Redoing Sexuality

• In Event: 1268 - Trans and Non-Binary Sexualities

Abstract

Recent efforts to theorize the sex/gender/sexuality nexus have focused predominantly upon the experiences of binary transgender (transmen and transwomen) social actors; this study illuminates a new angle, by analyzing how 47 individuals with non-binary genders negotiate their sexual orientation labels to more accurately reflect their gendered sexuality. These negotiations illustrate how people “redo” sexuality, beyond binary confines. The insights of these non-binary social actors, who are situated within a type of sex/gender/sexuality borderlands, lend fresh insight into how the gender binary system affects all aspects of this nexus. This study contributes four-fold to the sociology of gender, by 1) providing empirical research on the non-binary population, which remains understudied; 2) advancing the analytical lens of “redoing sexuality”; 3) illuminating a new angle of the sex/gender/sexuality nexus; 4) and demonstrating the range of meanings that can be ascribed to seemingly discreet sexual orientation labels.

Author

• Helana Darwin, State University of New York-Stony Brook