Transgender Individuals’ Access to College Housing and Bathrooms: Findings from the National Transgender Discrimination Survey

Within higher education settings, transgender people are at risk for discrimination and harassment within housing and bathrooms. Yet, few have examined this topic using quantitative data or compared the experiences of subgroups of transgender individuals to predict denial of access to these spaces. The current study utilizes the National Transgender Discrimination Survey to research this issue. Findings indicate that being transgender and having another marginalized identity matters for students’ access to housing and bathrooms. Trans women are at greater risk than gender-nonconforming people for being denied access to school housing and bathrooms. Implications for practice and research are detailed.     

Educating the “Variant,” Educating the Public: Gender and the Rhetoric of Legitimation in The Ladder Magazine for Lesbians

This article explores the rhetorical strategies used within The Ladder magazine to legitimate its producers, and by extension all lesbians, as participants in the public dialogue regarding the problem of homosexuality. The Ladder was the first lesbian-produced, nationally distributed magazine in the United States, publishing continuously from 1956 through 1972. Unlike early publications by male homophile groups, the producers of The Ladder had two delegitimating statuses to overcome in order to establish legitimacy–their stigmatized sexuality and their delegitimated gender. This article examines the ways that gender expectations experienced by women during the magazine's early years of publication shaped and constrained the discursive practices within The Ladder in its quest for legitimation. Three rhetorical strategies are analyzed: normalization (constructing the lesbian as heterosexual woman), status elevation (the lesbian as man), and emphatic individualism (the lesbian as idealized citizen).     

“You Still Need to Give Her a Token of Appreciation”: The Meaning of the Exchange of Money in the Sexual Relationships of Out-of-School Adolescents in Rural Southwest Uganda

This article challenges the pervasive assumption that exchanging gifts and money in adolescent sexual relationships is transactional. Data were derived from a multi-method, qualitative sexual health needs assessment of 31 out-of-school adolescents in rural southwest Uganda. Grounded theory analysis allows contextual meanings of exchange to emerge. Adolescents have developed gendered courting and exchange models that parallel marital relationships in this cultural context. Whereas exchange is considered transactional and immoral in some types of relationships, in adolescent relationships, it is not. Young women are not ashamed of, or stigmatized by, the exchange; they are proud of it. The exchange signifies several things: self-respect and a partner's willingness to wait for the relationships to become sexual and, therefore, that they are valued and respected by their partners. This demonstrates commitment from a partner, whose role is as a provider. To expect no gift or to have sex for pleasure are the hallmarks of the worst kind of woman—a malaya. “Need” is the only acceptable rationale for extramartial sex for any woman in this sexual value system. Interventions promoting longer courting and sustained support for one partner would encourage a delay in debut for young women and encourage greater monogamy in young men.     

“Castaway Categories”: Examining the Re-Emergence of the “Underclass” in the UK

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, discussion of poverty often incorporated references to a so-called underclass and its purported welfare dependency. This largely disparaging keyword now seems to have reappeared; recent uncritical references have been seeping into social work’s academic literature. Dwelling primarily on the United Kingdom, this article reveals that the “underclass” notion seems to have been reignited around the time of the economic crisis that began in 2007. This coincided with public concerns about child-protection services. It was, however, the English riots (August 6 to 11, 2011) that multiplied the use of the appellation underclass in media and political discourses. However, disparaging designations of those who are unemployed or low-waged have been present across centuries; the troubled family is the most recent construction. In this context, Loïc Wacquant furnishes a useful analytical framework to conceptualise how underclass stereotypes and other castaway categories are described, contained, and managed.     

“The ANC brand is bulletproof”: accountability and the logic of the brand in South African politics

In this paper, I draw on analyses of the brand in the commercial world to explore the implications of branding when applied to political parties and politicians. Specifically, I examine the ramifications of the logic of the brand for accountability within a multi-party democracy. I argue that in branding discourse, the brand serves as a risk-management strategy by creating relations of loyalty with consumers, designed to secure forgiveness for possible transgressions on the part of the brand and thus protect brand equity. Through an analysis of how branding discourse is applied to South African politics by journalists, political parties and participants in social media, I show how in this arena, branding logic works to defer accountability for political parties and politicians who fail to deliver on election promises. Culpability becomes assessed in terms of damage to brand.     

Perverts or Heroes in the Post-Socialist “Cold War”: Formula Stories of Lesbian/Bisexual/Queer Women and Transgender People in Ukrainian Media

Subjectivities such as (what would be termed in English) lesbians, bisexual, and queer (LBQ) women and transgender people are contested topics in Ukraine. Linking Laclau and Mouffe's discourse analysis with Loseke's narrative approach, we reviewed eight national, text-based, journalistic media sources to read equivalence chains within the data as publicly available formula stories about LGBTQ+ people. Formula stories are not about actual people or typically told by LBQ women and transgender people themselves, but rather exist as publicly circulating stories for consumption by non-LGBTQ+ people. Our findings shore up previous evidence that homophobia and transphobia (including criminalization and pathologization) are commonly articulated in media outlets in Ukraine. Importantly, media outlets owned by Russia and the United States and stories about events outside of Ukraine contribute most to the formula stories circulating in Ukraine, demonstrating the continuing position of Ukraine as a fulcrum of geopolitical contestations in the post-socialist “cold war.” Analyzing sexual politics through formula stories illuminates ongoing transnational connections of imperialism and Europeanization to racialization, colonialism, and contestations of power. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/v3dCj0yYm_g .     

“These Aren’t Very Good Times”: Financial Uncertainty Experienced by Romantic Partners in the Wake of an Economic Downturn

In the wake of the economic downturn, economic uncertainty is roughly double that of the past 23 years. Research indicates married couples are uncertain about finances and financial uncertainty can adversely affect individual and relational outcomes, yet little is known about the nature of financial uncertainty and how it is manifested. Thus, this investigation relied on face-to-face interviews to uncover the financial uncertainty experienced by 40 individuals in married or cohabiting relationships. The study found financial uncertainty was largely universal regardless of participant age, marital or socioeconomic status, sex, or family background. Five types of financial uncertainty emerged from the interviews: (1) economic uncertainty; (2) management uncertainty; (3) personal uncertainty; (4) communication uncertainty; and (5) chronic uncertainty, underscoring the importance of financial communication.     

“Anonymity is part of the magic”: Individual manipulation of computer-mediated communication contexts

This study looks at the behavior of self-selected users of an electronic bulletin board system (BBS). Its goal is to investigate the reported lack of social context cues in computer mediated communication contexts. Using participant observation methods, the study demonstrates how BBS users establish online identities. The study also identifies communication leaders who maintain their identities and leadership roles through manipulation of the BBS social context. These findings appear to contradict perspectives that characterize computer-mediated communications as deindividuated (Kiesler et al, 1984).     

‘Your momma is day-glow white’: questioning the politics of racial identity,loyalty and obligation

This article utilizes discourse analysis and an auto-ethnographic approach to explore the impact of US racial and ethnic categorization on the experiences of an individual marked as ‘mixed-race’ in terms of individual identity and familial/cultural group loyalty and obligation(s). This essay focuses on an incidence of public policing through the popular social networking platform Facebook, centring on the invocation of racial obligation by white friends and family members. I analyse how racial loyalty is articulated by friends and family members in their posts on my personal Facebook page and how this ‘loyalty’ is used as means of regulating my mixed-race identity performance. This essay aims to understand several things, namely how identity is mediated through the invocation of racial obligation and how tension around identity plays out in the multiracial family.     

Understanding the Link: “Homosexuality,” Gender Identity,and the DSM

This article reviews the historical and present notions of identity, in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity within counseling. It also discusses the link between the historical pathologizing of homosexuality and gender identity, as well as summarizes the implications of the diagnosis of gender dysphoria (GD) as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (5th ed.; DSM-5). The ethics of maintaining GD in the DSM-5 and future diagnostic manuals is discussed. Finally, a brief explanation of the role of the counselor in working with transgender individuals is given.     

“I Want to Be Who I Am”: Narratives of Transgender Persons

Research has documented the difficulties that face persons identifying as transgender, and that research has been steadily increasing. However, the bridge between research findings and practice is often elusive, particularly for those counselors, therapists, and other mental health professionals already in their respective professional lives. This retrospective phenomenological study documented the lives of 16 persons identifying as transgender (11 transwomen, five transmen) as they narrated the difficulties they encountered beginning in childhood through transition in adult life. Eight persons identifying as transgender were younger than age 40 years and eight were older than age 40 years and brought different narratives about their childhood, teen, and adult years.     

Gender and the blurring boundaries of work in the era of telework—A longitudinal study

This longitudinal study analyses gender and the blurring boundaries of work during prolonged telework, utilising data gathered during the different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic caused a major change in the knowledge work sector, which has characteristically been more prone to work leaking into other parts of life. The study examines the blurring boundaries of telework: between time and place, care and housework, and emotional, social, spiritual and aesthetic labour. The experiences of different genders regarding the blurring boundaries of work during long-term telework are scrutinised using a mixed methods approach, analysing two surveys (Autumn 2020: N = 87, and Autumn 2021: N = 94) conducted longitudinally in a consulting company operating in Finland. There were several gendered differences in the reported forms of labour, which contribute to the blurring boundaries of work. Some boundary blurring remained the same during the study, while some fluctuated. The study also showed how the gendered practices around the blurring boundaries of work transformed during prolonged telework. Blurring boundaries of work and attempts to establish boundaries became partially gendered, as gender and life situation were reflected in knowledge workers' experiences of teleworking.     

“Who Wears the Pants Here?”: Gender as Protest

Psychoanalysis has, from Freud's earliest ideas, been drawn to comprehending and defining gender—decoding what is masculine and what is feminine. Although Freud believed that masculinity and femininity would normatively fall along biological lines, gender, as a category, very quickly became destabilized by theorists who contested Freud's view. This article looks at a case in which the analyst came to view the patient's gender performance as a form of protest as it became transacted within the transference-countertransference relationship. In drawing upon contemporary gender and relational psychoanalytic theories, the author considers the multiple layers of gender meanings held within the patient and within the analyst and concludes that gender is never fully resolved and will continue to carry shifting relational meanings.     

Double Jeopardy in Hollywood: Age and Gender in the Careers of Film Actors, 1926–1999

There have been few studies of the concept of double jeopardy as it pertains to the effects of gender and aging on occupational outcomes. This research examines the utility of this concept in the field of film acting, traditionally a gender-integrated occupation. The results confirm significant negative effects of being female and being older on the number of film roles received by actors and their average star presence. Moreover, the gendered effects of aging on the career opportunities of actors have diminished somewhat over time with respect to number of film roles but not with respect to star presence.     

‘Your Mind is the Battlefield’: South African Trainee Health Workers Engage with the Past

A key problematic in any post‐conflict society is how to account for the injustices of the past, while at the same time making a space for the development of a shared future. In South Africa, there is an increasing demand for health and social service workers, who are required to address the impact of an unjust past upon individuals and communities. Educators of health and social service workers are thus faced with the complexities of finding pedagogical practices that would allow students to recognize these past injustices and their impact on present problems. This article looks at data taken from a teaching project across two South African universities, where students from three professions engaged in online discussions about their personal, social and future professional identities. During some of these discussions, students spontaneously entered into disagreements about the relevance or irrelevance of the past in modern‐day South Africa. The data indicates considerable reluctance on the part of some students to talk about the past and its relevance to the present. The authors suggest that while talking about the past is both difficult and potentially painful for students, it is nevertheless the responsibility of educators to facilitate such discussions among trainee professionals.     

“Welcome! Oh,wait…” Transgender Military Service in a Time of Uncertainty

In 2014, the Department of Defense began a broad review of transgender military service. Following this review, in 2016, the Obama Administration announced a policy of transgender inclusion in the military. However, in 2017, before enactment of that policy, President Trump announced the reinstatement of a ban on transgender military service. Although, in the last five years, these events have garnered much media attention, sociologists have generally left them unexplored. In this article, I begin the process of incorporating transgender military experience into sociological discussions by examining how transgender service members navigate their uncertain status vis-à-vis military service. In so doing, I explore how transgender personnel might be “doing transgender” (Connell, Gender & Society24(1):31) in the context of shifting norms about who can and cannot officially exist within the ranks of the military as well as possibilities for future research examining transgender military experience more broadly.