Sexuality Knowledge, Demography, and the Politics of Population Measurement

• In Event: 1466 - Section on the Sociology of Sexualities Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 6. Queer Perspectives on Sexualities

Abstract

The last decade witnessed an unprecedented prioritization of research on non-heterosexuality, fueling activism (“data=power!”) and LGBTQ civil rights. Political upheaval and con- temporary skepticism toward expertise leaves this sexuality knowledge in a precarious position. I show how the stages of survey research on sexuality—production, engagement, circulation—constitute a powerful case for examining how social scientific thinking shapes policy, and vice versa. I draw on STS approaches to the politics of knowledge, the sociology of quantification and classification, survey methodology, and feminist epistemology to tell the stories of five prominent knowledge claims about non-heterosexuality.
I use comparative-historical methods to investigate how knowledge claims about non- heterosexuality circulate out in the world in public discourse and policy debates, and interrogate their technical production within social science, specifically demography. In this chapter, I advance three arguments based on my empirical analyses: (1) demography has become a prominent discourse for talking about LGBTQ sexuality, (2) the availability of demographic data and the normative practice of separately measuring sexual behavior, attraction, and identity formed the foundation of new theories of sexuality and generated new sexual typologies and classifications, and (3) demographic knowledge has engendered powerful claims to representation. Although quantitative measurement can reproduce inequality by limiting definitions and foreclosing more nuanced understandings of sexuality, population counting is also being deployed as a tool for progress and justice through what I call “data activism”. My case demonstrates the continued relevance, contested legitimacy, and sociopolitical influence of sexuality knowledge – as well as the high stakes of social science expertise on the national stage.

Author

• Jamie Budnick, University of Michigan