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Sex Roles (2008) 59:365376 DOI 10.1007/s11199-008-9425-3
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Questioning Gender and Sexual Identity: Dynamic Links Over Time
Lisa M. Diamond & Molly Butterworth
Published online: 29 March 2008 # Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2008
Abstract Dichotomous models of gender have been criticized for failing to represent the experiences of individuals who claim neither an unambiguously female nor male identity. In this paper we argue that the feminist theoretical framework of intersectionality provides a generative approach for interpreting these experiences of gender multiplicity. We review our previous research on four young sexual-minority (i.e., nonheterosexual) women who are participants in a 10-year longitudinal study of sexual identity development, applying the framework of intersectionality to understand their exploration of transgendered experience and identification. Our analysis highlights the value of intersectionality as a framework for understanding not only multiplicity across identity constructs (e.g.., race, gender, etc.) but also within identity constructs (i.e., female and male).
Keywords Sexual orientation . Sexual identity . Transgender . Gender identity
Introduction
Historically, research on both sexual identity development (generally understood as the process by which individuals come to acknowledge same-sex attractions and to gradually conceive of themselves as nonheterosexual) and gender identity development (understood as the process by which children come to think of themselves as unequivocally and
permanently male or female) have adopted dichotomous and essentialist models of gender and sexuality, in which individuals possess and seek to publicly embrace one and only one true identity (male or female, heterosexual or gay lesbian). Individuals whose experiences of gender and sexuality involve multiplicity and fluidity have been ill-described by such models. For example, sexual identity researchers have long critiqued traditional sexual identity models for failing to account for the experiences of men and women who experience attractions for both men and women, and who do not consider one form of desire to be a truer representation of their sexuality than another (reviewed in Rust 2000d). Historically, such individuals resistance to dichotomous models of sexual identity and orientation has been attributed to denial, internalized homophobia, or false consciousness (Paul 1996; Rust 2000a, 2000e, 1993, 2001, 2003).
These views are now changing (Nichols 1988; Rust 2002; Savin-Williams 2005; Weinberg et al. 1994). Research increasingly demonstrates that categories such as gay, lesbian, and heterosexual...