Brandon A Robinson | University of California, Riverside (original) (raw)

Books by Brandon A Robinson

Coming Out to the Streets: LGBTQ Youth Experiencing Homelessness, 2020

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth are disproportionately represented i... more Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth are disproportionately represented in the U.S. youth homelessness population. In Coming Out to the Streets, Brandon Andrew Robinson examines their lives.

Based on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork in central Texas, Coming Out to the Streets looks into the LGBTQ youth's lives before they experience homelessness—within their families, schools, and other institutions—and later when they navigate the streets, deal with police, and access shelters and other services. Through this documentation, Brandon Andrew Robinson shows how poverty and racial inequality shape the ways that the LGBTQ youth negotiate their gender and sexuality before and while they are experiencing homelessness. To address LGBTQ youth homelessness, Robinson contends that solutions must move beyond blaming families for rejecting their child. In highlighting the voices of the LGBTQ youth, Robinson calls for queer and trans liberation through systemic change.

The connections between race and sexuality are constant in our lives, however race and sexuality ... more The connections between race and sexuality are constant in our lives, however race and sexuality are not often linked together in productive, analytical ways.

This illuminating book delves into the interrelation of race and sexuality as inseparable elements of our identities and social lives. The authors approach the study of race and sexuality through an interdisciplinary lens, focusing on power, social arrangements and hierarchies, and the production of social difference. Through their analysis, the authors map the historical, discursive, and structural manifestations of race and sexuality, noting the everyday effects that the intersections of these categories have on people's lived experiences. With both US-based and transnational cases, this book presents an empirical grounding for understanding how race and sexuality are mutually constitutive categories.

Providing a comprehensive overview of racialized sexualities, Race and Sexuality is an essential text for any advanced course on race, sexuality, and intersectionality.

Articles by Brandon A Robinson

Journal of Marriage and Family

Objective: This article calls on family scholars to take seriously how families are invested and ... more Objective: This article calls on family scholars to take seriously how families are invested and divested in maintaining and reproducing cisnormativity. Background: Families can be a prime institution for the reproduction of cisnormativity. For transgender and nonbinary family members, families' investment in cisnormativity can generate ambiguous and toxic familial relations. Yet, family studies have not developed an adequate framework to examine how and why cisnormativity operates within families. Method: The authors engage with empirical and theoretical work on gender, intersectionality, and families to examine how cisnormativity operates within family dynamics and processes. This article also focuses on work about trans people and families to capture how cisnormative processes within families affect trans people's familial relations. Results: The authors advance a trans family systems framework to show how families' cisgender investments and divestments shape familial processes. The concept of cisnormative compliance is introduced to capture the beliefs and practices of obedience established by family members for the purpose of reproducing cisnormativity. Family studies can move forward in studying these cisnormative processes through documenting how gender accountability shapes family dynamics, implementing new methods, furthering an intersectional analysis, and exploring complexities of space and place. Conclusion: To reimagine gender and families, family scholars need to study and foreground how cisnormativity shapes family dynamics and processes.

Socius, 2023

Research on youth can miss important aspects of their lives if this work focuses only on the pare... more Research on youth can miss important aspects of their lives if this work focuses only on the parent-child relationship. This focus can also overlook Black feminist interventions to understanding the roles of othermothers and can miss how nonparental relatives such as aunts may provide support, housing stability, and safety for youth. On the basis of a mixed-methods longitudinal study with 83 lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth in South Texas and the Inland Empire of California, the authors intervene through examining how aunts’ supportive practices shape LGBTQ youth’s experiences of housing stability and safety. The findings empirically demonstrate how LGBTQ- supportive aunting practices, such as educating other family members about LGBTQ people and housing an LGBTQ nibling, actively challenge cisheteronormativity. This study moves forward research on family processes by not focusing on parent-child relationships or LGBTQ “families of choice” to instead examining how aunts can support LGBTQ youth, disrupt cisheteronormativity, and prevent LGBTQ youth from becoming unhoused.

Men and Masculinities

Little sociological research has examined how cis people might be accepting or not of trans peopl... more Little sociological research has examined how cis people might be accepting or not of trans people on an intimate level. To begin to fill this gap, the author analyzes over 200 online discussion board posts and threads on Reddit by cis heterosexual men who discuss their romantic and sexual desires for trans women. The author coins the concept of transamorous misogyny to capture the paradoxical process of how cis heterosexual men's desires for trans women is in and through their contempt of all women. Specifically, the author shows how the cis heterosexual men expand ideas of sexual identity as attraction toward gender expression. However, the men expand the definition of heterosexuality in ways that construct trans women as hyper-feminine, hyper-submissive, and as not real women. The men also discursively work to reassert their cis heterosexual masculinity through discussing how trans women are better than cis women. Ultimately, transamorous misogyny works to devalue all women and allows cis heterosexual men to desire trans women in ways that help the men invest in their own cis heterosexual masculinity.

The Journal of Men's Studies, 2022

In this article, I show how my non-binary embodiment, along with regularly being misgendered, sha... more In this article, I show how my non-binary embodiment, along with regularly being misgendered, shapes the questions I ask, the research I conduct, the data I can gather, how I understand my research and data, and the knowledge I produce. Through this interrogation of my body in relation to research methods and epistemologies, I illuminate how trans and non-binary scholars disrupt the cisnormative assumptions of ethnographic fieldwork, of sociology, and of academia. These disruptions generate queer forms of knowledge production that center trans and non-binary experiences and perspectives and that move us toward thinking anew about researchers, embodiment, and methods, and their epistemological effects.

Sociology Compass, 2021

Resilience has come to define a wide breadth of impactful re- search on marginalized groups, incl... more Resilience has come to define a wide breadth of impactful re- search on marginalized groups, including lesbian, gay, bisex- ual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth. This resilience framework shifted the deficit “at-risk” model of research on marginalized populations to a more nuanced strengths- based perspective. In this critical review article, we examine this research trend to understand how the shift to resilience has shaped patterns of LGBTQ youth research. In doing so, this piece calls for a more sophisticated engagement with operationalizing resilience–which is vaguely defined and often upholds dominant relations in society, such as capi- talistic, heteronormative values of success and happiness. We show how a shift to understanding resistance, joy, and pleasure in LGBTQ youth's lives promotes a more dynamic and complicated look at how marginalized groups navigate their social worlds and exert power in shaping these worlds. Acknowledging and uplifting LGBTQ youth's resistance and power are necessary in pushing scholarly dialogue and the possible interventions informed by research towards a more fully transformative framework in changing and dismantling oppressive societal structures.

Journal of LGBT Youth, 2021

Minority stress is a cause of health challenges for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and quee... more Minority stress is a cause of health challenges for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth experiencing homelessness. However, in over-focusing on family rejection, the research on LGBTQ youth homelessness often misses how minority stress itself can shape the youth’s perceived path- ways into and experiences of homelessness. A main objective of this study, then, foregrounds minority stress in understand- ing LGBTQ youth homelessness. To achieve this objective, the author conducted ethnographic fieldwork in central Texas and interviewed 40 LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. The author shows how experiencing intersecting minority stres- sors, especially within families and youth-serving institutions, is part of the perceived pathways into homelessness. The author also documents how experiencing homelessness in conjunction with experiencing anti-LGBTQ perceived discrimin- ation, violence, and other minority stressors such as racism impact the youth’s mental health challenges while living on the streets. A second objective of this study, then, shows how anti-LGBTQ discrimination intersects with other forms of preju- dice and discrimination to shape the youth’s stressors and pathways into and experiences of homelessness. The author concludes that intersecting minority stressors shape perceived pathways into homelessness and compound with the socially stressful experiences of homelessness, but social support, especially LGBTQ-specific support, can help ameliorate these challenges.

Family Relations, 2020

Objective: We developed an intersectional family systems framework to examine how lesbian, gay, b... more Objective: We developed an intersectional family systems framework to examine how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) Latino/a youth experience stres-sors stemming from familial resistance to their marginalized LGBTQ+ identities. Background: Anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments surrounding LGBTQ+ young people of color's multiple marginalized identities shape stressors. Specifically, LGBTQ+ Latino/a youth navigate distressing family experiences, yet how such family dynamics influence their well-being remains unclear. Method: By qualitatively analyzing in-depth interviews with 41 LGBTQ+ Latino/a young adults between 18 and 25 years of age who were either born in or had moved to the United States as children, we developed an intersectional family systems approach. Results: Anti-LGBTQ+ familial derogation shaped youth's stressors. Further, familial religious pressure constrained young people's identity expression. Finally, participants navigated their mental well-being through familial identity management strategies. Conclusion: By advancing an intersectional family systems approach, we explicate the diverse ways LGBTQ+ youth of color per- ceive and respond to intersecting sources of oppression within their family systems. Implications: These findings may inform ser- vice providers working with LGBTQ+ Latino/a young people and their families to improve mental health outcomes.

Gender & Society, 2020

Scholars have identified policing and hyper-incarceration as key mechanisms to reproduce racial i... more Scholars have identified policing and hyper-incarceration as key mechanisms to reproduce racial inequality and poverty. Existing research, however, often overlooks how policing practices impact gender and sexuality, especially expansive expressions of gender and non-heterosexuality. This lack of attention is critical because lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people disproportionately experience incarceration, including LGBTQ youth who are disproportionately incarcerated in juvenile detention. In this article, I draw on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork and 40 in-depth interviews with LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness to address this gap in the literature by documenting how police and other agents of the state use their discretion to regulate youth’s gender expressions, identities, and sex lives. I posit that current policing patterns of discrimination operate primarily not through de jure discrimination against LGBTQ people but as de facto discrimination based on discretionary hyper-incarceration practices that police gender, sexuality, and LGBTQ people. I contend that policing is not only about maintaining racial inequality and governing poverty but also about controlling and regulating gender and sexuality, especially the gender and sexuality of poor LGBTQ people of color.

Society and Mental Health, 2019

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ+) young people of color encounter interl... more Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer (LGBTQ+) young people of color encounter interlocking systems of social prejudice and discrimination. However, little is understood about how subjective meanings of perceived structural stigma associated with multiple marginalized social statuses influence mental health. We document how perceived stigma can shape mental health inequalities among multiply margin-alized individuals if they also encounter stigmatizing societal frameworks. Data come from in-depth interviews with 41 LGBTQ1 Latino/a young adults in the Rio Grande Valley collected from 2016 to 2017. Utilizing an intersectional minority stress framework, we qualitatively examine how young people conceptualize structural stigma, their multiple social locations (e.g., sexuality, gender, race/ethnicity, age), and their mental health. Findings highlight how LGBTQ1 Latino/a young adults experience structural racism, gender policing, and anti-LGBTQ1 religious messages in relation to their mental health. This study showcases the importance of an intersectional minority stress framework for documenting processes that can shape mental health inequalities.

JOURNAL OF GAY & LESBIAN SOCIAL SERVICES, 2019

Understanding why socially marginalized individuals, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender ... more Understanding why socially marginalized individuals, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and/or queer (LGBTQþ) people, participate in research can improve qualitative research designs, as well as social services and policies. In providing a participant-centered foundation, we interviewed 65 LGBTQþ young adults and asked “Why are certain LGBTQþ young adults motivated to engage in qualitative social science stud- ies?” Many LGBTQþ young people said they were committed to enacting social change and promoting advocacy. Participants also highlighted supporting scientific research and knowledge production. Finally, LGBTQ þ participants engaged with research to introspectively analyze their identity development processes. These findings can facilitate access to socially vulner- able and underrepresented groups through a methodological focus on participant benefits.

Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 2019

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer (LGBQ+) youth’s sexual and reproductive health is often framed a... more Lesbian, gay, bisexual, or queer (LGBQ+) youth’s sexual and reproductive health is often framed as Bat-risk.^ For LGBQ+ young people who inhabit multiple marginalized statuses, such as lesbian, bisexual, or queer (LBQ+) Latinas, managing these risk discourses and their health may be even more complicated. The perspectives of LBQ+ youth of color can elucidate how risk discourses hinge on multiple, intersecting axes to shape youth’s sexual and reproductive health when their sexual identities are also stigmatized. We employ an intersectional analysis to qualitatively explore 30 LBQ+ Latina young adults’ encounters with sexual and reproductive health risk discourses. Findings show how some LBQ+ Latinas had to manage the constraints of heteronormative health discourses in maintaining their health. Relatedly, some participants emphasized their struggles in nav- igating barriers to sexual and reproductive health care, often stemming from fears of experiencing prejudice and discrimination. Finally, certain LBQ+ Latina young people challenged negative stereotypical discourses by conceptualizing their sexual identity/ behavior as health promotive and engaged in proactive and preventative health behaviors. Our study challenges the theoretical focus of individual risk among marginalized youth to highlight how this framing eclipses structural conditions and how intersecting risk discourses shape and constrain youth’s sexual and reproductive autonomy.

Discrimination due to personal characteristics (e.g., gender, sexuality, appearance) is a common ... more Discrimination due to personal characteristics (e.g., gender, sexuality, appearance) is a common yet stress-ful experience that is detrimental to mental health. Prior work has not considered how spouses in same-and different-sex marriages help each other cope with discrimination despite the importance of marriage for managing stress and adversity. We analyze survey data collected from both spouses in same-sex and different-sex marriages within the United States (N = 836 individuals) to examine whether support from spouses weakens the impact of discrimination on depressive symptoms. Results suggest that discrimination contributes to depressive symptoms, but greater support from spouses buffers the mental health consequences of discrimination. Individuals in same-sex marriages report more spousal support than individuals in different-sex marriages, even after accounting for experiences of discrimination. Same-sex couples may get needed spousal support, whereas women married to men receive the least spousal support and may be vulnerable to stressors that challenge mental health.

This study documents the child welfare experiences of youth who are LGBTQ and their perspectives ... more This study documents the child welfare experiences of youth who are LGBTQ and their perspectives on how these experiences influenced their housing instability and homelessness. Youth detailed incidents of gender segregation, stigmatization, isolation, and institutionalization in child welfare systems that they linked to their gender expression and sexuality, which often intersected with being a youth of color. The youth described these incidents as contributing to multiple placements and shaping why they experienced homelessness.

Existing research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth homelessness id... more Existing research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth homelessness identifies family rejection as a main pathway into homelessness for the youth. This finding, however, can depict people of color or poor people as more prejudiced than White, middle-class families. In this 18-month ethnographic study, the author complicates this rejection paradigm through documenting the narratives of 40 LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. The author examines how poverty and family instability shaped the conditions that the youth perceived as their being rejected because of their gender and sexuality. This rejection generated strained familial ties within families wherein the ties were already fragile. Likewise, the author shows how being gender expansive marked many youth's experiences of familial abuse and strain. This study proposes the concept of conditional families to capture the social processes of how poverty and family instability shape experiences of gender, sexuality, and rejection for some LGBTQ youth.

Research on gender inequality within different-sex marriages shows that women do more unpaid labo... more Research on gender inequality within different-sex marriages shows that women do more unpaid labor than men, and that the perception of inequality influences perceptions of marital quality. Yet research on same-sex couples suggests the importance of considering how gender is relational. Past studies show that same-sex partners share unpaid labor more equally and perceive greater equity than do different-sex partners, and that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people are less gender conforming than heterosexuals. However, studies have not considered how gender conformity might shape inequalities and marital quality within same- and different-sex unions. In this study, we analyze dyadic data from both spouses in same- and different-sex marriages to explore how sex of spouse and gender conformity influence perceptions of shared power within the relationship, which, in turn, influences marital quality. Results show that greater gender conformity is related to stronger perceptions of shared power in different-sex and male same-sex couples but not in female same-sex couples. Perceptions of shared power are positively associated with marital quality in all union types. Our findings suggest that maintaining hegemonic masculinity and power inequalities may be salient to marriages with men. In female same-sex couples, gender and its relation to power inequalities may carry less meaning.

This study draws from interviews with HIV-negative gay men to show how they are doing sexual resp... more This study draws from interviews with HIV-negative gay men to show how they are doing sexual responsibility online and how their actions uphold moralizing discourses around HIV. The analysis shows how gay men often engage in boundary work through stating their HIV status and “safe sex” practices on their online profile and through screening other people’s profiles for similar information. The gay men also avoid interactions with HIV-positive people, maintaining the stigmatization of HIV-positive people and constructing an HIV-positive serostatus as a status distinction. However, although the HIV-negative gay men are often invested in doing sexual responsibility, they eschew condom use with people they trust. This study then demonstrates the limitations and unintended consequences of discourses that often focus on risk and individual responsibility. These discourses ignore the relational and emotive components of sexual interactions, and hence fail to capture the complexities of people’s lives.

The majority of gay men are now meeting online; however, little is understood about how body pres... more The majority of gay men are now meeting online; however, little is understood about how body presentations in cyberspace affect gay men’s intimate contacts. In this article, I develop the concept of the quantifiable-body discourse to illuminate how a dating Web site’s infrastructure measures the body, impacting how gay men interact with one another. Through in-depth interviews and analyzing profiles on a top gay personal Web site, I show how gay men numerically discuss and compare bodies online. Bolstered by Connell’s concepts of hegemonic masculinity and cathexis, I reveal how this quantification of bodies leads to the valuing and desiring of fit bodies and discriminating against fat bodies in cyberspace and off-line. I also illuminate how dating and “hookup” Web sites perpetuate hegemonic norms around bodies, beauty, and biopower.

In this article, I examine how race impacts online interactions on one of the most popular online... more In this article, I examine how race impacts online interactions on one of the most popular online gay personal websites in the United States. Based on 15 in-depth interviews and an analysis of 100 profiles, I show that the filtering system on this website allows users to cleanse particular racial bodies from their viewing practices. I use Patricia Hill Collins’s concept of the “new racism” and Sharon Holland’s ideas on everyday practices of racism within one’s erotic life to explain how these social exclusionary practices toward gay men of color in cyberspace are considered not to be racist acts. Specifically, I show how the neoliberal discourse of “personal preference” effaces the larger cultural assumptions that are influencing people’s interpersonal and psychic racial desires, furthering an erotic new racism in this digital age. By also turning to a queer of color analysis, I posit that the practices that gay users engage in lead to the remarginalization of all nonheterosexual individuals, though in qualitatively different ways.

Coming Out to the Streets: LGBTQ Youth Experiencing Homelessness, 2020

Providing a comprehensive overview of racialized sexualities, Race and Sexuality is an essential text for any advanced course on race, sexuality, and intersectionality.

Journal of Marriage and Family

Socius, 2023

Men and Masculinities

The Journal of Men's Studies, 2022

Sociology Compass, 2021

Journal of LGBT Youth, 2021

Family Relations, 2020

Gender & Society, 2020

Society and Mental Health, 2019

JOURNAL OF GAY & LESBIAN SOCIAL SERVICES, 2019

Sexuality Research & Social Policy, 2019

Sexual health discourses have become a defining part of many gay men’s sex lives. These discourse... more Sexual health discourses have become a defining part of many gay men’s sex lives. These discourses have effectively linked gay identity to HIV/AIDS discourses through telling most gay men how to rationally have sex and how to routinely get tested. However, some gay men who bareback – the choice often made not to use a condom – engage in condomless sex despite these larger discourses. Through using Weber’s theories on rationalization, I explicate how sexual health and HIV/AIDS discourses are calculable, efficient systems that are about protecting the public good. I show how this rationalized sexual health system disciplines pleasure and intimacy. Through this disciplining, I illuminate how sexual public health has disenchanted sex, specifically for some gay men, where some of these men who bareback may be attempting to find re-enchantment in this disenchanted sexual world. Through this Weberian framework, barebacking may be seen as an act that can allow for the re-exploration of personability, intimacy, eroticism and love.

Most studies on men seeking men and who use the Internet for sexual purposes have focused on the ... more Most studies on men seeking men and who use the Internet for sexual purposes have focused on the epidemiological outcomes of Internet cruising. Other research has only focused on online sexual behaviours such as cybersex. The present study examines men who find the acts of Internet cruising and emailing to be erotic as self-contained behaviours. We surveyed 499 men who used craigslist.org for sexually-oriented purposes, and ran an ordinary least squares multiple regression model to determine the demographic characteristics of men seeking men who found Internet cruising erotic. Our results showed that younger compared to older men seeking men found the acts erotic. Likewise, men seeking men from mid-sized cities and large cities compared to men from smaller cities found Internet cruising and emailing to be erotic. Most notably, bisexual- and heterosexual-identifying men seeking men compared to gay-identifying men found these acts to be more erotic. Our results suggested that self-contained Internet cruising might provide dual functions. For some men (e.g., heterosexual-identifying men), the behaviour provides a sexual outlet in which fantasy and experimentation may be explored without risking stigmatization. For other men (e.g., those from large cities), the behaviour may be an alternative to offset sexual risk while still being able to ‘get off’.La mayoría de los estudios acerca de hombres que buscan hombres (HBH) y sobre hombres que usan la Internet para fines sexuales se ha centrado en los resultados epidemiológicos de los “ligues” cibernéticos. Otras investigaciones han dirigido su enfoque al comportamiento sexual en línea, como por ejemplo, el cibersexo. El presente estudio se orienta al análisis de hombres que opinan que el intercambiar correos electrónicos y los actos vinculados al ligar por Internet resultan eróticos en tanto comportamientos autocontenidos. Los autores encuestaron a 499 hombres que usan craigslist.org para fines sexuales. Posteriormente, corrieron un modelo de regresión múltiple de mínimos cuadrados ordinarios de los resultados, con el fin de determinar las características demográficas de los HBH que consideran que el ligue cibernético es erótico. Los resultados obtenidos demuestran que, comparando hombres mayores vs. hombres jóvenes, quienes en mayor medida encuentran erótico el acto de ligar por la Internet, son los hombres jóvenes. Asimismo, se constató que, en relación a los HBH que residen en ciudades pequeñas, aquellos que lo hacen en ciudades medianas y grandes muestran mayor tendencia a encontrar erótico el ligue cibernético y el intercambio de correos electrónicos. En particular, cabe señalar que, en comparación con los hombres que se autoidentifican como gay, aquellos HBH que se autoidentifican como bisexuales o heterosexuales, muestran mayor predisposición a considerar eróticos los actos referidos. Los resultados también demuestran que el ligue cibernético autocontenido podría desempeñar una función dual. Para algunos hombres -por ejemplo, quienes se autoidentifican como heterosexuales-, este comportamiento constituye una satisfacción sexual en la que se pueden realizar fantasías y experimentaciones sin arriesgarse a ser estigmatizados. Para otros -por ejemplo, los de ciudades grandes-, este comportamiento puede ser una alternativa que disminuye el riesgo sexual y de todas maneras permite el goce sexual.La plupart des études sur les hommes qui cherchent à rencontrer d'autres hommes et utilisent Internet dans un but sexuel se sont interrogées sur les conséquences épidémiologiques de la drague via Internet. D'autres se sont concentrées sur les seuls comportements sexuels en ligne comme le cybersexe. Cette étude s'est focalisée sur des hommes qui pensent que les actes de drague et de communication (courriels) via Internet sont aussi érotiques que les comportements autonomes. Nous avons interrogé 499 hommes utilisant craiglist.org dans un but sexuel et suivi un modèle ordinaire de régression multiple des moindres carrés pour déterminer les caractéristiques démographiques d'hommes cherchant à rencontrer d'autres hommes et percevant la drague sur Internet comme érotique. Nos résultats montrent que parmi ces hommes, comparativement aux plus âgés, ce sont les plus jeunes qui trouvaient ces actes érotiques. De même, comparativement aux hommes résidant dans les plus petites villes, ce sont les hommes vivant dans les villes moyennes et plus importantes qui trouvaient la drague sur Internet et les emails érotiques. Plus particulièrement, les hommes s'identifiant comme bisexuels ou hétérosexuels et cherchant à rencontrer d'autres hommes, comparativement aux hommes s'identifiant comme gays, trouvaient ces actes plus érotiques encore. Nos résultats suggèrent que la drague autonome sur Internet pourrait avoir une double fonction. Pour certains hommes (par ex. ceux qui s'identifient comme hétérosexuels), ce comportement offre un débouché sexuel, dans lequel phantasme et expérimentation peuvent être explorés sans risque de stigmatisation. Pour d'autres (par ex. ceux qui vivent dans les grandes villes), ce comportement serait peut-être une alternative de compensation du risque sexuel, alors qu'ils sont encore capables de «baiser».

Outskirts: Queer Experiences on the Fringe, 2024

In this chapter, I explore some of the strategies of addressing LGBTQ youth homelessness. Based o... more In this chapter, I explore some of the strategies of addressing LGBTQ youth homelessness. Based on 18-months of ethnographic fieldwork in central Texas, 10 interviews with service providers, and 40 interviews with LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness, I examine what does success mean for LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness and people trying to assist them, what does failure to achieve success do, and what is the role of happiness and homonormativity in all of these things. I utilize Sara Ahmed’s and J. Halberstam’s theories in order to explicate how success, failure, and notions of happiness shape homonormative strategies in addressing LGBTQ youth homelessness. I specifically investigate discourses around failure and family rejection, rehabilitative framings that construct homelessness as a personal failure, and solutions surrounding success and happiness that some youth internalize. Through this examination, I show how these strategies and solutions potentially further the marginalization of LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. I briefly end the chapter thinking through some alternative queer solutions to addressing LGBTQ youth homelessness.

Heteronormativity is a hegemonic system of norms, discourses, and practices that constructs heter... more Heteronormativity is a hegemonic system of norms, discourses, and practices that constructs heterosexuality as natural and superior to all other expressions of sexuality. Queer theorist Michael Warner (1991) coined the term heteronormativity to illuminate the privileging of heterosexuality in social relations, which relegates sexual minorities to a marginal status position. Heteronormativity legitimates homophobia -the irrational fear of gay and lesbian people -and heterosexism -the discrimination of sexual minorities within social relations and structures. Heteronormative standards and discourses that legitimate the discrimination of sexual minorities can be found in most social institutions, including religion, the family, education, the media, the law, and the state. For example, the media often underrepresents lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people and/or presents them stereotypically. In the educational realm, LGBTQ people are often completely erased from sexual health and other pedagogical materials. Sexually marginalized individuals are often denied domestic partner benefits or access to marriage, and they face a host of other discriminatory practices because their relationships are valued less than a heterosexual relationship.

Around 2 million youth experience homelessness each year, and LGBTQ youth are estimated to make u... more Around 2 million youth experience homelessness each year, and LGBTQ youth are estimated to make up at least 40 percent of the population of youth experiencing homelessness in the United States, despite being about 5-8 percent of the U.S. youth population. Based upon an 18-month, multi-site ethnographic study and 50 in-depth interviews, this dissertation turns to LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness to document the youth’s views on life before experiencing homelessness as well as their current needs and challenges while navigating the streets and shelters. In this project, I foreground how gender non-conformity and its intersections with sexuality, race, and poverty are the tapestry weaving through many of the young people’s stories and how they understand their experiences of homelessness. I show how the family and other institutions (i.e., schools, child welfare systems, religious communities, and the criminal legal system) discipline, punish, and criminalize the youth’s gender non-conforming presentation and behaviors. The abuse and punishment within these institutions were often linked to the youth’s perceived pathways into homelessness later in life. Once experiencing homelessness, the gender non-conforming LGBTQ youth often faced challenges on the streets because of their
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gender presentation and behaviors, but the LGBTQ youth felt protected and accepted for their gender non-conformity within a specific LGBTQ shelter. At the same time, sexuality was a resource on the streets, but sexuality was regulated in the shelter to the point that many youth at the shelter often got suspended for violating shelter rules. This gender and sexuality paradox kept the youth in this study cycling between the streets and the shelter, but not achieving and maintaining housing stability. Ultimately, this dissertation proffers a new understanding of homelessness and how gender and sexuality shape experiences of poverty and being a poor young LGBTQ person. I contend that as homelessness is about a cultural and moral status position in society, and hence, is about the devaluation of certain lives, then LGBTQ youth homelessness is about demeaning and demoralizing certain gender non-conforming poor LGBTQ youth, especially youth of color, as unworthy and unprotected by society.

What is gender? What is sexuality? And why do studying gender and sexuality matter? Welcome to In... more What is gender? What is sexuality? And why do studying gender and sexuality matter? Welcome to Intro to Gender and Sexuality Studies, where we will tackle these questions! Although many of us have ideas about what gender and sexuality are, this course challenges the "commonsense" notions that we have about these categories. That is, this course upends our ideas about gender and sexuality through introducing you to foundational concepts and readings from the interdisciplinary fields of feminist and queer studies. A main goal of this course is to understand how gender and sexuality are socially and culturally constructed. To achieve this goal, you will come to understand how gender and sexuality are produced in and through society, institutions, and our interactions with each other. Importantly, we will also examine how race, class, location, and other social categories intersect with gender and sexuality, further complicating these categories. By the end of the course, students will understand how gender and sexuality are historical and cultural constructions, shaped by structures, power, and our relations with one another.

What is a critical queer politics? And what are the political stakes and goals of this politics? ... more What is a critical queer politics? And what are the political stakes and goals of this politics? Moreover, how does a critical queer politics differ from gay and lesbian politics and the mainstream lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement? In this course, we will tackle these questions through engaging with historical events and current key debates within queer and LGBT political movements. First, we will trace the past roots of a critical queer politics up to the assimilation turn within the mainstream gay and lesbian movement. From there, we will examine specific topics and issues that are at the heart of queer political debates today. Through engaging with these historical legacies and current debates, we will pay attention to how queer and LGBT politics take up and engage with race, gender, sexuality, nationality, ability, class, and other social markers of difference. A main goal of this course is to understand the distinction between queer politics versus more mainstream LGBT movements. Another goal is to apply a critical queer political lens to examining the social world today.

Who are we? And how do our sexuality, sexual identity, and coming out processes shape who we are ... more Who are we? And how do our sexuality, sexual identity, and coming out processes shape who we are and our relation to others? In this course, we will tackle these broad questions. In doing so, we will explore the role of the closet and the act of coming out in relation to sexual identity and in relation to shaping who we are. We will begin the course exploring foundational concepts and ideas related to the closet, coming out, and sexual identity. This exploration will involve understanding the homosexual/heterosexual binary as an organizing structure of U.S. society. We will also engage in an intersectional analysis to see how gender, race, age, class, age, space, place, religion, disability, sexualities, and other identities, categories, and processes complicate these matters. That is, we will see how other social categories and lived experiences challenge and complicate coming out processes and dominant notions of sexual identity. We will also see how migration, global perspectives, and other identity movements take up and challenge these ideas as well. A main goal of the course is to understand power, privilege, oppression, and inequality through this examination of coming out and sexual identity. Another goal is to see how sexuality, sexual identity, coming out, and the closet shape who we are, our experiences of social life, and how we relate to others.

What is queer theory? And can we even define it? And what are the political stakes of this field ... more What is queer theory? And can we even define it? And what are the political stakes of this field of study for gender and sexuality studies, specifically, and for society, more broadly? In this course, we will tackle these questions through engaging with certain core texts and some key debates within queer theory. First, we will examine how queer theory emerged out of feminist and gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, and queer activism and how queer theory differentiates and positions itself alongside these other fields of studies. We will, then, turn to queer of color critique -which emerged out of women of color feminism and an intersectional analysis -to analyze the importance of studying sexuality and queerness through their intersections with race, gender, class, and other social categories. We will also look at other interventions into queer theory such as discussions around HIV and relationality, transnationalism and the diaspora, space, bodies, disability studies, and transgender studies. A main goal of this course is to be able to utilize queer theory to analyze social inequalities and to see queer theory's potential in challenging and resisting dominant modes of knowledge production and cultural practices.

Office Hours: Monday 1-2pm, Wednesday 11am-12pm, or by appointment Office Location: CLA 2.404C Ma... more Office Hours: Monday 1-2pm, Wednesday 11am-12pm, or by appointment Office Location: CLA 2.404C Mailbox: CLA 3.306 (Sociology Main Office, CLA, 3 rd Floor)

Journal of Marriage and Family, 2024

Objective: This study documents the importance of grand- parents for lesbian, gay, bisexual, tran... more Objective: This study documents the importance of grand- parents for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) Latinx youth and how cisnormativity shapes these relationship dynamics.

Background: Most research on LGBTQ+ youth’s family relations centers on the parent–child relationship. Grand- parents are important for racially marginalized families, particularly Latinx families. Additionally, Latinx LGBTQ + youth are impacted by precarious familismo—the disparate experiences with family members in which their gender and sexuality are simultaneously accepted and rejected.

Method: The data for this project are from the Family Housing and Me (FHAM) project, a landmark longitudi- nal study on the impact of non-parental relatives on the lives of LGBTQ+ youth. This paper analyzes a subsample of 35 qualitative interviews with Latinx LGBTQ+ youth (16–19 years old) who live in South Texas or the Inland Empire of California, the majority of whom are transgender or nonbinary.

Results: Grandparents played an important role in the lives of Latinx LGBTQ+ youth interviewees, including providing many of the positive benefits of familismo. The youth also described “disparate experiences” of precarious familismo in how their grandparents simultaneously attempted identity support of their gender identities and reinforced cisnormativity. Youth often navigated these experiences by expressing low expectations that their grandparents would fully understand their gender identities, which we refer to as generational gender expectations.

Conclusion: Research on LGBTQ+ youth should integrate the study of non-parental relatives to fully understand sup- port networks and family systems for LGBTQ+ youth. Additionally, cisnormativity plays an important role in family life and familismo.