Tag: sexuality

Discrimination against LGBTQ people in the UK

This post summarises some of the most recent data on the extent of discrimination against LGBTQ people, and is aimed at A-level sociology students studying aspects of sex and gender and gender inequality across the A-level specification.

The LGBTQ survey carried out in 2018 by the Government Equalities Office found that:

  • LGBT respondents were less satisfied with their life than the general UK population (rating satisfaction 6.5 on average out of 10 compared with 7.7).
  • Trans respondents had particularly low life-satisfaction scores (around 5.4 out of 10)
  • 40% of respondents had experienced verbal harassment or physical violence because they were LGBTQ in the last 12 months.
  • 2% had undergone conversion therapy.

The above survey was based on a sample of 108 100 respondents and was hosted online for a total of 12 weeks.

There was also some evidence from this survey that there is discrimination against Trans people when applying for work, but this is only based on one response…

The 2018 Trans Report from Stonewall found that:

  • A third of trans people have been discriminated against because of their gender identity when visiting a café, restaurant, bar or nightclub in the last year.
  • More than a quarter of trans people in a relationship in the last year have faced domestic abuse from a partner.
  • More than 44 per cent avoid certain streets because they don’t feel safe there as an LGBT person.

The 2018 StoneWall Work Report found that 20% of LGBTQ people had faced some sort of negative discrimination because of their sexual identities in the workplace…

Government Data for England and Wales shows that Hate Crimes against people based on sexuality has been increasing every year since 2015. The latest data show that:

  • 54% of Transgender people reported experiencing a negative incident outside of the home because of their sexuality compared to 40% of gay people.
  • 11% of Transgender and 5% of gay people reported being victims of physical violence.
  • NB around 90% of these incidents were not reported to the police! These are from victim survey results!

(Link to more detailed report on sexuality hate crime).

It’s from the USA but still interesting as a point of comparison…. Trevor’s National Survey on LGBTQ mental health, based on a sample of 35 000 LGBTQ 13-24 year olds found that…

  • 75% had experienced discrimination based on their gender or sexuality at least once in their lifetime.
  • 42% had seriously considered suicide in the last year, with more than 50% of transgender and non binary youth reporting this.
  • 13% reported being subject to conversion therapy .

Relevance to A-level Sociology

Sex and Gender inequalities are one of the core aspects taught across A-level sociology, but statistics and research on sexuality and transgender issues are lacking in most of the A-level text books.

This post is an attempt to make this increasingly relevant aspect of gender and gender identity more accessible.

From a research methods point of view it’s worth noting how little research and monitoring are done on LGBTQ inclusion and discrimination – for example the latest nation wide government survey above was four years ago in 2018.

Changing gender identities in the UK

Only one third of 18-24 year olds identify as ‘completely heterosexual’

Two YouGov tracking surveys demonstrate how far gender identities vary across the generations and suggest that gender fluidity is now the new norm among 18-24 year olds in the UK.

One survey on sexual orientation asks people to identify themselves on a scale of sexuality where 0 is ‘completely heterosexual’ and 6 is ‘completely homosexual’ (respondents also had the opportunity to enter ‘no sexuality’ as an option.

The results below are the latest responses from the August 2022 survey.

Only 35% of 18-24 year olds identify as ‘completely heterosexual’
87% of people aged 65 and over identify as ‘completely heterosexual’…

Sexuality as a Scale

The findings above broadly fit into the views the two different age groups have on whether sexuality is fixed or a sliding scale.

The results below are from August 2022, the latest from a second YouGov LGBTQ tracking survey.

74% of 18-24 olds think sexuality is a scale….
54% of 65 and overs think sexuality is a scale…

Analysis of Survey Results on Sexuality….

18-24 year olds are much less likely to identify as completely heterosexual compared to 65 and overs (35% compared to 85%)

Younger people are also more likely to see sexuality as fluid compared to older people, but the differences here are smaller (74% compared to 54%).

For younger people (18-24) these YouGov surveys suggest that gender fluidity is the new norm with the majority of young people now identifying as ‘somewhere between completely heterosexual and completely homosexual’ in August 2022.

It is also worth noting that relatively few 18-24 respondents identified as completely homosexual, offering further support for the new ‘gender fluid’ norm.

The fact that 75% of 18-24 years olds think gender is a scale offers more support for the view that people see gender as something fluid, and not as fixed by one’s sex for example.

And while a huge 85% of over 65s identify as completely heterosexual, a relatively low 54% of them believe sexuality is a scale, suggesting the majority of them accept the fact that younger people view their sexuality differently even if the over 65s themselves are much more likely to feel completely heterosexual.

Societal Change and Changing Gender Identities…

The most obvious interpretation/ explanation of the above results is that society has gone through a massive ‘sexuality shift’ over the last four decades. Today, in 2022 it is much more acceptable to be openly gender fluid and so this makes it easier to ‘come out’ and identify as such, and this is precisely what young people are doing.

In contrast, people who are today over 60 were born in a much more gender and sexuality repressive age – with traditional male and female roles still the norm and overt discrimination against gay people, thus their gender identities were channelled into more narrow conceptions of heterosexuality with which they are now stuck.

All of this seems to suggest that social context plays a large role in shaping gender identities and raises very interesting questions about the relative role of agency and social institutions and how they interplay to explain how there has been such a rapid shift in the changing gender identities of the young…

Once gender fluid always gender fluid…?

The above survey results don’t tell us whether the more fluid gender identities of the young will change to being more ‘set’ over the course of their lives.

It could be that ‘knowing one’s sexuality’ takes many years, even decades, and that by the time today’s 18-24 year olds are themselves 65, they are by then reporting higher levels of heterosexuality.

It may have been that more of today’s 65 year olds would have identified as gender-fluid when they themselves were younger.

Relevance to A-level Sociology

The above data suggests that most people see gender as a scale, something which Sam Killerman has explored through his concept of the GenderBred person which I outline in this introductory post on sex and gender.

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com

The Sex Map of Britain

The Sex Map of Britain is a very interesting recent documentary series which ‘meets people for whom sex, sexuality and having children is far from straightforward.

The series covers the following topics:

  • The reality of being a ‘cheap prostitute’ – selling sex for as little as £4.
  • Why some people choose a career in porn.
  • Asexuality – why some people just don’t want sex.
  • Transgender escorts and parenting urges.
  • The journey of freezing eggs and ‘alternatives’ to IVF.
  • And a trip behind the scenes of a sexual health clinic.

Unfortunately the episode on polyamory has disappeared.

Relevance to A-level sociology

This is a terrific series to get students to explore the wonderful diversity of relationships and sexuality in postmodern society, and taken together, this collection clearly illustrates the postmodern view of modern family life – that there’s no longer such a thing as a ‘normal’ family or relationship!

There are nine available episodes available on iplayer for the next 10 months, and, suitably for a documentary series which explores the diversity of family life in postmodern society, they are all nice and short, so perfect for postmodern students with postmodern attention spans (i.e. short ones).

Sociological perspectives on the legalization of gay sex in India

Gay sex was finally legalized in India this month (September 2018), after India’s high court ruled that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a fundamental violation of individual rights.

This ruling overturned the previous ‘section 377’ colonial-era law which outlawed certain sexual acts as unnatural, including homosexual sex. Breaking that law meant a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

Relevance to A-level sociology

Lots!

From a broadly functionalist point of view, you could interpret this as a move towards universal global values. There has been a general trending towards greater sexuality-equality around the globe in recent decades, and this ruling brings another billion people into step with this trend.

HOWEVER, it’s also important to realize that not everyone accepts this in India… many religious groups are opposed to this, and so this is also a potential source of conflict.

From an Interactionist point of view, this is yet another excellent illustration of the social construction of crime…. all of a sudden gay sex is legal and not illegal!

Final thoughts….

While this is huge positive progress towards LGBT rights, there’s still a long way to go as there are several countries in which homosexuality is illegal.

Bit of a short/ lazy post today, bit busy!

Good Sociology Movies: The Miseducation of Cameron Post

The Miseducation of Cameron Post is a soon to be released move that looks like it touches on a lot of sociology themes.

It’s a movie about a girl who gets sent to a Christian Conversion Therapy Camp where she is subjected to various forms of psychological manipulation to avert her from being gay.

It’s definitely time for a movie like this – apparently 700 000 people in the USA have undergone Christian Conversion Therapy, and 50 000 is the base point for those likely to undergo some form of it in the next five years

It’s Illegal in 14 states for America, but only for minors…. For adults, it’s legal in every single state.

The lead actress, Chloe Grace Moretz, discusses the movie on that most excellent sociological resource: The One Show –  (available on iPlayer until mid September!)

In the interview she outlines how the film focuses on the micro interactions between the various ‘inmates’ in the centre, and how they still manage to hold on to their true identities and find their chosen families despite the enormous barriers put in their way by the oppressive system.

The movie has clear relevance to religion, sexuality and identity, as well as to theories of social change.

My concern is that the overall message of the movie might be that all you need to do to ‘fight anti-gay oppression’ is to be yourself, focus on developing your close relationships, and the oppressive institutions will just whither away around you.’

The Movie closes with the main protagonists disappearing on a road trip – which kind of reminds my of Bauman’s concept of the individualized utopia… the never ending journey, with no real thought about where we are going, society abandoned.

An Introduction to Sex, Gender and Gender Identity

The aim of this post is to provide a very brief introduction to the very complex topic of sex, gender and gender identity. 

Sex, gender and gender identity: basic definitions

  • Sex refers to the biological differences between men and women
  • Gender refers to the cultural differences between – it is to do with social norms surrounding masculinity and femininity.
  • Gender Identity is an individual’s own sense of their own gender. Their private sense of whether they feel masculine, feminine, both or neither, irrespective of their biological sex.

Biological differences between men and women

At first glance, there appears to be some fairly obvious biological differences between men and women – most obviously:

  • Reproductive organs – women have eggs and wombs and men produce sperm which fertilizes eggs – no need to go into the joys of exactly how this is done at this stage, suffice to say that in terms of the physical reproduction of the species men have a fairly easy time of it, women are the ones who have to carry the babies inside of them, and suffer the physical trauma of childbirth.
  • Women can lactate, men can’t, meaning women are the only sex who can produce food for their young offspring.
  • On average men are physically stronger, and can run faster than women.
  • Women typically cannot reproduce over the age of 50, while men can perform the reproductive function until much later on in their lives.
  • On average, women live longer than men
  • There are also hormonal differences – most obviously men have higher testosterone levels – which some scientific studies have linked to their higher levels of aggression.

Traditional Gender Roles and Norms

In the 1950s Functionalist sociologist Talcott Parsons argued that these biological differences meant there were ‘natural’ social roles that men and women should fulfill in society –

  • women should perform the expressive role, or caring and nurturing role.
  • men should perform the instrumental role, or the ‘breadwinner’ role – going out and earning money.

Such ideas formed part of the common sense’ way of viewing relations through much of the 20th century, with most people seeing maleness and masculinity and femaleness and femininity as a binary relationship – with men being seen as the opposite of women.

Criticisms of the male-female gender divide

Successive Feminists movements have spearheaded criticisms of traditional gender roles in society, arguing that stereotypical ideas about the roles men and women should occupy, and the norms they should subscribe to, have systematically disadvantaged women.

One of the key Feminist ideas is that gender is socially constructed, that gender roles and norms are not determined by biology, but are shaped by society, and some of the best evidence of this fact lies in the enormous variation in gender roles between different cultures – simply put, if you can find just a handful of examples of men and women occupying different roles, having different amounts of power, and acting differently in different cultures, then this disproves the theory that there is some kind of ‘natural’ link between biological sex and gender.

Feminists have effectively spearheaded campaigns for greater gender equality and diversity of gender roles, and the last century has seen a blurring of boundaries between male and female roles and norms surrounding masculinity and femininity.

And, of course, the fact that gender roles and norms have changed so much so rapidly adds further weight to the fact that gender is socially constructed rather than biologically determined.

Criticisms of the binary opposition between male/ masculine and female/ feminine

Contemporary Feminism has criticized the binary opposition between male and female, arguing that every aspect of sex and gender are in fact sliding scales rather than opposites – as illustrated by the Genderbread person:

Genderbread-Person.jpg

The genderbread person was developed by Sam Killerman, who argues that gender identity incorporates not only one’s biological sex, but also one’s sexuality, one’s sense of social-identity and how one feels about one’s self – gender identity is thus fluid and complex, rather than static and binary binary, as explored further by Sam Killerman in the TED talk below.

Hegemonic masculinity and femininity in contemporary society  

Of course just because we are more accepting of gender diversity in contemporary society, this doesn’t mean that the old stereotypes have disappeared –  biological males are still ‘called upon’ to act in a typically masculine way, and biological females are still called upon to act in typically feminine ways, which at least in part explains why there are still clear gender inequalities in society today.