​​Binary Code​: Investigating the Social Rules of Gender

• In Event: Sociology of Sex and Gender Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 3. Queer, Trans, and Nonbinary Lives Across the Life Course

Abstract

​This paper focuses on the enforcement or policing of gender conformity in the United States, particularly among queer individuals. A historical framework contextualizes public discourse surrounding gender expression and conformity, focusing on the American Civil War era to the present. The main analysis draws upon 14 in-depth qualitative interviews with LGBTQ+ university students about their negotiation of the normative cisgender-heterosexual (cis-het) binary and various forms of resistance. I find that the most significant experiences of gender policing occur in the institutions of family and education, from teachers, peers, parents, and other extended family. Additionally, I find queer students, specifically transgender/gender nonconforming (TGNC) students, exhibit both conformity and resistance behaviors, with decisions about presentation and behavior being largely context dependent.

Author

• Jules Budlow, Temple University