LGBTQ People & Issues

LGBTQ People & Issues challenges readers to move past common media representations of the LGBTQ community as solely White, middle-class, and gay (or lesbian). The book shows how LGBTQ identities are inevitably connected to other socially inescapable “master status” identities including race, class, and ability.

It focuses on multiple layers of identity and marginalization—LGBTQ people’s race, gender, class, sexual orientation, and other aspects of humanness—simultaneously, and stresses that sexual orientation and gender identity cannot and should not be separated from these.

The book also gives special attention to transgender people and bisexual/pansexual people. It addresses their commonalities with gays and lesbians, as well as their differences.

Topics covered include gender identity and sexual orientation in context, social and scientific constructions of “natural” categories, social control, institutionalized violence, healthcare and marginalized identities, same-sex marriage, and the ways in which some segments of the LGBTQ community may benefit from the continued underrepresentation of other segments.

LGBTQ People & Issues gives readers concrete data about the pervasive negative effects of homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia, as well as how these effects are compounded by racism, classism, etc. It can be used in courses on LGBTQ issues, courses dealing with human sexuality, and courses with a broad focus on social inequality.