups.google.com/groups?num=50&hl=en&lr=lang_en%7Clang_de&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=heteronormative&btnG=Search]. Similar searches ought to produce other interesting and relevant results. -- User:AlexR 17:43, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC) ---- Feb 1, 2005 Fascinating argument. It seems that the discussants have different views on various roles of an encyclopedia: to record, to summarize, to consolidate and to create usage and/or scholarship. I do believe that Judith Butler used the term "heteronormative", but I don't have the exact cite. I will find it, by and by, and post it on the site. I have noted a number of net usages of the term, but some of them seem far afield. I understood it to refer to the "heterosexual norm," derived, if I recall correctly, from a discussion by Monique Wittig regarding the default assumption that people are heterosexual. However, I took a quick peek on the net, and saw this usage: “A genderqueer is part of a group of people who reject heteronormativity, the traditional two-gender system." (Fact-index.com) I have not used the term in this way, and I do not believe Butler did either. However, that does not mean it is "wrong," since I believe that meaning follows usage, and not vice versa. (Lest anyone think I follow Humpty-Dumpty's dictum that a word means whatever I want it to, let me say this: the coiner of a word does not have exclusive privileges on meaning after they loose it into the world, anymore than an author or a painting. The meaning can be expanded, though the expansion should be noted, if you're going to call yourself a scholar.) This usage at fact-index.com is an interesting one, because it refers back to the Greek root, and the original medical usage of the term "heterosexual" from 1892, at which point it connoted a “so-called male erotic attraction to females and so-called female erotic attraction to males” in one person. Jonathan Ned Katz, The Invention of Heterosexuality 20 (1995). Thus, in addition to assumptions about sexual orientation, the new usage refers to assumptions about gender identity. In particular, it refers to the idea that there are only two genders, an assumption that genderqueers reject. This expansion of meaning may be repugnant to the original lesbian users of the term, because the two-gender system was (and is) embraced by many lesbians. These fight against sex roles constraining women, and they claim the right for people to express their gender in a non-traditional way, but they strongly resist the notion that they are not women. The same views are held by others in the LGBT community, including, surprisingly, some transsexuals. See my article in the Journal of Bisexuality: "GL vs. BT" available at http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~jweiss/glvsbt By contrast, genderqueers strongly resist the notion that they are women or men. The usage at fact-index.com uses "heteronormativity" to refer to the assumption of binary gender, in addition to the assuption of heterosexual orientation. Should it thus be expanded? If someone else has some guidance, all the better. I look forward to an interesting discussion.--User:Jillian Todd Weiss 10:57, Feb 1, 2005 (UTC) ==The "criticism" section== Seeing no verification at all for the alleged "criticisms' of heteronormativity, I've taken those out entirely. User:Snowspinner 04:57, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC) :Well, I certainly will not object to its removal, but you ''do'' remember the debates, especially with Sam Spade, about these bits? If you don't, since I think you came in after the worst of them, check archive 2004, 1 and 2. I think you and I very much agree that a repetition of these debate would be entirely undesireable. No disagreement here, just cautioning. -- User:AlexR 17:43, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC) ==LGBTI== Because it looks like a typo to an untrained reader, and the audience for an encyclopedia is an untrained reader. Perhaps if it were LGBTI instead, but having the unlinked I hanging at the end of it is just typographically unseemly. User:Snowspinner 04:43, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC) :Well, I made LGBTI a redir to LGBT, so it does not "look like a typo" any more. You know, both above and below we talk about Lesbians, Gays, Bi, Transgender ''and'' Intersex people, so using only LGBT here seems to be quite problematic. Once could expand the acronym, but I don't think that is necessary. It would be far preferable, though, to removing the I behind the LGBT. -- User:AlexR 17:43, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::It seems the link must be "neutral". ::Since only one link may be used, it can only have one form, and thus a representative form must be chosen. I argue LGBT is most representative of the acronyms. ::We could find POVs which insist on a more thourough discernment of terms than "LGBTI" (such as "LGBTIQQA"), but the longer the acronym the less representative because of the greater possibility of variance ("LGBTQQIA", for example) and the lesser frequency of its use. ::However, I changed the link to sexual minority to avoid the acronym debate. User:Hyacinth 02:35, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC) :::I'm affraid I most certainly have to revert that, since on the one hand neither transgender people nor intersex people are a "sexual minority" and on the other hand there are sexual minorities that are not fundamentaly affected by heteronormativity, like BDSM people and the like. So actually using "sexual minority" would introduce a fourth group, and that introduction would be inaccurate into the bargain. Also, I already explained that the acronym seems to be used here so that one has not to write "lesbian, gay, bi, transgender and intersex people" (because these are the groups explicitly mentioned in the article), and that happens to be abbreviated LGBTI. There is also nothing un-neutral about that, so I do not understand the change at all. -- User:AlexR 03:43, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC) ::::Out of sincere interest... what are intersex people then? Surely not a majority... User:Snowspinner 03:45, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC) :::::Not a majority, no... the issue here was with the "sexual" of "sexual minority". Being intersexed has nothing to do with one's sexuality or sexual orientation, instead it is akin to a "third gender", a term which I have often heard intersexed individuals use to refer to themselves. The most accurate discription would probably be "Gender minority". User:Arcuras 21:05, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC) == Recent vandalism == Though the vandal who keeps insisting that the term 'heteronormativity' doesn't exist is wrong (I mean, really, its use proves it exists), it is kind of funny that the link s/he provided, to dictionary.com ([http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Heteronormativity]), thinks you're looking for "to run mad after". Then again, maybe its just late and I'm getting rummy. BTW, it seems odd that a term that "doesn't exist" would get over 13,000 google hits: [http://www.google.com/search?q=heteronormativity]. -User:Sethmahoney 08:53, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC) ==More on verifiability== I just came across this page. There's one reference. The stuff in the article really doesn't read like it comes from it. I would like to see references for most assertions. At least one per paragraph. 'Cos right now it reads like original research. There's a pile of supporting links on this talk page, but if they're references they should be on the article. - User:David Gerard 19:40, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC) :The article isn't original research, but I'm with you as far as more references go - for all pages, not just this one. -User:Sethmahoney 19:41, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC) :Come to think of it, I could add some references - anything in particular you'd like to see connected to a reference? -User:Sethmahoney 19:42, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC) == This is a great article. == I'm a heterosexual - not even a "metrosexual". Geez, take a look at my apartment and you'll see that I'm not. However, I just wanted to say that this article is extremely convincing and well-written. It has not changed my beliefs. I've rallied for gays in Cincinnati, Ohio (a very conservative place). I don't think that I am contributing much to the dialogue, but I want to let the community know that a "straight" man suppports this article 100%. The main thing I have to contribute to the debate is that I don't like loud people. At present, there is a gay person in my office space who is loud and demands attention at every possible opportunity. I don't care that he's gay. Whatever he does outside the office is his own business. However, he seems to put on an act that involves unnecessary drama. He yells and screams to his "audience", including my team (by physical position). I know lots of homosexuals that do not "flame". I know that maybe 30% (or less) of homosexuals find the need to be "flamers". This is not a deroratory term. It is merely an observattion. I know that some homosexuals employ the word "girlfriend" just to get a rise out of conservative heterosexual men. "Flamers" are hurting their own cause. It's perfect that everyone wants to be him/herself, but deliberatly engaging a "show" persona endangers the cause. Believe me, I love to get the "homo-haters" into the light. Just understand me correctly. I know there is a place for "Just Jack". That place is not in the office. Just as formerly repressed and disadvantaged African-Americans do not call each other "nigga" in the office, so should drama queens refrain from drama at the office. There is a place and time for drama queens to reignite the spark. That place is not at the office. Were I to engage my unrestrained self at work, I would be fired for hitting on too many girls and talking about sex too much. The same standard should be applied regardless of sexual orientation. --User:Axi0m 22:15, 23 May 2005 (UTC)Axi0m :One of the results of people trying to force other people to conform to their ideas of how individuals with male genitals and individuals with female genitals are supposed to behave is that they do lots of psychological damage -- even to unknown victims, maybe even including their own kids. People who have suffered attacks and have lived under the threat of attacks for long periods of time almost inevitably build defenses, and sometimes their defenses are not any more appropriate and effective than were the original attempts at controlling other people's business. It is very difficult for somebody to put down his/her defenses. It's like the true story of a gorilla in a zoo. I think it was a zoo in Chicago, but the location doesn't matter. This was back in the mid 20th century when most zoos kept animals in monotonos and cramped indoor cages. They had a large gorilla whom everybody liked. They decided that they would do the gorilla a big favor by building him an outdoor exercise on the other side of the wall to his cage. They built the outside fence and then they created a door in the wall of the cage, but to the end of his days the gorilla would never go out that door. The reason must have been that, having never been out there, he was afraid of the unknown. I had the same problem with a dog that I got from a Canine Rescue service. Somebody must have slammed her in a car door or some other door a number of times because you had to pull her through the door, and then when she decided she was going through she would make a mad dash -- often dragging me into the door frame and banging my head or shoulders. It took weeks or even months for her to learn that none of my doors were ever going to slam on her. :In the ''Dao De Jing'' (or ''Tao Te Ching'' if you prefer the old spelling) the Daoist sage says: "The good people I treat like good people. And the bad people I also treat like good people. In so doing, I acquire good." The same methodology was followed by Jesus in the story of the woman at the well. He didn't send her away and tell her to clean up her act, and then come back in five years to receive forgiveness. Instead, he forgave her on the spot, and in so doing he expressed his love and compassion. When you do that for a person you take away the need for them to be continually doing things either to defend themselves or prepare to defend themselves. Doing all that defending takes lots of one's time and energy, and when one no longer has to do it one finally has some resources left over with which one can start to grow. :I don't know enough about the people you're interacting with to be able to suggest how you might be able to create a security dome for them. That kind of thing pretty much depends on individual sensitivity to events as they unfold. But maybe it is worth repeating another bit of ancient wisdom. Characterizing somebody as X, Y, and even worse than that you're a rotten Z is in all cases except for the occasional saint likely to make the person more defensive and therefore more into doing whatever s/he was doing to "counterattack" in the first place. But sometimes it works to say, "When you say/do that kind of thing, this is how it makes me feel. If the other person's intent was not to make you feel that way, then you're already at least as far as first base. User:Kim 金 06:58, 23 May 2005 (UTC) ::Sorry for not signing. I'm new to posting on Wikipedia, and I'm trying to learn all of the markup. Sad thing is, I'm a web developer. ;) ::Anyway, I appreciate your reference to the ''Tao Te Ching''. That is one book, that were everyone to embrace, the world would be a much better place. Lao Tzu was a very wise man. ::I also appreciate your point about defense mechanisms. I'm certain that this man has encountered much hardship because of his homosexuality. Were I to witness anyone bothering him, I'd take his side on principle, defending him with fists were it necessary. But I don't have to like him, and his behavior is unacceptable in a business setting. ::At work, be yourself to the extent that it is not disruptive. He is not programming computers as my team is. His work, while very important, probably does not require the concentration level that does programming. ::In a casual setting, I appreciate ''flamers'' very much. I do volunteer work for a local theatre that espouses gay rights more than any other in the city. Feminine gay men are a blast to be around at a bar, in the theatre, etc. However, there is a certain level of decorum that must be observed while at work. As I've mentioned above, were I let it to ''all hang out'', I would be fired. Yet effiminate men are apparently permitted to engage their full gay persona, while our heterosexual / bisexual friends must limit themselves to business-appropriate diction. ::Hell, I've kissed a man and enjoyed it. I'll kiss more men if I feel like it. I'd rather be with women, but I'm not disruptive. I know that the business world does not take kindly to improper etiquette. I'd have no less of a problem with this man were he a woman. ::I'm not about to confront the poor guy. He's in a different division of the company, and I don't know what political fallout would ensue. I don't even know which guy he is. The point is that loud people suck. I would never infringe upon the sonic space of others without due cause - like ''My computer is on fire!'' ::He plays his boombox throughout the day, and I don't honestly care if he is having sex with goats. I believe that herein lies the disconnect between ''mainstream'' America and the GLBT community. ::Call me an accomodationist if you like, but there is an informal manner and there is business-speak. I engage in the latter, and expect nothing less from our gay brothers and sisters. --User:Axi0m 22:47, 23 May 2005 (UTC)Axi0m
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HA | HB | HC | HD | HE | HF | HG | HI | HJ | HK | HL | HM | HN | HO | HP | HR | HS | HT | HU | HW | HX | HY | HZ |Words begining with Heteronormativity:
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