This article gauges the progress that sociologists of gender and sexuality have made in employing the insights of queer theory by examining four recent monographs that have utilized aspects of queer theory in their empirical work: Rupp and Taylor, Seidman, Bettie, and Schippers. The article uses the insights of queer theory to push the monographs in an even “queerer” theoretical direction. This direction involves taking more seriously the nonnormative alignments of sex, gender, sexuality, resisting the tendency to essentialize identity or (...) conflate it with the broad range of gender and sexual expression and treating the construction of intersectional subjectivities as both performed and performative in nature. The analysis of these texts also insists that a queer sociological theory situate its emphasis on discursive power more firmly in economic, political, and other institutional processes. Ethnographic methods are proposed as the most useful way of combining queer theory with sociological analysis. (shrink)

Gender is commonly thought of as dependent on sex even though there are occasional aberrations. Interviews with female-to-male trans people, however, suggest that sex and sex characteristics can be understood as expressions of gender. The expression of gender relies on both behavior and the appearance of the performer as male or female. When sex characteristics do not align with gender, behavior becomes more important to gender expression and interpretation. When sex characteristics become more congruent with gender, behavior becomes more fluid (...) and less important in asserting gender. Respondents also challenge traditional notions of sexual orientation by focusing less on the sex of the partner and more on the gender organization of the relationship. The relationship’s ability to validate the interviewee’s masculinity or maleness often takes precedence over the sex of the partner, helping to explain changing sexual orientation as female-to-male transsexual and transgendered people transition into men. (shrink)

In Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins explores the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals as well as those African-American women outside academe. She not only provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde, but she shows the importance of self-defined knowledge for group empowerment. In the tenth anniversary edition of this award-winning work, Patricia Hill Collins expands the basic arguments of the first edition by adding (...) several important new themes. A new discussion of heterosexism as a system of power, an expanded treatment of images of Black womanhood, U.S. Black feminism's connections to Black Diasporic feminisms, and more attention to the importance of social class and nationalism all appear in the new edition. In addition, the new edition includes recent developments in black cultural studies, especially black popular culture, as well as recent events and trends such as the Anita Hill hearings and the backlash against affirmative action. (shrink)

The “Puerto Rican wannabe” is one contemporary, local expression of contested racial identities—identities that are also inflected with class and gender meanings. This study uses interviews with local youth and young adults to explore their use of the caricature of the wannabe to create and contest race, class, and gender boundaries. The wannabe’s challenge to racially designated categories provides a symbol onto which nonwannabe kids project their own stereotypes, anxieties, and desires. The stories told about the wannabe in this study (...) reveal both the persistence and the fragility of race, class, and gender identities and underline the centrality of sexuality in bolstering and undermining them. Boundary negotiations in one category rely on and affect other categories: In this study, the contestation of racial boundaries reestablishes heteronormative and hierarchical gender relations. (shrink)

This article examines the reproduction of gendered workplace inequalities through in-depth interviews with female-to-male transsexuals. Many FTMs enter the workforce as women and then transition to become men, an experience that can provide them with an “outsider-within” perspective on the “patriarchal dividend”—the advantages men in general gain from the subordination of women. Many of the respondents in this article find themselves, as men, receiving more authority, reward, and respect in the workplace than they received as women, even when they remain (...) in the same jobs. The author argues that their experiences can make the underpinnings of gendered workplace disparities visible and help illuminate how structural disadvantages for women are reproduced in workplace interactions. As tall, white FTMs see more advantages than short FTMs and FTMs of color, these experiences also illustrate how men's gender advantages at work vary with characteristics such as race/ethnicity and body structure. (shrink)

This case study of the feminist drag troupe the Disposable Boy Toys examines the relationship between drag and gender identity. Drawing on multiple methods, the author explores the range of gender identities that emerged through participation in DBT. Members saw DBT as the central catalyst for their own identity shifts. The author suggests that these identity transformations occurred through four collective mechanisms: imaginative possibility, information and resources, opportunities for enactment, and social support. The author finds that DBT served as an (...) identity incubator in which participants were able and encouraged to interrogate, play with, and sometimes adopt new gender identities. The author concludes that context is critical in understanding the meaning and importance of drag. Performing gender in this politicized, feminist context shaped the gender identities of the troupe's members in fundamental and varied ways, suggesting that oppositional communities can be an important venue for identity work. (shrink)

Women generally initiate, lead, and constitute the rank and file of environmental justice activism. However, there is little research on why there are comparatively so few men involved in these movements. Using the environmental justice movement in the Central Appalachian coalfields as a case study, we examine the ways that environmental justice activism is gendered, with a focus on how women’s and men’s identities both shape and constrain their involvement in gendered ways. The analysis relies on 20 interviews with women (...) and men grassroots activists working for environmental justice in the coalfields of Appalachia. We find that women draw on their identities as “mothers” and “Appalachians” to justify their activism, while the hegemonic masculinity of the region, which is tied to the coal industry, has the opposite effect on men, deterring their movement involvement. We explore the implications of these findings for understanding the relationship of gender to environmental justice activism. (shrink)