This article outlines a generic process in the reproduction of inequality the authors name obscuring oppression. On the basis of 35 in-depth interviews with college students seeking to make sense of two contemporary social movements, Black Lives Matter and Transgender Bathroom Access, the authors demonstrate three ways people obscure (i.e., avoid, ignore, hide, or explain away claims of) oppression in response to minority protest: trusting the public (i.e., suggesting that an educated public wou...
Last. Ryan T. Cragun(UT: University of Tampa)H-Index: 18
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This article outlines a generic process in the reproduction of inequality that we name “conditional acceptance.” Based on 20 in-depth interviews with cisgender, heterosexual Christian women who support same-sex marriage legalization, supplemented with reviews of LGBT, religious, and inequalities scholarship, we demonstrate how members of dominant groups may maintain boundaries that facilitate the persistence of social inequality by conditionally accepting members of marginalized groups. Specific...
Last. Ryan T. Cragun(UT: University of Tampa)H-Index: 18
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This article addresses limitations of homonormativity in the pursuit of sexual and gender equality. Based on 20 interviews with cisgender, heterosexual Christian women, we demonstrate how even peop...
This essay offers some ways quantitative sociology may embrace increasing scholarly and public recognition of sexual and gender diversity. Specifically, we suggest that increasing (1) public awareness and debate concerning sexual and gender fluidity, (2) calls for sociologists to become engaged in public debates, and (3) awareness of gender and sexual nuances underlying the majority of social phenomena create an opportunity for quantitative sociology to begin answering longstanding calls for mor...
ABSTRACTSociological research has uncovered many ways social factors and locations influence identity disclosure decisions and strategies among sexual minorities. However, most research has examined only monosexual sexual minorities (i.e., lesbian and gay identified respondents) or lumped various sexual minorities together as one despite similarities and differences in experience and social recognition. In this article, we drew on insights from Queer Theory to compare and contrast social factors...
Building on findings demonstrating that social institutions may cisgender realities by creating and enforcing binary notions of gender rooted in cisgender experience, this study examines the ways cisgender people reinforce cisnormative gender binaries in their ongoing interactions. Utilizing interviews with 99 cisgender people, I show how respondents react to a vignette about a gender nonconforming person seeking to use a public bathroom by “cisgendering interactions,” which I define as the proc...
The field of transgender studies has grown exponentially in sociology over the last decade. In this review, we track the development of this field through a critical overview of the sociological scholarship from the last 50 years. We identify two major paradigms that have characterized this research: a focus on gender deviance (1960s–1990s) and a focus on gender difference (1990s–present). We then examine three major areas of study that represent the current state of the field: research that exp...
Last. Antony Osborne(University of Huddersfield)H-Index: 2
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This article provides a review of sexualities scholarship within the social sciences between 1970 and 2015. It takes an innovative approach by focusing on the way in which bisexuality is addressed in this body of literature. The article reveals the marginalisation, under-representation and invisibility of bisexuality within and across the social sciences in relation to both bisexual experience and identity. Reasons for this varied across the different eras, including the heterosexist nature of t...
In this article, I examine how a group of LGBT Christians explained Christianity. Based on more than 36 months of fieldwork in a southeastern LGBT Christian church, I analyze how a group of LGBT Christians, responding to sexual and religious stigma, justified their Christian belief and practice by (1) denying abnormality, (2) appealing to emotions, and (3) claiming self-sacrifice. In conclusion, I draw out implications for understanding how members of subordinate groups justify seemingly normati...
This study explores how religious adherents construct their ideas regarding gender in Buddhist faith communities. Two temples, one in China and the other in the United States, both affiliated with ...
#1Melissa F. Lavin(SUNY: State University of New York System)H-Index: 2
In the following article, I explore how tarot card readers (and other spiritualist workers) “control the future” to heal and empower their clients, emphasizing the porous roles of therapy and advoc...
Understanding how religion and well-being are related for lesbian and bisexual women provides important context for clinical interventions. Current literature in the field diverges on whether the relationship between religious commitment and well-being is positive for those in the queer community. The current study examines whether an independent or interdependent self-construal explains the relationship between religious commitment and eudaimonic well-being (EWB) for lesbian and bisexual women....
Spiritual and religious struggles emerge in times where life meaning is unclear, has changed or is challenged. Resilience has been addressed in terms of psychological, social, emotional and physical capacity or competence related to struggle. However, there is a relatively sparse literature defining and addressing spiritual resilience, both what it is and how it is demonstrated. This is especially true of the oppressive and marginalised experiences of diverse older persons. This paper asks how o...
Last. J. E. Sumerau(UT: University of Tampa)H-Index: 12
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In this article, we examine the ways gendered frames shift to make room for societal changes while maintaining existing pillars of systemic gender inequality. Utilizing the case of U.S. media repre...
